DeuteroPauline Letters (2)

Among the 13 Pauline Epistles, the great majority of Biblical scholars do not dispute the genuine authorship of Paul for seven letters: 1 Thess, Gal, Phil, Phlm, 1 and 2 Cor, and Rom. As for the remaining six letters, i.e., 2 Thess, Eph, Col, 1 and 2 Tim, and Tit, Biblical scholars have diverging views on their authorship. Some hold the opinion that judging from the vocabulary, style, theological message, and suspected time the letters were composed, it is possible that these six letters (or at least part of them) were not written by Paul, even though the author of each letter claimed himself to be Paul at the very beginning of it. These are commonly called “deuteroPauline letters”.

For the three Pastoral letters, i.e., 1 and 2 Tim and Tit, the primary problem with authorship is that the information in all the three letters cannot fit into the career of Paul as derived from Acts and the undisputed Pauline letters. If the letters were written by Paul (or through a scribe), there would need to be a “second career” of Paul after his captivity in Rome ended in 63 CE. Some scholars contend that Paul went back to Ephesus and then to Macedonia before returning to Rome where he was executed around 67 CE (Brown 641, 655, 672). However, this is only a hypothesis without any historical backing.

Another reason for possible pseudepigraphy of the Pastoral letters is that the church structure envisioned in them did not appear in the other undisputed letters and it might be something established beyond Paul’s lifetime. Nonetheless, it could be argued that the oncoming death of Paul as mentioned in 2 Tim 4:7 was the trigger for Paul to leave behind an instruction for establishing a church structure to exhort the faithful in sound teaching and refute the opposition (Brown 665). In fact, the use of vocabulary of 2 Tim is much less foreign to the Pauline heritage than 1 Tim and Tit (e.g., “Savior” is used as a title for God in the latter two letters which is not found in the other letters). The concept of church structure is also more sophisticated in the latter two letters than 2 Tim. Thus, there is a better chance that 2 Tim was actually written by Paul (or through a scribe) or was written shortly after Paul’s death as a farewell testament by someone who knew Paul’s last days (Brown 675).

Regarding Colossians and Ephesians, the vocabulary, or use of words in the two letters is rather different from the other undisputed letters. As for writing style, there are complex and long sentences in the two letters, which contain piled up adjectives and genitives, as well as redundant style and terms quite uncharacteristic of Pauline usage in the undisputed letters (Brown 611, 629). Looking into the theology, the Christology and ecclesiology (e.g., church as the body of Christ and Christ as the head becoming a major theme) are more developed in the two letters than the other seven undisputed letters. After all, the two letters resemble each other in overall structure and verbal parallels better than between them and the other undisputed letters (Brown 627).

For 2 Thessalonians, scholars are more evenly divided as to whether Paul wrote it. There are close resemblances between 1 and 2 Thess, which affect about one third of 2 Thess. The format is also similar between the two letters (e.g., the same opening formula, a double thanksgiving, a benediction and the same last verse). So the main problem with the authorship of 2 Thess is why would Paul copy himself in such a mechanical way? A plausible answer is that 2 Thess was written shortly after 1 Thess. As for style and vocabulary, the sentences in 2 Thess are longer and more complex than those in 1 Thess and the tone is more formal for the former. If the “man for lawlessness” in 2 Thess 2:3 is referring to Nero (only a guess) who committed suicide in 68 CE, the letter would have to be written after Paul’s death. Finally, the warning against false teachers (2 Thess 2-3, 10-11) is a rather common theme as in other deuteroPauline letters (Brown 591-594). Nonetheless, all the above are not very strong arguments for pseudepigraphy.

Bibliography

Brown, Raymond Edward. An Introduction to the New Testament. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2007. Print.