Rob Bradshaw of BiblicalStudies.org.uk sent me the following note:

Thought that you would like to be the first to know about this article: The Pastoral Epistles and the Mind of Paul by Donald Guthrie.

This is an excellent short monograph from Guthrie that interacts with P.N. Harrison's view of the authorship of the Pastorals. It is hard to find in print (ask me, I know) so do please check it out.

FWIW, I have an entry for the monograph in the Bibliography (Books) section.

Rob Bradshaw of BiblicalStudies.org.uk has uploaded the first in a trilogy of articles on the Authorship of the Pastorals. Rob writes:

I have just uploaded the following article in PDF: Stanley L. Porter, "Pauline Authorship of the Pastoral Epistles: Implications for Canon," Bulletin for Biblical Research 5 (1995): 105-123. For those interested in this subject my next two articles to be uploaded from the Bulletin for Biblical Research will be Robert Wall's response to Porter, and Stanley Porter's reply to Wall in Volume 6. Hopefully they will be on-line by Wednesday and will be announced here.

Check 'em out.

Derek, on the heretofore unknown-to-me blog eucatastrophe, ponders over the authority of the Pastoral Epistles and how they end up as the red-headed stepchild of Pauline studes, and how to bring them back into the fold (despite whatever you may think of their authorship).

That is, it seems there is a tendency among some academic writing to discount the Pastorals because, in the opinion of some, they're not Paul. Therefore, while instructive on some level, they don't rise to the level of apostolic authority so they're not worthy of merit.

I think Derek's perspective has some ground to stand on but I reach the exact opposite conclusion he does. Derek wants to know how to bring the Pastorals back into the discussion even though they're widely regarded as pseudonomous. I say that the rumors of their pseudonomity may be greatly exaggerated.

The arguments against the authorship of the Pastoral Epistles are not as convincing as others might think. The primary grounds for questioning the authorship have to do with vocabulary studies and some sort of feeling that the writing of the Pastorals sounds like Paul, but doesn't really sound like Paul. P.N. Harrison advanced the argument the most with his work examining vocabulary between the Pastorals and the so-called "genuine" Paulines. He said, basically, that the unique vocabulary of the Pastorals was a sure-fire sign that Paul couldn't have written them.

Well ... further research in the area of style and vocabulary from the realm of corpus linguistics has shown that counting unique words between two different texts really isn't an acccurate method for determining likelihood of same or different authorship. In order to do that sort of thing, one needs massive corpora from a known author to compare against. According to O'Donnell's Corpus Linguistics and the Greek New Testament, you need a known, authoritative corpus at least ten times the size of the document you're comparing against for this to start to have an effect. Another guy, Anthony Kenny, did a stylometric study that compared distribution of various morphological criteria and came to a tentative conclusion that 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy had statistically significant positive correllation with the so-called genuine Paulines. That is, similarities in multiple aspects between the so-called genuine Paulines and these books were far more than simple chance would have them be. They're much more alike than they are different.

In short: The grounds that most scholars have used to argue that the Pastorals aren't Paul — hapax legomenon — aren't that great of an indicator in real-world tests. Yet because these conclusions have been perpetuated many scholarly treatments of the Pastorals published in the past 75 years, the idea that Pastorals aren't Paul due to vocabulary differences still persists even though the grounds for its persistence may not be accurate.

So I say instead of resting in psuedonomity we should instead go back to the start. We should term the question on the basis of tradition and internal evidence: What do the documents themselves say about their authorship, and what does tradition say about their authorship? This must be the starting point. Once stated, that should be taken as the position and then arguments against that position should be posited, examined and reviewed. Schleiermacher's premise from way back in 1807 was wrong, so let's rewind and start again.

For instance: I read the beginning of Irenaeus' Against Heresies the other day. He starts out with quotes from 1Ti 1.4 about "myths and endless geneaologies which ... promote speculations rather than the divine training that is in faith". That's from what, late 2nd century? And Irenaeus likely learned at least some from Polycarp (early 2nd century) who also alluded to references in the Pastoral Epistles (cf. Poly 4.1)? So if they were used that early and as if they were authoritative, what can we understand from that regarding the earliest church's perspective towards these books? And how should that weigh in how we approach them and use them?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

The ever-helpful Review of Biblical Literature reviews:

• Cohesion and Structure in the Pastoral Epistles
• Ray Van Neste
• $135.00
• London: T&T Clark, 2004
• pp. xii + 354, Hardcover
• Series Information: Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series, 280
• Subjects: Bible, New Testament, Deutero-Pauline Epistles, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Literature, Methods, Literary Approaches

If you're looking into the Pastorals, Van Neste's book is very helpful. I've mentioned it before on this blog. Between Van Neste and James D. Miller (The Pastoral Letters as Composite Documents) the borders of the debate about the cohesiveness of the Pastorals are set. Personally, I tend toward the Van Neste-ian shoreline; I find his work more helpful. But Miller has some gems too. Both are necessary if you're looking into authorship or overall cohesiveness in the Pastorals.

The excellent Review of Biblical Literature has a review of The Pauline Canon, the first volume in Brill's Pauline Studies series. The volume is edited by Stanley Porter.

According to the reviewer (Ron Fay of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) there are a few essays in the book that directly deal with the Pastoral Epistles. Other essays may be helpful to read as well.

I've gotta find a cheap source for these books — my tax return is going to run out quickly at this rate!

In Ray Van Neste's book Cohesion and Structure in the Pastoral Epistles, only the idea of cohesiveness of the text is discussed. That is, Van Neste doesn't explicitly discuss authorship. As such, his first chapter contains the following statement:

No position on the authorship of the Pastorals is taken in this study. The concern here is strictly how the text operates. Thus the names 'Paul', 'Timothy', and 'Titus' will be used to refer to the people protrayed in the text without assuming any conclusion on the authorship issue. (Van Neste, 7)

I bring this up because this is pretty much the same direction I've taken in my work on the Pastorals. Sure, I have thoughts on authorship. But to handle the issue in a work that really doesn't need to have it handled is a tall order. And writing things like "the author" or "the composer" or something else gets old fast and gets tiring to write. I think it is much better to personify the sender and recipients, and what better option than the names that the text itself uses?

My friend and colleague Eli, over at Big Slow Eel, has some comments about my previous post on Miller's book. In light of his comments, I should clear a few things up and set the scene for a response.

First, Miller is not positing a single author compiling sources; he's proposing that there was a Pauline community of some sort. The below is a bit out of context (apologies for that); Miller is working through one of Hanson's reservations about the Pastorals being fragmentary in nature:

... each of our three Pastorals originated as an authentic note written by the apostle to Timothy and Titus. These three notes were read by the recipients, who then handed them over to the scribes responsible for preserving the communitity's sacred writings. Over the course of transmission, the notes were expanded by the addition of other sacred community traditions; the expansion was not intended to make the letters "look" Pauline; rather it was motivated by the community's desire to preserve the traditions and to be instructed by them. (Miller, 146)

Miller suggests this may be analogous to the community he sees as responsible for the Hebrew Bible book of Jeremiah:

... the book of Jeremiah, for example, in its present form, cannot be attributed to any one man; it is clearly made up of a variety of traditional materials. But there is little doubt that the book originated as a collection of genuine prophetic oracles from the great Jeremiah himself. Other materials were added later during the process of transmission. Similar literary histories are shared by most of the prophetic books. (Miller, 146)

Ok. Now we can start to hit some of the questions and suggestions that Eli throws out. First, Eli makes some suggestions (responding to my earlier post) as to what some of the Apostolic Fathers may have been alluding to in their writings:

They could have been alluding to the unedited form, that is, the letters that they were alluding to no longer exist in the form they were discussing. The fathers could be referring to one version, copy, or redaction as it existed at a single point in time. Redaction of the text we have received could have happened at any time during or after the exchange of letters between the fathers. Or they might have been merely alluding to one of the snippets that eventually made its way into the collective documents that we now know as the PE.

Yes, this is all true and it should be considered. But if this is the case, and if there were early and most likely much shorter editions of the Pastorals floating about, why don't we see hugely variant editions of the Pastorals (or other canonical NT books, for that matter) There is one MS that has a few massive additions to the Pastorals (MS 460, a 13th century MS; e.g. Titus 1.9). Why don't we see more textual evidence like this, and why don't we see stripped-down versions of the Pastorals? Apart from 460, variants in the Pastorals are fairly typical from what I can tell.

To be fair to Eli, he's arguing with me for the sake of arguing (we do this frequently, it's a good thing). He sees the Pastorals as cohesive. And no, Eli, I don't have the Deissmann citation handy, though I recall the quote and tend to agree. One more reason for folks to state their preference and start the line for Deissmann's Light from the Ancient East via the Logos Bible Software Community Pricing Program.

(Sorry, couldn't resist the plug.)

I've mentioned Miller's book before. Miller's analysis of the Pastoral Epistles attempts to show that the documents that we know as the "Pastoral Epistles" are really products edited, expanded and redacted over time. He posits a few fragments of Paul were their basis originally, and that a Pauline community added traditional content that it deemed was worthy of preserving.

Straight up, I've got to say that I don't agree with Miller's analysis. Every single transistion seems to be, for Miller, an opportunity to see lack of cohesion in the documents. Everything seems to be a reason for discounting a unified source.

But that doesn't mean that Miller's work shouldn't be read. Those who think the Pastoral Epistles are cohesive (whether or not one would adhere to Pauline authorship) need to read and interact with Miller's work. He asks questions that should be answered.

For instance, I fully agree that there is some "traditional" material that has made its way into the Pastoral Epistles. The content in 1Ti 2.3-6 comes to mind, as does 1Ti 3.16. Miller may have convinced me that the corpus has more traditional materials that I'd previously thought. But he didn't convince me that one author couldn't have assembled the material. The gospels assemble material from various sources for use within their specific narratives. Acts cites letters from the Jerusalem council. Several of the NT books cite content from either the LXX or Hebrew Bible. Why is it out of the question for the Pastoral Epistles cite traditional material yet still be cohesive?

The other overall problem that I had with Miller's thesis is the timing. The Pastoral Epistles have been included in the NT canon from an early date. There are allusions to content of the Pastorals (cf. Peter Kirby's e-Catena for some possibilities). I'm confused as to how the supposed process of expanding and redacting the content of the Pastorals occurred if allusions to the material in the Pastorals can be easily found in early writings of the Church. If Ignatius or Polycarp may have had it in a form that could be alluded to, when did the expansion/redaction actually take place and how quickly did it happen?

But I like Miller's book because it challenges me. It makes me think. It's like that guy you debate who always seems to have one more rebuttal to your primary point. Because he's done such an incredibly good job of presenting his argument, it has to be dealt with in a serious way. And that's good.

I'm now in the process of reading Ray Van Neste's book, Cohesion and Structure in the Pastoral Epistles, which directly responds to Miller's position. If you're interested in this sort of stuff, you really need to read these books as a pair, and you really need to read Miller's first.

Van Neste's book examines the Pastoral Epistles to see if these three documents lack cohesion, as others (such as Miller's The Pastoral Letters as Composite Documents) state.

In his introduction, Van Neste writes:

This thesis, then, will seek to analyze the way in which language is used to create connections within 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. In doing so, it is expected that this work will add to the previous work done on the coherence of the Pastorals. This work will respond to Miller, but move beyond his challenges to an attempt to see what sort of literary structure might be present.

Most interesting is the appendix, Appendix: Cohesion Shift Analysis of the Pastoral Epistles. This is a huge table (pp. 288-315) that lists each and every verb in the Pastorals, in order, and provides morphological information along with participant, genre and topic information.

I don't believe I've posted a link to this before.

About a year and a half ago, I was able to locate a relatively inexpensive copy of P.N. Harrison's The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles.

One of the appendices of this book is a hand-written edition of the Pastoral Epistles, in Greek, in Souter's 1912 edition (with Westcott & Hort variants noted at the foot of the page). I've placed scans of these pages online for those interested in consulting them when looking at issues of authorship in the Pastoral Epistles:

P.N. Harrison's Marked-up Edition of the Pastorals

Here's a sample page:

Enjoy!

Miller's book takes an interesting perspective on the age-old "who wrote 'em?" question. Dr. Miller doesn't think Paul wrote the Pastorals, but he's not ready to simply chalk it up as pseudepigrapha either.

So I don't mess it up, I'll quote from the jacket description:

Dr. Miller argues that the evidence demands a third solution, and suggests that no single author can be held responsible for much of this material. He presents a wide-ranging review of Jewish and early Christian literature, focusing on the compositional histories of these documents. This is the environment out of which the Pastorals emerged. ... Miller's conclusion is that the Pastorals are composite documents based upon brief, but genuine, Pauline notes written to Timothy and Titus. The notes were preserved within the community's archives and later became that literary vehicle upon which other traditional material sacred to the community was loaded.

So, there you go. I haven't read the whole book yet (it's only 200 pages, though, so it should be a quickie) but from what I have taken in it seems like he's building off of the basics of Harrison's fragmentary hypothesis and positing that a group and not a single person is responsible for the resultant 'editing' of the material into the form that we today call the "Pastoral Epistles".

Even though I realize I'm a bit of a luddite when it comes to authorship and the Pastorals in that I still think that Pauline authorship makes the most sense (not that it isn't problematic, only that it makes the most sense to me — it is the least worst alternative, in my mind); I'm interested in this book because I want to see where Dr. Miller places this editing period in the timeline of the development of the Pastorals. Such work would, I'd think, have to be very early in order for these epistles to gain the traction they had so early in the history of the church.

I'll post more as I'm able to grok Dr. Miller's work.

Also note that this is #93 in the Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series (SNTS 93).

I have only consulted the first edition of this book (published 1957). A second edition is currently available.

Guthrie's work is accessible and clear. This commentary should be near the top of the list for those embarking on a study of the Pastorals, particularly if a technical commentary (e.g. WBC, Hermeneia, NIGTC) is seen as overkill.

From the preface:

I have been conscious of many difficulties in approaching my task of commenting upon these letters. Over a considerable period serious doubts have been cast upon their authenticity by many scholars and this has tended to decrease their authority. I have felt obliged to make a thorough investigation of these objections, and the results are given as fully as space will permit in the Introduction. A special examination has been mde of the linguistic problem. Because of the technical nature of this study, the conclusions reached are gien in an Appendix.

This monograph (it is 44 pages) is Donald Guthrie's response to P.N. Harrison's The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles. Guthrie describes his approach:

Our plan of procedure, therefore, will be to demonstrate, not only the psychological 'possibility' or 'probability' of the Paul presented by the thirteen letters, but also to show the psychological problems involved in the pseudonymous explanation of the Pastoral Epistles.

Guthrie uses Harrison's own word counts and statistics in an effort to cast doubt on Harrison's conclusions. If you're looking at the authorship question, you should consult both Harrison and Guthrie's work.

Though the problem of authorship of the Pastoral Epistles has been debated since the 18th century (and perhaps a little before), P.N. Harrison launched the attack against Pauline authorship in the modern era. His studies of word frequency in the Pastorals are exhaustive.

Harrison's thesis is the Fragmentary Hypothesis. He thinks there are some bits of "genuine" Paul in the Pastorals, just not much. He ascribes their authorship to what he calls a "dedicated Paulinist" who had access to Paul's letters, plus some heretofore unknown fragments, that he merged into three different pseudepigraphal letters.

Harrison is worth reading simply because he states his point so well. However, one must realize that (on my reading of it) Harrison isn't writing to explore an idea, he's writing to prove a point. The polemic is tough to get through at times, but keep at it. It's worth the read.

Stephen C. Carlson of Hypotyposeis has, some years ago, conducted an analysis of Authorial Style in the New Testament based on what he calls lexical contact. He describes it thusly:

A "lexical contact" between two books or corpora is a shared word or phrase (of which each word is in lexical form). The "order" of a lexical contact is the number of words being compared at a time. Thus, "first-order lexical contacts" comprise the shared vocabulary between two corpora, and "third-order lexical contacts" are the shared three-word phrases. Although other order lexical contacts are possible, the third order is used because that order generates the most contacts.

His analysis is worth consulting if one is interested in the question of authorship in the Pastoral Epistles.