Why are all Pauline letters in the Bible?

klutedavid

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Many letters at the beggining say that it is Paul writting them, if its not Paul, then how shall we call the act of someone who claims is Paul but who isn't?

Listen, I love the Bible, I am not trying to disprove it, I am just asking questions...
The authorship of Hebrews is unknown.

The Epistle to the Hebrews of the Christian Bible is one of the New Testament books whose canonicity was disputed. Traditionally, Paul the Apostle was thought to be the author. However, since the third century this has been questioned, and the consensus among most modern scholars is that the author is unknown. (wikipedia)

Whoever wrote the letter to the Hebrews and it certainly was not Paul. Did an excellent job on explaining the superiority of the Christ to the law.

Personally, I only need two or three letters of Paul and say the gospel of Luke. With just that many letters, I have more than enough information on the gospel of Jesus Christ. What more do you need?
 
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com7fy8

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So if they weren't written by Paul, yet claim to be written by Paul, forgery, they are still Inspired by God?
There are people whose motive can be to call God's word into question, and so they are claiming Paul did not write letters that he did write.

If I am a follower of Jesus, I would be lying to say I am Paul writing a letter he is not writing.

So, if someone claims Paul did not write one of his letters, it can be the person is accusing the writer of being a liar.

But one motive can be to discredit certain things our Apostle Paul has written. If you really know what various people are saying about Paul, you know there are ones trying to discredit things that are said in those letters. So, one way to bring doubt on what he says is to try to make it seem like he did not say certain items that these people disagree with.

And by misrepresenting some things, in his messages, you can make it seem like they contradict. There are people who do this, between Paul and James, by the way > they misrepresent James, then say he does not agree with Paul.

This is not a new trick. In apologetics debating, ones can misunderstand something God says, and then deny what God's word does not even mean.

Ones are denying things Paul says about wives submitting to their husbands, and they are denying what he says in relation to slavery. But they misrepresent what God's word means.

So, if you know these people and what they are saying, you might see if the letters they deny are ones with Paul's items about slavery and wives being subject to their husbands. By denying his authorship, they can be conducting a back-door attack on things he says about wives submitting to their husbands and about slavery.

And there can be other things. There are ones who deny the letter of James, claiming it is inconsistent with what our Apostle Paul has written.

However . . . in my opinion . . . every letter that Paul has written fits with James and all of Paul's other letters.

Plus, of course, the writer of Hebrews does not name himself . . . or herself. But in case Paul wrote this message, ones trying to prove who else did it can not do this, actually . . . if it was not someone else! :) And so they can go on and on, trying to do what can not be done.

By the way, Paul and Silvanus and Timothy say that after they ministered to the Thessalonians, the Thessalonians could so well spread God's word, that Paul and Timothy and Silvanus did not need to add anything to what the Thessalonians said, if Paul and Silvanus and Timothy went somewhere the Thessalonians had already been ministering. So, this might mean any of those Thessalonians could also write as well as Paul . . . and Silvanus and Timothy; except, I am satisfied, they would not lie by saying Paul wrote what they wrote. 1 Thessalonians 1:8

And it does not matter if "many" deny Paul. Jesus does say many will be deceived, right? So, what is the real motive behind this? Where is this calling attention?

How much is this helping people's attention to the main focus of our Apostle Paul's ministry and message?

"Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present very man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily." (Colossians 1:28-29)

How much are these "many" scholars doing to help you to become perfected in Jesus and how Jesus has us loving as family while caring for any and all others?

"Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." (Ephesians 4:31-32)

"And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma." (Ephesians 5:2)

Paul is all about Jesus; yet some number of so-called scholars can be very much about Paul, for him or against him. And ones can get themselves isolated away from Jesus, with attention mainly to studying and arguing about Paul's message.

But God has us discovering all He has for us . . . in sharing with one another who are His children . . . not in isolation with a bunch of books and arguing. And now He gives us "examples" whom we can know personally, so we can feed on the example of His approved leaders >

"nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock." (1 Peter 5:3)

So, beware of getting too busy with reading stuff of people you don't even know personally. If they claim Paul did not write his messages . . . for all we know, these people are not who they claim to be!! Discover and get to know God's "examples", so we can know what He means by His word.
 
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Silly Uncle Wayne

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If I am a follower of Jesus, I would be lying to say I am Paul writing a letter he is not writing.
The trouble is there are clear examples of this happening - the gnostic gospels and epistles all claim apostolic authorship to try and boost their theology.

Paul himself claimed in one of the letters that someone was masquerading as him, but there is not enough details to be clear what is going on.
 
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AnalogJoe

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Thank you everyone for your contributions. I know that my argument can be an ad populum fallacy. I do believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but it does make me wonder if the canon of the Bible is complete or incomplete, perhaps we are excluding some writtings that should be in the Bible and viceversa, if I am not mistaken, St. Augustine is responsible for the inclusion of Hebrews and Revelation to the Bible, also, there are other books of revelation that were rejected, some claim that due to the fact that they didn't conform to the views of the time, others wanted the book of Revelation out of the canon.
 
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Ligurian

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There is a case to be made that Luke is the author of Hebrews.

Did Luke Write Hebrews? - The Aquila Report

Some say Marcion wrote the Pauline letters, and that Luke didn't write anything... which kind of makes sense, unless Luke's medical practice in Antioch was so good that he healed them all and had oceans of time left over... or so bad that nobody went to him. Personally, I see a Talmudic influence running through Pauline letters and on into Hebrews and Luke.
 
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Ligurian

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Thank you everyone for your contributions. I know that my argument can be an ad populum fallacy. I do believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but it does make me wonder if the canon of the Bible is complete or incomplete, perhaps we are excluding some writtings that should be in the Bible and viceversa, if I am not mistaken, St. Augustine is responsible for the inclusion of Hebrews and Revelation to the Bible, also, there are other books of revelation that were rejected, some claim that due to the fact that they didn't conform to the views of the time, others wanted the book of Revelation out of the canon.

If the whole book of Revelation had been taken away, Revelation 22:19
 
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RDKirk

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I would also reference the heretic Marcion, who actually indirectly started the whole canonization project by being the first person to come out with an official NT list of accepted books. Which basically started the orthodox believers to think about that...

Besides having his own Gospel based on Luke he had...

The Marcion case is particularly interesting, because it marks the fact that the epistles attributed to Paul were the least disputed documents in the 2nd century, in terms of their place in the canon.

And the fact that Hebrews found a place in the canon indicates that identification of specific human authorship was not an essential requirement.
 
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Silly Uncle Wayne

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Thank you everyone for your contributions. I know that my argument can be an ad populum fallacy. I do believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but it does make me wonder if the canon of the Bible is complete or incomplete, perhaps we are excluding some writtings that should be in the Bible and viceversa, if I am not mistaken, St. Augustine is responsible for the inclusion of Hebrews and Revelation to the Bible, also, there are other books of revelation that were rejected, some claim that due to the fact that they didn't conform to the views of the time, others wanted the book of Revelation out of the canon.
We know of some writings by Paul that didn't make it in to the canon - 0.5 Corinthians and 1.5 Corinthians for example, but we have no copies of them and it is possible that they say nothing of interest to believers in general which is why they weren't copied and sent around.

Even if someone were to unearth one of these or something else that was considered totally authentic, it would not be added to any canon list or Bible. At best it would go with other documents that are authentically orthodox and early (e.g. 1 Clement) as a writing for scholars to analyse and debate.

Do you think there is something missing, then? Something extra that should be in the canon but isn't?
 
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Thomas White

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They do not have to be authentic to Paul. They may not be from Paul. They could be from some other apostle, or someone else who knew and apostle, or someone who knew Paul. At the time the new testament was compiled the idea was not "find everything written by Paul" but "find everything written early on that is free from error". The letters are free from doctrinal error regardless of who wrote them.

The early Church didn't have a doctrine other than the words of Christ.
 
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RDKirk

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The Gospels.

The gospels were not written by Jesus, but by men inspired by the Holy Spirit to remember the words and acts of Jesus and write them down.

That is the same Holy Spirit who inspired the writing of the rest of scripture by those and other men, and the same Holy Spirit who inspired those through the years who cherished and preserved those scriptures.

The same men who preserved the gospels also preserved the Pauline epistles.

The same Holy Spirit all the way through, inspiring all of it. If you don't accept the reliability of the Holy Spirit in the writing and preservation of the Pauline epistles, then you have no rationale for accepting the reliability of the Holy Spirit in the writing and preservation of the gospels. They all come to us through the same group of men inspired by the same Holy Spirit.
 
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timothyu

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They all come to us through the same group of men inspired by the same Holy Spirit.
Providing they focus on the Gospel of the Kingdom (which Paul also taught but with only 3 curt mentions of the fact in the Scriptures). The Gentiles were more interested in building a religion in their own image than on the Gospel of the Kingdom which would have convicted them of their self interest.
 
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RDKirk

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Providing they focus on the Gospel of the Kingdom (which Paul also taught but with only 3 curt mentions of the fact in the Scriptures). The Gentiles were more interested in building a religion in their own image than on the Gospel of the Kingdom which would have convicted them of their self interest.

The New Testament scriptures we have come to us by way of gentiles--all of it--so you're essentially saying that none of the New Testament is reliable.
 
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Philip_B

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The New Testament scriptures we have come to us by way of gentiles--all of it--so you're essentially saying that none of the New Testament is reliable.
I am sorry, I do not follow this argument at all. Paul was a Jew. Matthew appears to be very Jewish, and presumable not gentile. John relies on the OT scriptures, and seems to have a leaning to the Samaritans, (one reference to David and 14 to Moses). Hence I don't follow the argument.
 
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RDKirk

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I am sorry, I do not follow this argument at all. Paul was a Jew. Matthew appears to be very Jewish, and presumable not gentile. John relies on the OT scriptures, and seems to have a leaning to the Samaritans, (one reference to David and 14 to Moses). Hence I don't follow the argument.

I said: The New Testament scriptures we have come to us by way of gentiles

The men who collected and preserved those works all these centuries were all gentiles. Without gentiles inspired by the Holy Spirit, we would not have the New Testament.
 
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