Dr. Ehrman (among many other scholars) thinks certain letters now contained in the NT are forgeries.
I wish to stress that I do not care whether there are forgeries in the NT.
But I do wish to present some questions I have about the arguments behind this assertion.
Let us take Colossians and Ephesians, two letters attributed to Paul but are disputed by critical scholarship. Now in Dr. Ehrman’s book Forgeries he argues that one of the tactics of a forger is to imitate the style of his selected model. And, presumably, if one is writing a letter under the pretense of being Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles, then one is writing during a time when that name carried weight for one’s intended audience. And that implies that Paul’s actual (undisputed) letters were well known; that they were in circulation among various churches across the empire.
Now according to Dr. Ehrman one of the tactics of a forger is imitation; a forger acquaints himself so intimately with the style and vocabulary of his model that when he writes it sounds like something his model had already written and might have written.
But one does not even have to know Greek to see that Colossians and Ephesians sound completely unlike Galatians, Romans, Philippians, or the Corinthian correspondence. If Colossians and Ephesians are forgeries, then the impersonator botched it completely.
But there are other considerations not addressed by Dr. Ehrman (who seems mainly interested in widely distributing the notion, but not demonstrating it, that the bible contains forgeries). A person forges something to push an idea not already widespread. A child forges its parent’s signature because the child wants to go to the zoo but lacks the desired signature that would allow her. A pastor of the first century forges a letter forbidding sexual immorality because the forbiddance of sexual immorality is not yet a conventional concern.
If Colossians and Ephesians are forgeries, why were they forged? What unique notion doe the communicate under the guise of the Great Apostle which the actual apostle (or others) did not already communicate?
If, say, an acknowledged authoritative figure said, “Don’t eat grapes”, then what reason would a forger have to write a letter under that figure’s name restating the command to “not eat grapes”? The only reason to hijack another’s name is because that other never addressed the issues you think are so important that forgery is forgivable.
So, what is it in Ephesians or Colossians that is not already in the undisputed letters of Paul?
So, what is it in Ephesians or Colossians that is not already in the undisputed letters of Paul?
Ok, Forgery is a popular level book. To do a deep dive you need to read Ehrman’s scholarly tome Forgery and CounterForgery. But I can give the short version.
Paul was an apocalypticist. He expected an imminent Parousia and expected to be alive when it began. The forgeries are moving away from this viewpoint. Consequently they advocate the continuation of traditional social roles that the Paul of the authentic letters expected to shortly pass away. Distinctions between Jews & Greeks, women & men, slaves & free.
The delay of the Parousia also had a theological effect. The author of Ephesians claims that believers already participate to some degree in the Resurrection. This is precisely the point of view the real Paul is arguing against in 1 Corinthians. It is only in the Parousia that believers will participate in the Resurrection.
Prof Ehrman examines such technical aspects as word counts, and shows that even though the forgeries use some of the same Pauline vocabulary they mean different things. For example, when Paul uses the term for “works” he means Torah observance. In the forgeries “works” are any ethical practice. This comes into play with the doctrine that one is saved not by works but by faith. Paul meant that Torah observance doesn’t save you. Circumcision or eating kosher. In the forgeries you cannot be saved by any good works. The Reformers drew from this to create their doctrine of Sola Fide a view the historical Paul would have scarcely recognized.
brown.connor4 said
…
But one does not even have to know Greek to see that Colossians and Ephesianssound completely unlike Galatians, Romans, Philippians, or the Corinthian correspondence. If Colossians and Ephesians are forgeries, then the impersonator botched it completely. …
{* and 2nd Thessalonians}
Worked well enough to make it into the Canon.
Mind, they could have been recognized at an earlier time as from authentic students of Paul and accepted into collections of Pauline epistles on that basis only to have the recognition lost in transmission … in the Apostolos, the deutero-Pauline letters were collected together at the end, and the pseudo-Paulines do not appear, so the seven “uncontested” Pauline epistles may have been in one collection and the three deutero-Paulines in another.
BDEhrman
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