Loading...Now that the semester is over and, well, I’m retired from teaching (!), I am able to start in seriously on doing research for my next book project, on how we got the canon of the New Testament. There are 27 books in the canon. Why these 27 in particular? Why were others excluded – other Gospels, Acts, Epistles, Apocalypses, etc.? Who decided? On what grounds? And when?
I’ve blogged about the book in recent months (back when I thought I’d be able to do some serious research in it during the fall semester! Oh well…); if you’re interested, here are two posts:
My Next Book: Creating the Bible — How We Got the Canon of the New Testament
My First Scholarly Encounter with the Canon of the New Testament
Here I can explain how I’m starting to approach the issue.
There are tons of books
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Well to answer your math question, the number of letters Paul would have written is a stepwise sigma (upper case) notation with an upper limit of 30 and a lower limit that begins at 1 and can be plotted on a good old fashioned xy axis; Were you doing sigma notations in 9th grade? No wonder you’re such a polymath/glot (I know MBAs who stare at me blankly when I write those) (also, I keed I keed, but you are, seriously)!
Beyond Paul, I guess what I really don’t understand is including those four gospels together: I don’t come at it from a historical or theological perspective, but rather a literary perspective. Outside looking in the gospels have four different (very different?) messages. How in the world did the church fathers not notice that Mark is the all killer no filler OG version, then Matthew is like nope nope nope he got basic theological perspectives wrong, then Luke is like I’ve got the REAL version, only for John to go full send Leroy Jenkins?
THEY ARE WILDLY DIFFERENT (aren’t they?)!
Am I missing the plot?
I wouldn’t say they’re wildly different, no. They all have basically the same skeleton outline; theSy optics have tons of similarities, and it’s quite easy to overlook th edifferences (as 2 billion Christians in the world can attest). I’d say that John is REALLY different from the others, but that’s in emphasis. It’s really only been in the past 200 years that people have noticed significant differences at all!
I’m very interested in this. How will I know when the book is available; published live?
It’s to be published on March 24.
Walter Schmithals thought the Pauline Corpus was collected to be exactly seven letters, but few found his theory compelling. I think the sevens are largely coincidence. In Rev, I suspect addressing seven churches (not 8 or 9) was intentional because there were other churches in the area and seven is so prominent in the book. Muratorian Fragment says Paul followed the example of John by writing to seven *churches* (not seven letters): the Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians, Thessalonians, and Romans. But it overlooks that technically Philemon is addressing a church. I think the sevens you mention are largely coincidence because the collections of letters varied so much. There was no one standard set or arrangement. P46 is not a collection of seven, instead maybe a collection of church letters. Marcion had 10 letters. P72 has 1-2 Peter and Jude but it’s a bizarre collection of all kinds of writings. I don’t think we have a list or manuscript of just seven Catholics until IV century because that group varied so much. There might be seven undisputed letters of Paul today, but that’s a modern thing. Did anyone early on question or exclude Ephesians or 2 Thess or Colossians?
Nope, not to our knowledge. Until, like, the 19th century! Thanks.
I agree on the coincidences, but it is strange….
I don’t think Paul wrote many other letters. I lean towards conservation of material. I doubt churches would discard such letters. Previous generations (like my grandparents’) tended to save everything that was written or material (letters, notes, photographs, newspaper clippings, etc). I think Paul’s churches were probably similar. I think Paul kept a copy of his letters (or at least major ones) for himself, and our manuscripts originate from that collection. I can’t imagine Paul writing something as lengthy and thought-provoking as Romans and then sending away the only copy.
I agree, 2 Corinthians is probably composite. And since these letters were read in churches, the negativity of 2 Cor 10-13 would look bad floating around by itself. Better to balance that by combining it with some positive letters.
If Paul wrote so many other letters, why is there no mention of them? In TC, there are only two “biggies” in size (Mark 16:9-12 and John 7:53-8:11). If we had no manuscript earlier than tenth-century, we would still know each of those 12vv passages was an issue because church fathers talked about them. But no one talks about other letters of Paul. I think the Laodicean letter was probably Philemon.
I find it hard to belief that Paul wrote a total of seven letters in thirty years, especially when we have a record of him composing multiple ones to the same congregations in a matter of months.
I also don’t see any evidence of conservation of material in early Christianiyt or anywhere else in antiquity, given the fact that we’re clearly missing the vast majority of everything written. Where are all those Gospels Luke refers to? And the letters that Paul himself refers to that we no longer have?
Luke doesn’t say “many gospels”; instead, many had written about the events fulfilled among us. And I think he means 70 CE, not just the death of Jesus. So I think “many” includes Josephus and other accounts of the war. Luke predicts the destruction of Jerusalem 7x (more than the other gospels combined) and Luke clearly pins it on the Jewish rejection of Jesus. Origen says that Josephus should’ve blamed 70 CE on the rejection of Jesus, not the killing of James (which is oddly missing in the medieval MSS of Josephus). I think much of what Luke is doing is not just steering the Jesus traditions away from the apocalypticism of Mark and the Judaism of Matt, but also rejecting Josephus’ account of Jesus and the reasons for 70 CE.
Other than letters to Corinth and “Laodiceans,” what other letters does Paul mention? I think Laodiceans is prob “Philemon” (Knox’s theory) because the details in Philemon and Colossians dovetail so closely in names and specifics. Of course, that probably means either both Phm & Col are pseudonymous or both Phm & Col are genuine. And the other Cor letters are probably subsumed into what we call 2 Cor.
1 Cor. 5:9 is the most explicit place; but yes, there are at least two letters in 2 Cor (I think 5); and probably 2 in Philippians — but we don’t HAVE those letters, just the portions. And the close parallels of Phlemon and Colossians is precisely the reason for thinking Colossians is pseudonymous. That’s how forgers work to establish verisimilitude. (so too 2 Thessalonians)
I’m not sure how Luke could be referring to the events of 70CE that had been written about extensively before that he is now oging to write about accurately, since he doesn’t discuss the events. And it sounds like you’re saying that LUke’s Gospel was written after the ANtiquities (93 CE) to correct its view of Jesus? That’s only a very brief passage in book 18, of course, and it seems to corroborate most of what Luke’s narrative says. I’d also say that comments about Jesus that show up in non-Christian sources are almost never a διηγησις (Luke 1:1). Surely these are narratives, and he indicates that they were narratives of things passed along “to us” (surely that means followers of Jesus) by ministers of the word. I have trouble imagining that there were lots of non-Christians writing about Jesus that Luke felt a need to correct, since we don’t have any mention of any. But we have very good evidence of Christian narratives — two surviving that were before Luke and unless Matthew and mark were just making stuff up in their heads, they must have had other sources of informatoin. No?
Hey, here we are down in the weeds!!
Yes, I think Luke-Acts is after Antiquities and responding to Antiquities. Mason and Pervo make solid arguments based on “the Egyptian,” Lysanias, etc.
I think Josephus made a statement about Jesus because Origen knows it and doesn’t like it. I’m unresolved if the statement today has interpolations (JPMeier’s view) or is largely a rewrite (Ken Olson argues Eusebius did it). Mason and recently TCSchmidt say it’s largely authentic, but I suspect Josephus said negative things because it’s contextualized in the midst of uprisings and things Pilate mishandled. Maybe the original statement about Jesus was something akin to that? And if so, Luke wants to defend Jesus, his innocence, and show he predicted the outcome with 70 CE. In Luke, Jesus comes from such an humble obedient family, Joseph takes his pregnant wife on a 50-mile journey just to obey a Roman decree. And Jesus’ teachings are so innocent (Good Sam, etc), how could anyone not like him? And 7x Jesus predicts Jerusalem would be destroyed to punish the Jews. And Luke-Acts blames the death of Jesus directly on the Jews (_Crucified_ by JCEdwards), not the Romans. Luke’s PN has Pilate, Herod, centurion, and crucified criminal all declare Jesus innocent. Etc.
Again, I was completely open to the idea and decided to read Mason and PErvo very carefully on it. Again, the evidence in my view is extremely thin.
I understand what you’re saying about Josephus. I can’t remember who said it, but years ago, I read someone who did not think Luke-Acts is based on Josephus, and they said something like, It’s odd that Luke-Acts has correspondence with Josephus, but every time Luke gets it wrong. 🙂
(Lysanias of Abilene, census under Quirinius, Theudas and Judas, etc)
On a more serious note, I can’t help but wonder if that’s Luke’s modus operandi. He does the same thing with Matthew, lots of correspondence in content but it’s almost always different (exceptions being teachings but in different contexts, 3 temptations but last 2 reversed, centurion’s servant).
And that’s why God created Q….
I “lean” towards conservation of material, but I’m not fully there. I suspect most of Paul’s letters were shorter than Galatians. I think Philippians is a composite also because Phil 3:1a sounds like the end of a letter and Phil 3:1b the beginning of a new letter. And I doubt Paul would wait til Phil 4:10-20 to thank the Philippians, probably a separate letter. Polycarp said Paul wrote “letters” (plural) to them. That’s at least 3 short letters combined into one.
Maybe 5 or more letters are combined into 2 Cor. If one reads 2 Cor 2:1-13 and then resumes with 2 Cor 7:5-16, it’s like one continuous passage. I’ve also wondered if 1 Cor 1-6 is one letter about what Chloe had said. And 1 Cor 7-16 was another letter after the Corinthians wrote to Paul. Seems a little odd to have two separate and distinct occasions for a long letter like 1 Cor, unless maybe Chloe was the letter carrier from Corinth to Paul.
Paul’s letters are crazy long, so I’ve wondered if Romans is the anomaly, and usually he wrote shorter letters. If some were as short as 2 or 3 John, then maybe some were lost.
AOK! What makes you lean that way? I’m all into conservation. 🙂 (My colleague Hugo Mendez has started telling people that I’m a very conservative scholar; he explains “Everything he learned in the 80s he still thinks is right” !! 🙂 )
Lol, too funny. Like I said, previous generations tended to save anything written or material (we still do with phone pics and screen shots). If Philippians was a composite of 3 letters, it’s striking how short they are, unless it’s just parts of larger letters. And if 2 Cor is a composite, maybe 1 Cor too? So maybe Romans is the anomaly in length, and Paul wrote shorter letters (Gal being about the longest).
Well, you are rather traditional of scholarship on Q, 2ST, independence of John, much oral traditions, and so was I, but I’ve changed my mind on all that. 🙂 And I think scholarship is moving away from those things. Wouldn’t it be interesting to time travel to 100 years from now and see where the consensus of NT scholarship is at, and why?
And once again, I appreciate the time you personally take to respond to comments. Very time consuming for sure. And your engagement is always fascinating and thought-provoking. I do try to limit my comments because I don’t want you to waste your time, but sometimes these subjects are too intriguing that I can’t resist!
Yup, I agree that scholarship is shifting. My view is that it has to shift, at least within the humanities, in order to keep it alive. Same data, swinging pendulum. For my part, I”m far more interested in teh actual evidence than the trends in scholarship, and for something like the dependence of the Synoptics on John, the evidence is really weak; for Q, I think not having it creates far bigger problems than having it (the sequence of material in Matthew and Luke is virtually inexplicble in my view, if Luke were copying Matthew)
I have always wondered how many of Paul’s letters may have be intentionally destroyed by later clergy or political forces. There is ample evidence to support purging of materials of ‘heretics’ and Paul was not accepted as ‘orthodox’ in many places for many years. It is not difficult to consider that one of his many churches may have rejected parts of his message and that later ‘orthodox’ priests could of ordered the destruction his letter(s) to that church. I believe that more early ‘christian’ writings were destroyed or lost than retained. Maybe Oxyrhynchus can still turn up some more clues….
The sum of natural numbers from 1 to n can be calculated using the formula n(n+1)/2.
So, for 30, it’d be 30(30+1)/2 =465 letters!
If he wrote 2 letters each year to each church he had founded at the time, it’d be 930 letters!
I just joined and am loving your blog! Thank you for all your work!!!
Perfect! Thanks!
If Paul wrote 1 letter one year, 2 the next, 3 the next, and so on for 30 years, then he wrote a total of (1+30)*30/2 = 465 letters.
Brilliant! Thanks.
Concerning the quizzical question:
In number theory, a positive integer is perfect if it is equal to half the sum of is positive divisors. Thus, 6 = (1+2+3+6)/2 is the smallest perfect number, and the next examples are 28 = (1+2+4+7+14+28)/2 and 496 = (1+2+4+8+16+31+62+124+248+496)/2. All even perfect numbers are of the form (2**p-1)*(2**(p-1)) where both p and 2**p-1 are prime numbers. The three examples above correspond to p = 2 and 2**p-1 = 3; p = 3 and 2**p-1 = 7; p = 5 and 2**p-1 = 31. It is an open problem (since antiquity!) whether there exist odd perfect numbers. A prime of the form 2**p-1 (where p is prime) is called a Mersenne prime. It is also an open problem whether there exist infinitely many Mersenne primes. The largest known prime today is a Mersenne prime number, corresponding to p = 136279841; 2**p-1 has 41,024,320 decimal digits.
Marin Mersenne is perhaps best remembered for his contributions to arithmetic, but he was more interested in theology and philosophy.
So, in number theory, 7=2**3-1 is not perfect, but being a Mersenne prime number is begets 28, which is indeed perfect. The number 7 is also odd.
“Year one he writes one letter; year two he writes two, so now he has written a total of three; year three he writes three for a total of six, etc… Year 30 he writes 30.”
This is called an arithmetic progression. The trick is to write it once one way and then again but backwards:
S = 1 + 2 + … + 29 + 30
S = 30 + 29 + … + 2 + 1
Now add:
2S = 31 + 31 + … + 31 + 31 = 30 * 31 = 930
Divide by two to get the desired sum:
S = 1 + 2 + … + 29 + 30 = 930/2 = 465
So, in this problem, Paul write 465 letters.
Whoa. Thanks.
I have been waiting for this series. What a great start. Please keep going.
Wikipedia has a great article about the number seven.
7 is a Mersenne prime for chrissake! I didn’t know that.
I couldn’t have known it! (not knowing there were any such things at all…)
Assuming Paul founded a church a year, and wrote to each church once a year, if he founded the first church in his first year of ministry, in year 2 he would write to the first church and found a second; in year 3 two letters and one new church and so on, by year 30 he would have 29 churches to write to. So that’s a total of 1+2+ … +29=29*(29+1)/2 =435 letters total. If he wrote to them all in year 31 that’s 465 letters.
Thanks!
I am really so excited about this book! Living in Greece, I’ve always remember myself hearing, with respect to this issue, how we got these particular books and not others, that “the Church Fathers sorted these things out”! (“Οι Πατέρες της Εκκλησίας τα βρήκαν αυτά” in Greek) OMG! I was always so annoyed by this cliche, because, even though I didn’t have the knowledge, my gut feeling was telling me that this was bs, because I always believed these matters were up to humans with certain dispositions and feelings and inclinations etc.
People here have this impression that some Church Fathers talked a little bit and quickly agreed on everything! 🤣
I am definitely going to be using this book. Thank you for doing this. 👏
In your part of the world, the book of Revelation didn’t get in for a rather long time!
Should be a fascinating book, Dr Ehrman. My guess is that lots of Paul’s letters were fairly mundane, short or boring so didn’t get preserved. A recent book (After Jesus Before Christianity) – by some of the Jesus Seminar folks – seemed to be suggesting (if I’ve read it right) that Paul was a fairly minor player who became useful to the Christian movement much later on (late 2nd century), which is why only a few letters survived. I must admit I didn’t buy that argument, not least because of the references to Paul in lots of early Christian literature, eg. Acts. I think they got around this by pushing back the dates of those writings.
I have a non-scholarly thought on the significance of numbers. I am a product of a pre-Vatican 2 grade school and high school indoctrination. (but I’m not complaining). Numbers weren’t coincidence but messages from G-d. Three is the big one. Part of I guess our apologetic training was using it as a tool for reinforcement. I know I’m speaking about 20th Century not 1st but it seems plausible as a tool not only reinforcement but persuasion.
Dr. Ehrman… Do you think a translation of the Septuagint would be helpful to a student of Scripture? Or are the significant textual differences between the Greek and Hebrew covered in the footnotes of a good study Bible? Do you have a recommendation? Apologies if you have already addressed this. Many thanks.
It can be useful if you want to see an English translation of the OT as the early Christian writers would have read it (for the most part), rather than in the English translation of the Hebrew Bible itself. A good choice woult be “A New English Translation of the Septuagint” ed. by Albert Pietersma and Benjamin Wright.
Year 30 and year 1 make 31.
Year 29 and year 2 make 31.
And so on, 15 times altogether to get to Year 16 and Year 15 makes 31, so …
… 15×31= 465.
And the one “7” I don’t think for a minute is a coincidence is the 7 letters in Revelations.
Thanks.
Assuming 1 more letter each year starting at 1 letter in the first year, we want to sum (1+2+3+…30) which is equal to (30*31)/2 which is 465 letters.
In general if he wrote ‘k’ letters per year per church for ‘n’ years then the number of letters would be k * n * (n + 1) / 2
Thanks.
Even if Paul had written many other letters wouldn’t they likely be doctrinally consistent with the ones we have? Maybe the early church leaders simply discarded ones they considered redundant and didn’t add any new information? Although one wonders why keep Philemon?
I’d say the issue is not only doctrine, since in most of his letters he’s actually focused on other things. I’d aslso say that the idea that church leaders “disposed of others” presupposes they had a full collection and decided which ones to keep, and I don’t think it could have been that way; the big issues involve knowing how/when/why any of them got collected at all (written to very different locations)
you don’t need to remember the formula from combinatorics. just add up the first number with the last.
first year + last year = 1 + 30 = 31
2nd year + before last year = 2+29 = 31
3rd year + before before last = 3+28 = 31
…
30 / 2 = 15, so you do this 15 times. 15×31 = 15×30 (+15) = 450 + 15 = 465.
no formula, no computer.
but, indeed, this is a very intelligent speculation. found one church per year and write each church 1 letter annually.
Yeah, I didn’t want to go to the bother since I thought I could plug some numbers into a formula and do it in one step. Turns out, I could (instead of 15).
And yes, it’s speculative. My sense is that, given our surviving evidence, it was certainly more than one letter a year. And we do have some pretty solid information about a number of the churches he was connected with, just in his surviving writings.
My theory is this: when you compare Ignatius’s letters with Polycarp’s, the difference is striking. Polycarp largely reads like a patchwork of quotations from earlier writers and, frankly, isn’t very compelling. Ignatius, on the other hand, is writing on his way to martyrdom- and it shows. His letters have urgency, personality, and tension. I think Ignatius was preserved because his letters were captivating, and Polycarp was preserved simply because his letter was attached to Ignatius’s.
Paul’s letters are similar in that regard. They’re gripping. In Galatians he’s openly clashing with Peter and the Judaizers; in Thessalonians he’s wrestling with end-times expectations; in Philemon he’s intervening to save the life of a slave; and in Romans he lays out his most sustained and important theological vision. First and Second Corinthians are full of raw, almost scandalous drama.
My hunch is that the Pauline letters that were preserved survived not only because they were useful, but because they were compelling. The others were likely routine, repetitive, or little more than greetings… insufficiently inspired, or at least insufficiently interesting, to be carefully copied and passed down.
I don’t find Philemon particularly compelling, I must say. But maybe you’re right. It seems weird if he wrote hundreds of letters less than 2% of them would be at all compelling…
It would be historically strange if everything Paul ever wrote were equally compelling. In every literary tradition only a small fraction of a prolific figure’s work continues to be copied, performed, or remembered.
Beethoven composed hundreds of pieces, yet public memory centers on a handful of symphonies and piano works. This isn’t because the rest were suppressed, but because many were exercises, derivative, or simply unremarkable. Posterity curated Beethoven without intending to.
The same is true in antiquity. Aristotle reportedly wrote polished dialogues and popular works, yet what survived are mostly lecture notes and technical treatises. What’s lost? The polished, literary material. So the survival pattern isn’t even “best only,” it’s whatever communities found most useful to copy.
Even in the age of print, Shakespeare wrote nearly forty plays, of which only a few dominate public consciousness. Some plays are rarely performed, critically weak, awkward experiments. And this is with deliberate preservation efforts. Now imagine hand-copying letters on papyrus. The real question isn’t why more of Paul’s letters didn’t survive, but why any did at all.
The letters that shaped communities, sparked debate, and traveled well are exactly the ones we would expect to endure.
The closing remarks in Colossians presents a kind of laundry list of famous people and places. The author name-drops Onesimus, Barnabas, Mark, and Luke as well as Laodicea. Is the author using them as a verisimilitude? He also talks about a letter coming from Laodicea. I remember discussing this letter way back in bible college days and wondering if it was one of the letters we still have by another name or if it is a lost letter. What do you think?
We have a letter to the Laodiceans; it is found in many manuscripts of hte Latin Bible. But it almost certainly is not one Paul actually wrote; it appears to be one written by someone who was trying to “produce” the one Paul wrote. We know of at least one other that was deemed heretical, but no longer survives. I talk aoub both of them at some length in my book Forgery and Counterforgery, if you’re interested.
According to my math, this is a straightforward sum of the first 30 integers. I’ll spare you the formula and jump straight to the answer: 465. We have 7. That’s 1.5% of the total using your simple estimate.
And that’s with only one letter to each a year… OK!
Two questions. Do you think Galatians has the least amount of input from another scribe? The reason I ask is because in Paul’s other letters, he names other people with him, whereas in Galatians Paul doesn’t. Second question, how widely has your theory that there was no such thing as nondeceptive pseudepigrapha been accepted by other critical scholars? The reason I ask is because i notice some people repeating the same assertion, that pseudepigraphy wasn’t necessarily deceptive.
I’ve looked into whether there is good evidence that the others Paul names in some of his letters played any role in their composition, and I haven’t found any. It appears he is simply naming the companions who are with him at the time, not co-authors. (If they were co-authors you expect differences in style within the letters and between one letter and the next) (Think “group projects” in high school….)
N = [n(n+1)]/2
Thanks!
Bart, I will predict right now, this upcoming book on Bible origins will be your biggest seller. Literally, a page-turner. You know what? I’d suggest that your personal journey regarding this material is as interesting, maybe more, than the material itself. Is it possible the book can be written as one man’s personal journey in discovering the Bible’s origins? Kinda echoing the voice and tone of your blog posts about the writing of it. Does that risk making it feel less scholarly? I think not. Would make it more impactful in my view.
Thanks. SAles of books is remarkably a bit of a crapshoot. It’s really amazing how some fantastic books never sell well and how some that are rather lousy go off the charts. But we’ll see. I think of all my books this is the one that is most important for understanding how to live in this world, which I take to be more important, in the end, than knowing how scribes changed manuscripts and authors contradicted one another….
I won’t give you the formula because others have, but tell you a (possibly legendary) story about a mathematician of the past (around 1800) named Gauss, who first published the formula others have given you. He was such a prodigy in math that he got bored. So, thinking she’d occupy him for a time, his teacher told the young Gauss to add up the numbers from 1 to 100. He came back very quickly with the correct answer. The teacher asked him how he did it. He said there were 50 pairs of numbers (1+100, 2+99, … 50+51) that add up to 101. So the answer is 50 x 101 =5,050. He could have done 1 to 1000 just as quickly!
WHoa. THat’s a good one. THere are soem amazing people in the world.
It certainly seems like Paul must have written hundreds of letters himself, and I would think there were numerous forgeries later on. After Paul was effectively canonized by the 2nd century, I should think every church would want to claim a Pauline letter of its own. I can imagine a small church in the middle of nowhere with a conspicuously forged letter from Paul framed for locals to admire and perhaps pilgrims to visit. This would be not unlike the proliferation of relics in medieval churches. If these local churches took pains to preserve and copy their letters, surely at least a few would end up in the historical record, yet I’ve never heard of such a thing. Is that an outlandish scenario and, if not, what do you think happened to all those letters?
That’s precisely what I’mtrying to figure out!