Pauline Epistle not by Paul

I will say a word about this subject. Many of the commentaries that I own raise issues about the authorship claimed by various books in the Bible. Some of the letters attributed to Paul are among these. For example, my SS lessons are currently on Colossians. I have one commentary that supports Paul's authorship and another that supports someone besides Paul, such as Timothy. I am making no claim about these books one way or the other. But I do think that the all-or-nothing assertions that have been made by some thus far take the matter to unsupportable extremes. What is more important, the message contained in the letter or the name of the author of the letter? If the stated name of the author is incorrect, does that invalidate the message of the letter in its entirety?

I will admit that I am not a great supporter of Paul. I think that, in Acts, he violates some of his own stated principles in his letters. Also, I think that some of his prescriptions for the believers addressed in his letters have been applied too broadly today. However, that does not take away from the significance of his writings for the church.

Tim Reynolds

 

If Pauline authorship is not genuine, this fact does not necessarily invalidate the contents of the letter.

It does, however, invalidate any claims to inerrancy, which is an issue in itself.

 

Incredible. ........................

 

Speaks loads as to Tim's choice of commentaries.

 

I believe Paul did write to Timothy.

But there is the possibility that .............
The theology of the book may be true but the given authorship may be wrong as there is the possibility that some scribe, at a later date, added that the letter is from Paul. I seriously doubt this is true of the letters to Timothy.

If the authorship is not given I am not concerned who was the author.

 

If a scribe added authorship, what is there to prove he didn't add or alter content? How can we trust scripture if this is true?

It's either the word of God, or it isn't. If it is, then every word must be inspired by God and thus accurate and infallible. If that isn't so, then the bible is just another religious book no better than any other.

 

That is a good question. It boils down to faith.

For instance the story of the woman taken in adultry does not appear in the oldest texts we have.

Also verses do not appear in the oldest texts about handling snakes and drinking poison with no ill effect.

If you are saying that every word in every translation has to be accurate and infallible then you are opening a Pandora's box. There are some bad translations available where I do not believe every word is accurate and thus are not infallible.

Let's say that the original texts were absolutely accurate and infallible. The original texts do not exist as far as we know and even if they did, how would we know that our translation was absolutely accurate. It is a given that any time anything is translated from one language to another meaning is lost ... even in the best translations. That still leaves us with the problem of bad translations and possible later additions by scribes.

 

See, the difference between you and I on this issue is faith. You aren't walking by faith, but by sight on this issue. God said He inspired the scriptures, I believe it. God promised to preserve His scriptures, I believe it. You do not. You believe that scribes could have changed the word of God. I don't. As soon as a scribe changed something, that's not the word of God.

 

It is interesting to me that in the 21st century we have issues with authorship that for whatever reason didn't seem to bother the 1st and 2nd century Christians very much. There is not doubt there was a different type of understanding when it came to authorship. During this time it was common to use of scribes, pseudo authors (ghost writers), anonymous authors and writings in the "school of" and attribute them to some more famous teacher and was considered a perfectly acceptable practice.

To me this practice seems very strange indeed. But to a 1st century person, it was for the most part not an issue.

There are always lots of theories about authorship of different books of the Bible, Genesis, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Hebrews, Revelation so forth and so on. These theories are just that theories that though interesting really don't have any impact on matters of faith and practice as far as I am concerned. If the earliest believers had no issues with the authorship of a book of the Old Testament or epistle of the New or a different understanding of what was considered "authorship", then I am fine with that and will have to learn to deal with a practice that seems to say the least, is strange now.

 

Some folks let their hyper-intellectualism over run their common sense. Trying to discover habits of pseudo-writers is not relevant to scripture. You have to take God out of the picture to place doubts on things in scripture. To many folks like to be more focused on the errors of men rather than the power of God to keep His revelation true.

If Colossians says Paul is the author then there is no reason to doubt it unless one has an ungodly agenda. Much of the Apostles letters do not fit in with the preconceived notion of social justice which has no biblical founding. It is also loved by those who need to find reasons for errors so as to be able to hang on to an errant Bible and an allegorical interpretation of scripture.

They have to pick and choose what parts of scripture they want to hold onto. If the author is in doubt although scripture claims an author then why is the book as a whole in doubt. Of course God was not able to keep all of His word true so, you know, whatever we want, huh?

 

Thanks, Rev. You never disappoint me.

Tim Reynolds

 

What's the difference between "hyper-intellectualism" and just regular, old, plain intellectualism?

Tim Reynolds

 

Paul did not write every Pauline letter. Someone else did. That is rather clear especially from Philemon 1:19, "I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand, I will repay it (not to mention to you that you owe to me even your own self as well)."

 

Paul, evidently, knew how to dictate a letter.

 

Arrogance and a lack of the Holy Ghost. More concerned for what man thinks he can do rather than relying on God and seeing His hand in all things. More concerned for the hand of man and quite dismissive of the hand of God. Places a high value on pragmatism and little value on the sovereignty of God.

 

"Hath God said" originates with Satan. Higher Criticism has its origin among the German rationalists who rejected the miraculous as their very basis for intellectual pursuit of the Scriptures.

While in college I had an instructor who embraced such nonsense and he tried his best to win me to his agnostic Biblical position. His argument was that the Bible was merely sufficient to convey salvation and nothing else really mattered. I responded if nothing else really matters because nothing else can be trusted as God's word what makes you think you can trust what the Bible says about salvation and who makes that decision that this part is trust worthy and that part is not.

The Biblical cannon has really been settled as early as 150 A.D. as the old Syric translation and the Old Latin (Pre-Jerome) conforms to our KJV today. The old Testament apocrypha was rejected by the Jews and early churches.

As I understand it, there were five tests applied to every writing that some would suggest was inspired scriptures:

1. Was it penned directly by or under the supervision of a prophet or apostle?

2. Does it profess to be the Word of God

3. Does it harmonize with historical truth and other verified Scripture

4. Has it been accepted by the people of God

5. Has it been used by the Holy Spirit to change lives?

These tests are all founded upon Biblical principles. Usually, those who have a bone to pick with the scriptures as found in our KJV is due to a theological problem they have rather than real issues of historical reliability of the scriptures.

 

Here we go again. I knew someone would point this in a KJVO direction. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.