I have been told that St. Paul did not write all the epistles....

[Fantine]

I am in my early 70's, and never heard this until about two years ago,

I first heard it from a Presbyterian minister, who said that the later Pauline letters seemed to be more 'institutional' in that they wanted Christianity to be more in sync with the Roman Empire in order to spread the faith.

I later asked a Catholic sister that question and to my surprise, she concurred with the Presbyterian minister and said she had heard that from a number of sources.

I then looked at Wikipedia:

There is nearly universal consensus in modern New Testament scholarship on a core group of authentic Pauline epistles whose authorship is rarely contested: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Several additional letters bearing Paul's name are disputed among scholars, namely Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus. Scholarly opinion is sharply divided on whether or not Colossians and 2 Thessalonians are genuine letters of Paul. The remaining four contested epistles – Ephesians, as well as the three known as the Pastoral epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus) – have been labeled pseudepigraphical works by most critical scholars.[3][4][5] Some scholars have proposed that Paul may have used an amanuensis, or secretary, in writing the disputed letters,[6] although such a solution would not explain the fact that the disputed letters appear to have been written at least a decade after Paul’s death. Authorship of the Pauline epistles - Wikipedia

I would really like to hear from Christians of all denominations as to what you have been told about Paul's letters. The Presbyterian minister is very progressive, and we are jointly involved in several interfaith social justice ministries. My Catholic sister friend, on the other hand, has a similar religious background to mine and I respect and trust her insights.

Thanks for participating in this discussion; I honestly don't know what to think. St. Paul has written things I find quite controversial--and now I find myself thinking that things like "slaves, obey your masters," and "wives, obey your husbands" must obviously be some of the ideas that aren't really his. (I guess that's because I try to think the best of people, especially saints.) But as I said, I am uncertain...

 

[Paidiske]

I was certainly taught that the likely authorship of the epistles is along the lines outlined in your Wikipedia extract. The consensus isn't universal, and some scholars I greatly respect want to attribute more to being actually written by Paul.

Personally, I think authorship is not the main issue. We have received all of these works in the canon; we have all of them as Scripture to resource our faith. That some of them have differing emphases or challenging messages might give us work to do, but acknowledging that some of the letters migth be pseudoepigraphical doesn't get us off the hook of doing that work.

 

[HTacianas]

I am in my early 70's, and never heard this until about two years ago,

I first heard it from a Presbyterian minister, who said that the later Pauline letters seemed to be more 'institutional' in that they wanted Christianity to be more in sync with the Roman Empire in order to spread the faith.

I later asked a Catholic sister that question and to my surprise, she concurred with the Presbyterian minister and said she had heard that from a number of sources.

I then looked at Wikipedia:


I would really like to hear from Christians of all denominations as to what you have been told about Paul's letters. The Presbyterian minister is very progressive, and we are jointly involved in several interfaith social justice ministries. My Catholic sister friend, on the other hand, has a similar religious background to mine and I respect and trust her insights.

Thanks for participating in this discussion; I honestly don't know what to think. St. Paul has written things I find quite controversial--and now I find myself thinking that things like "slaves, obey your masters," and "wives, obey your husbands" must obviously be some of the ideas that aren't really his. (I guess that's because I try to think the best of people, especially saints.) But as I said, I am uncertain...

Paul may not in fact be the author of all of the epistles. But it has nothing to do with the Roman Empire. That's your Presbyterian friend attempting to undercut the authority of the Patriarchs and Bishops.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

I am in my early 70's, and never heard this until about two years ago,

I first heard it from a Presbyterian minister, who said that the later Pauline letters seemed to be more 'institutional' in that they wanted Christianity to be more in sync with the Roman Empire in order to spread the faith.

I later asked a Catholic sister that question and to my surprise, she concurred with the Presbyterian minister and said she had heard that from a number of sources.

I then looked at Wikipedia:


I would really like to hear from Christians of all denominations as to what you have been told about Paul's letters. The Presbyterian minister is very progressive, and we are jointly involved in several interfaith social justice ministries. My Catholic sister friend, on the other hand, has a similar religious background to mine and I respect and trust her insights.

Thanks for participating in this discussion; I honestly don't know what to think. St. Paul has written things I find quite controversial--and now I find myself thinking that things like "slaves, obey your masters," and "wives, obey your husbands" must obviously be some of the ideas that aren't really his. (I guess that's because I try to think the best of people, especially saints.) But as I said, I am uncertain...

I recall taking a class on that subject in university.

My way of reconciling it was Paul wrote some, and the school of Paul (his disciples) wrote the rest.

It is also important to note that early Christianity had protection under the Roman empire as a Jewish sect, so they had to follow certain rules to keep that status.

 

[The Righterzpen]

Well, my experience has been that authorship of Scripture (both OT and NT) has interesting nuances to it. It was only a couple of years ago myself that someone told me Paul didn't write Hebrews. (Never knew that before.)

Then in the OT; looking at the Pentateuch; it seems particularly Leviticus and Deuteronomy have multiple contributors. Which doesn't seem unusual to me that scribes would have helped people compile Scripture. Moses was the final author of the Pentateuch but; it doesn't seem logical to me that he was the only writer. We also know certain Biblical stories are in secular literature long before Moses comes along. Particularly the flood story and Job are both in the literature of multiple cultures.

I think we often have this conceptualization of "inspired by God" as someone sat down in a candle lit monastery cell with a "Holy Ghost helmet" on and wrote dictated Scripture. We often conceptualize it that way; although that isn't how the process happened at all. God being omnipotent and omniscient works through time to establish His will and what He wanted in Scripture and what He didn't. There's certainly a lot more that could have been in the canon by God's direction; but isn't. I kind of look at Scripture as "the God ordained cliff notes" of the redemption plan.

We also know that there are letters Paul wrote that were passed around the churches to be considered authoritative but for what ever reason didn't make it into the canon. There are two more letters to the Corinthians and then there's an epistle to the Laodiceans. We know these existed because they are mentioned in Scripture. For God's own reasons though; what ever was contained in them; never made it past the 1st Century. None of the church fathers make any reference to them or speak anything as to what was in them.

Again; God's sovereign hand directing the penning of Scripture.

Then over the course of time; God for what ever His reasons are; allows other things to happen. For example: the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Here's another interesting historical rabbit hole to go down. Back in the 4th century when Jerome translated the Latin Vulgate; (I believe this was before the split between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholicism.) Jerome used the Masoretic Hebrew as the basic text for his OT translation. He also had copies of the Greek Septuagint and he had Scripture written in Coptic Egyptian, Arabic, Alexandrian Greek, Koinonia Greek, Aramaic and I believe Mesopotamian / Persian dialects too. (Jerome was a smart guy; very well exposed to a variety of traditions and translations.)

Now the Eastern church told Jerome to use the Septuagint for the OT translation because they said it was more faithful to the 1st century and pre 1st century Hebrew than the Masoretic Text was. Now the Masoretic Text is a "rewritten" Hebrew translation from earlier Hebrew that archeologists today call "Paleo-Hebrew". The Masoretic Text is about 2nd century A.D. translation by a group of rabbis called the Masorites.

The complaint the Eastern church had was that post 1st century destruction of Judaism had created a subsequent version of Judaism (we call Rabbinic Judaism) which corrupted Scripture to try and hide the fact that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. The whole of what Judaism was in Jesus's day, is not represented by Rabbinic teachings going forward from post 70 A.D. on. An the Eastern Orthodox church is correct about this. The schools of thought of groups like the Sadducees, or Essenes, or any other variety of schools of thought that existed in Judaism prior to the end of the 1st century are not represented in modern Judaism. What we have in modern Judaism is an evolving offshoot of Pharisaism. (Thus the Mishna and Talmud; which were completed a little later than Jerome's Latin Vulgate.) So because of this, the Eastern Orthodox told Jerome not to use the Masoretic translation.

Now fast forward 2000 years and archeology finds the Dead Sea Scrolls. A lot of political wrangling happened in the access to the Dead Sea Scrolls that was available to the general public. The Antiquities ministry of the Israeli state didn't want the Dead Sea Scrolls to be released to the public so that other linguistic scholars could translate it. Well, they didn't get their way because the head scholar of ancient Mesopotamian language in Germany said "No, this is way to important of a discovery for the world not to be able to see." And he took all of his photos of the OT Scripture and released them to the "public"; so scholars at other universities could look at them. And this is how and why we as "goy" have access to the Dead Sea Scrolls Hebrew.

Now throwing into this mix here of Eastern Orthodox, Jerome and Roman Catholicism; we could get into Roman Catholic history; the Jewish religion; what is called traditionalist Roman Catholics and their views on Vatican II. That's another interesting rabbit hole to go down! Vatican II's connection to all if this; and.... (Roman Catholics who are aware are going to know what I'm taking about.) much of Christendoms opinions of Judaism prior to WWII were not particularly positive and there are some specific historical reasons for that. But... That's a whole other rabbit hole; and it aint a pretty one! So, we'll just save that for.... private conversations, because we'd probably get kicked off this forum for discussing it.

Back to subject at hand:

Well guess what! The EO church was correct after all. The Septuagint translation tracks closer to the Dead Sea Scrolls Paleo-Hebrew than the Masoretic Text does!

Now the differences between the Paleo-Hebrew and the Masoretic Text aren't earth shattering. It's not like the differences between the "authorized Koran" and the previous copies of the Koran that the Antiquities Ministry of Turkey possess. Those (for political reasons) have not been released. The reason is because they are radically different than the currant Koran.

Those Koran copies were found in the attic of a Mosque that was being renovated and the iman recognized that these were very old manuscripts with passages he'd never seen and some forms of Arabic he couldn't read. So he turned them over to the Antiquities Ministry of Turkey. Their scholars dated them as the earliest copies of the Koran that they had. Then when they started translating them they said: "WOAH!" (This is radically different than the Koran we've been told Mohammad received.) It's like the difference between the New Testament and the Book of Mormon "variants" of the Koran. There are secular universities who have access to these manuscripts; but they are not available to the public for fear of causing a massive religious war in the Middle East.

So there's that little bit of history!

Now the differences between the Masoretic and the Dead Sea Paleo-Hebrew are not that drastic; but there are some notable differences! One is the removing of letters from the name of God to make "Yahweh" unpronounceable . The closest pronunciation I know for English speaking people is "Yeah 'oh Vay" or something of that variation. (It's close to "Jehovah"; but not exact.) The other variants are in a couple of places were they changed "son" to "Israel". (Not sure where those are; but one I believe is in the psalms.)

The most notable variations though are out of the book of Daniel. Which I have personally noticed trying to translate verses in Daniel. I look at the Hebrew words and compare them to other places that Hebrew word is used and sometimes I scratch my head and wonder: "Where'd they get that English translation from?"

This particular "factoid" had created quite the controversy in Israeli Old Testament language universities between Rabbinic Jews and Messianic Jews. The Messianic Jews have confronted the Rabbinic university professors on the differences between the Paleo-Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text specifically regarding the book of Daniel. Which really has me itching to see what the Paleo-Hebrew of Daniel says!

Now I've ordered for myself a copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls Old Testament. They are hard to come by because they are in limited production; and this is because I think they are basically being published for university students. They are expensive. Like several hundred dollars. I ordered it last year and it's still yet to ship!

So, as per this all in the context of the subject of this thread?

Compilation of Scripture canon and how the sovereignty of God plays into this human quagmire is truly a gift of faith when we look at everything that's happened surrounding the writing of Scripture.

Do I believe Scripture we now have is "inerrant"; despite the fact that I know details of it have changed over time? I believe for where we are in time and the unfolding of God's entire redemptive plan; we have the Divinely inspired and preserved Word of God that He intends us to have.

Now it would be absolutely jaw dropping if archeologists ever find the other two letters to the Corinthians or the Epistle to the Laodiceans. I'd be first to sign myself up for copies of those; for sure!

Many mysteries we have; but remember God is still in control of all of this!

 

[Fantine]

Thanks for your scholarly input, everyone!