"Secretaries and the Authorship of New Testament Epistles: Evaluating the Historical Method behind the Amanuensis Hypothesis," Catholic Biblical Quarterly (forthcoming) (original) (raw)
Related papers
For centuries, the authorship claims of certain New Testament epistles have been defended by postulating the use of a secretary. According to the amanuensis hypothesis, secretaries in the Greco-Roman world were afforded varying degrees of compositional freedom during the letter-writing process. Proponents of this view maintain that such a consideration invalidates the practice of making authenticity judgments based on the style or even content of a given letter. To better understand the merits and limitations of the amanuensis hypothesis, this article outlines its earliest formulations, traces the development of its evidential basis, and examines the various ways it has been applied within modern authorship debates.
The Apocryphal New Testament Authorship
For those who are new to the work of the New Classical Scholarship (NCS), we have discovered that history at least before the 1500's, was an "inside job". What that means is that it was being written only by royals who were either closely related to each other, or had royal ancestors in common with each other. That in turn, meant that in order for that to have been the case, a closed or controlled environment existed (my term is 'Royal Supremacy') that amounted to a royal oligarchy. Everything that was being written was tightly controlled, and no one other than royalty could write anything for publication under penalty of death. There were several reasons for why they had demanded such tight security over the material that was allowed to reach the public. Much of that is explained in many of my other papers. Suffice it to say that all that was being written was being written by this royal oligarchy, and not by just anyone. There was no freedom of speech, only the illusion of it which was created by these royals. In fact, since they were the only ones who were writing for publication, they were writing BOTH the biblical texts and the non-biblical texts. It means that in order to understand history correctly and biblical texts, that we must now consider it in an entirely different context. Before anything can happen to me and/or my notes, I have been trying to save as much of that information as possible, in the form of research papers and compilations. From time to time, people will ask me just who the authors of the Gnostic gospels and other material were. This paper gives the most probable authorship and dates for 20 non-canon and/or Gnostic New Testament texts. The term 'Gnostic' has been used to describe some of the Christian material that was not included in the canon New Testament texts. Since I see that material as having been written by the same individuals as the canon material, I generally refer to it as the 'Apocryphal New Testament' material or non-canon New Testament texts. People have thought of this material or these texts as having been "rejected" from the NT canon for reasons known to those who were compiling what would be included in the "official" New Testament or texts that were ordained by the early Christian Church. But the real reason that much of that material wasn't included was because it either revealed too much, or it contained items that did not represent Jesus or other NT characters in the best light. Over the course of the years in which I had studied this material, at times I had worked with others in order to make more precise determinations regarding not only various component parts, passages, word usage, but several other factors which were involved in the creation of said material. And, one of those whom I had worked with was one of the most knowledgeable individuals on the subject of the New Testament and its authors, Abelard Reuchlin. As a result, I have many notes, some of which were the early opinions or conclusions of Abelard Reuchlin, along with my own notes with opinions and preliminary conclusions. Working together, Reuchlin and I were able to make more, and better determinations. There are various reasons for the conclusions that Reuchlin and I had reached regarding this material, not the least of which is that we knew just who was doing the writing of the canon NT texts and who those individuals were, as well as who they were writing as (i.e., their aliases and pen names).
By Command of God Our Savior: A Defense of the Pauline Authorship of the Pastoral Epistles
Diligence: Journal of the Liberty University Online Religion Capstone in Research and Scholarship, 2016
Unbelieving biblical scholars like Bart Ehrman leverage the science of historical criticism to cast doubt on the reliability of Scripture by calling into question the traditionally accepted authorship of biblical books. For example, Ehrman argues that the Pastoral Epistles—1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus—are pseudepigrapha, letters falsely attributed to Paul by anonymous authors, and he claims something of a scholarly consensus as support, even from among believing scholars. However, their conclusions by no means go unchallenged by defenders of Pauline authorship, and the debate rages on. This paper analyzes and compares evidence offered for and against Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles, and concludes that the apostle Paul is likely to have written them.
Scholars have long debated whether the letters of James, 1–2 Peter, and Jude are authentic based on the fact that the ascribed authors were ancient craftsmen. The problem is that few have offered any actual evidence that could be used to establish whether most fishermen and carpenters were or were not able to read and write. The aim of this paper is thus to establish whether ancient occupation is a reliable indicator of (il)literacy. By examining the occupations of those whose literate abilities are explicitly declared in ancient legal documentation (e.g., contracts, declarations, etc), I hope to render a more informed judgment about the literacy of craftsmen in antiquity and to thereby assess the plausibility of the authorship claims in the Catholic Epistles.
I, Tertius Who Write This: Answering Bart Ehrman's Forged, 2013
This paper will address Ehrman's (Forged) claim that most of the New Testament books were forgeries (not written by the ascribed authors). I will argue that the production of ancient literature involved collaborators and aural composition prior to a final manuscript (autograph). This is evidenced within the New Testament as well as in external sources. Critical arguments (such as Ehrman's) based upon literary style often fail to take into account the ancient process of literary production and so err in their conclusions about authorship. Black Sheep Bart Dr. Bart Ehrman (B.A. Wheatland, Ph.D. Princeton Divinity, currently at UNC, Chapel Hill) is now the reigning black sheep of the evangelical family, having left the fold (or perhaps shepherd turned wolf). His recent publications and debates certainly attack confidence in evangelical truth. As one of his debate partners, Dan Wallace, writes, "His most popular previous books have attacked the reliability of the New Testament (NT) manuscripts as witnesses to the original text (Misquoting Jesus), the historicity of the NT (Jesus, Interrupted), and the problem of theodicy-how there can be a good God with so much evil in the world (God's Problem)." 2 In his 2011 book, Forged: Writing in the Name of God-Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are, 3 Ehrman provides an interesting discussion of early "Christian" literature outside the canon of the NT, cleverly drawing together amusing examples from little known texts like the Acts of Peter, the Gospel of Peter, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, etc. The stories and examples are interesting and entertaining. He also relates the stories of modern religious forgeries. But his stage performance of tales has a finale. He does not stop with amusing pseudepigraphical stories. 4 He sets his sights on the canonical NT. He argues forcefully and with admirable wit, that 18 of the 27 NT books are forgeries or false attributions which contain deceitful material. The categories of literary lying (within and without Scripture) include not only forgeries, but fabrications, falsifications, pseudonymy, pseudepigraphy, false attributions and plagiarism. 5 There are a number of helpful and more comprehensive reviews of Forged (cited in the notes), however, my purpose is to highlight the emerging study of the processes of ancient literature production and interact with what he calls "the secretary hypothesis" (151ff). 6
Issues Concerning the Authorship of the Pastoral Epistles
This thesis (of which this excerpt is taken from) will explore the authorship, genre, and date of Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy. 2 Timothy, alongside 1 Timothy and Titus, constitute what scholars term the “Pastoral Epistles”. The Pastoral Epistles identify themselves to be from the hand Paul. However, since the early 19th century, a majority of scholars have questioned this claim and argued in favor of a pseudonymous author who wrote in Paul’s name after his death. Consequently, they are often dated sometime after the death of Paul (~62 CE) and taken to be a reflection of late 1st century/2nd century Christianity. The differences between the Pastorals and Paul’s other letters in areas such as vocabulary, style, and theology are often cited in backing up this claim. This thesis first surveys what scholarship has to say about these differences and possible solutions. Subsequently, the case will be made for 2 Timothy’s uniqueness amongst the “Pastoral Epistles” and why the Pastoral Epistles should be studied as three separate letters rather than as a group. The focus will then turn to the consequences of grouping 2 Timothy with 1 Timothy and Titus and what consequences reconsideration of 2 Timothy’s dating and genre can have for our understanding of its nature and provenance.
Demosthenes’ On the Crown oration was a masterpiece in Antiquity. This success is testified by the great number of findings. I have notice of 30 papyri containing passages from this work. The enquiry of these specimina and their lessons could be useful in order to reconstruct the demosthenic text, the origin and nature of the public documents quoted, the circulation of this oration in ancient world. Another interesting point is the relation between these papyri and the medieval manuscripts. Usually, no medieval codex is a perfect representative of an ancient line of transmission, as cross-contamination intervened during both ancient times and Middle Ages. From this point of view, P.Oxy. IV 700 gives us many interesting cases of reflection. This specimen, dated II-III century AD, contains §§ 17-19, but it’s incomplete and fragmentary. The integration of gaps sometimes is difficult, above all at lines 22-23, where the text is shorter than the one attested in the medieval witnesses. Moreover, with reference to this passage, probably the same hand added a textual integration on the lower margin (Ἕλληϲι). This entry seems the same which recurs on the upper margin of page 159 verso of S codex (Paris.gr. 2934), the oldest medieval manuscript of Demosthenes. We are dealing with a particular case of conjunctive error? The situation could be, perhaps, more complex. The paradigmatic and difficult case of this papyrus compels us to search a right scientific method to use, in order to critically reconstruct the text. We have to ask ourselves if in the S codex too the addition of Ἕλληϲι on the margin could be the result of a simple omission. We have to reconsider reasons why the most part of critical editors have ever preferred thinking of Ἕλληϲι like an interlinear note that should be eliminated. This idea derives surely from the authority of codex S that, despite its excellence, should be released from the reductive etiquette of codex optimus.