The Concept of "Authentic Pauline Epistles"
Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2018 9:42 am
When did the concept of "Authentic Pauline Epistles" originate, and with whom? Has a book been written on this question?
"Authentic Pauline Epistles" are invoked as axiomatic in the literature, i.e., "everyone" accepts seven as written by a historical Paul in the 50s/60s CE. This authenticity absolutely cannot be questioned by anyone, anywhere, who wishes to be published or taken seriously by the Bible guild.
I assume that the debate raged in the late 19th century, and into the early 20th century, and probably some of debate occurred in German and Dutch language books and articles that were never translated into English.
And when/how did the four "unassailable" letters expand to seven?
Or was this merely a clerical response to the "radical" criticism of W.C. Van Manen (1842-1905)?
"Authentic Pauline Epistles" are invoked as axiomatic in the literature, i.e., "everyone" accepts seven as written by a historical Paul in the 50s/60s CE. This authenticity absolutely cannot be questioned by anyone, anywhere, who wishes to be published or taken seriously by the Bible guild.
I assume that the debate raged in the late 19th century, and into the early 20th century, and probably some of debate occurred in German and Dutch language books and articles that were never translated into English.
And when/how did the four "unassailable" letters expand to seven?
Or was this merely a clerical response to the "radical" criticism of W.C. Van Manen (1842-1905)?
https://depts.drew.edu/jhc/vanpaul.htmlW.C. Van Manen wrote:With respect to the canonical Pauline epistles, the later criticism here under consideration has learned to recognise that there are none of them by Paul: neither fourteen, nor thirteen, nor nine or ten, nor seven or eight, nor yet even the four so long universally regarded as unassailable. They are all, without distinction, pseudepigrapha (this, of course, not implying the least depreciation of their contents). The history of criticism, the breaking up of the group which began as early as 1520, already pointed in this direction. No distinction can any longer be allowed between "principal epistles" and minor or deutero-Pauline ones. "Paul: Later Criticism," in Encyclopaedia Biblica (New York: Macmillan, 4 Vols., 1899-1903), Vol. 4, 3620-3638.