Loading...In my previous two posts I started giving the scholarly argument against the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians – that is the argument that even though the letter claims to be written by Paul, it was in fact written by someone else who wanted you, the reader, to think it was written by Paul. In this post I continue that discussion, turning now to the question of the writing style of the letter. Once again, this is taken from my scholarly study, Forgery and Counterforgery. (After this there will be only one more post on the thread!)
I ended my previous post by pointing out that 2 Thessalonians has taken words and phrases from 1 Thessalonians in order to make it sound authentic, and even borrowed the structure of that earlier letter. I concluded with these words:
This is not how Paul wrote any of his other letters, by replicating the structure (to this degree) and taking over the vocabulary and even sentences of an earlier letter he wrote. But it is no stretch to imagine that this is how a forger would operate, to provide a Pauline feel to the letter. The evidence is clinched when seen in relation to the style and theology of the second letter, which differ from those of the first.
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Issues of Style
It is altogether simple for a forger to take over the words and phrases of an author’s other writing. It is a different matter to be able to imitate the author’s style when engaging in free composition. Jewett sensibly objected to the stylistic arguments mounted by Trilling, because – as often happens in discussions of style in the Deutero-Paulines – Trilling offered no bases of comparison with the established Pauline writings.379 It is one thing to say that an author uses excessively long, complex sentences; it is another thing to show that this is somehow different from how Paul himself was known to write.
Two points should be kept in view at the outset of any discussion of Pauline style. The first is that…
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A couple of off-topic short questions if you don’t mind:
1. Is there any evidence of Jews prior to Christian writings expecting the coming Messiah to be born of a virgin? Similarly, any evidence of non-Christian Jews expecting this after Christianity?
2. I notice many conservative scholars (Richard Bauckham, for example) point to Mark 15:21 as evidence for links to eyewitness testimony in the gospels. What are your views on Simon of Cyrene and his sons Alexander and Rufus? Historical? Verisimilitude? I’m predicting you’ll say you don’t know, but what’s your suspicion?
1. Nope 2. I’m not sure — I waffle on the point. It would help a lot if we knew who Alexander and Rufus were! The one think I think we can say for sure is that the author is *appealing* to them precisely so that his reader can “know” that he has a personal connection to verify the story.
It’s odd that he mentions Alexander and Rufus. Would this mean that the author knew about them still being alive and wanted to give props? if so, does their name have any significance with dating Mark (besides the Temple destruction)?
I think it certainly means that this is what he wants his readers to *think* he knew!
Mr. Ehrman, with the multitude of translations of the bible in English, can you recommend a version that would be closest to the early manuscripts that are available to us? For instance, would a NIV be better suited than the KJV or the NLT? Which English version of the bible do you use, if you use an English translation at all?
My preferred translation is the New Revised Standard Version, which I especially like in a study edition, such as the HarperCollins Study Bible.
Dr Ehrman,
Have you dealt at length in any of your books specifically on the issue of the secretary hyphothesis? As you mentioned in this post today: that many scholars try to posit the differences in writing style to the use of secretaries, and that the evidence for this is almost non-existent (especially when translating into another language, as you made the point that the Aramaic-speaking disciples were not the authors of the written-in-Greek-written). I’d like to dig into this issue further. Thank you!
Yes indeed! I have a long discussion of the hypothesis in my book Forged, and a bit longer one in Forgery and Counterforgery. In the latter, especially, I give all the relevant bibliography.
Quite an impressive analysis. Thanks.
As far as an analytical sample goes, are the dozen or so letters attributed to Paul a large enough group to really get a feel for Paul’s style? And on that note, do we have any guesses at how many letters Paul actually wrote as an evangelist or as an excoriator to the congregations he founded-a dozen, or a few dozen? Fifty? Hundreds? Further, if the hypothesis that some of the authentic Pauline epistles were actually concatenations of shorter letters holds, how do we use those reliably as a basis for comparison in questions of complexity, style and length?
Yes, that’s a big problem that scholars who do this sort of thing are aware of and try to take into account. (So is your final quesiton)
I would *love* to know how many letters Paul actually wrote. And I’d love even *more* to know why no one thought they were worth preserving!!
The conspiracy theorist in me has wondered why none of his other writings were preserved also (because surely he write more than 7 letters over the course of 20+ years of ministering). Maybe he lost his faith at the end of his life when Jesus never returned and the early church covered it up!
Isn’t it likely that most of the recipients of Paul’s letters never imagined Paul himself – as distinct from Jesus – would one day be considered an important historical figure? If we look at it that way, it’s surprising that *any* of his letters were preserved.
Yes, that probably explains why they didn’t go to any great lengths to preserve the letters. But it also suggests they didn’t even send the letters around to be read by other churches and so copied more extensively….
The difference between 49:38 and 41:37 does not strike me as especially impressive. More importantly, II Thessalonians isn’t even very long, and I have to wonder whether studies like this may run into some of the well-known pitfalls of small-number statistics. Does Schmidt’s study even distinguish the material in II Thessalonians that seems “original” from the material that follows I Thessalonians? The “original” material is even less extensive, and the pitfalls involved with small-number statistics will be even more serious.
You may want to look at his study — it’s pretty interesting. But I don’t know what “original” material would be in a forged letter….
Hello, Bart! Is there any study on the style differences between a dictation and a writing from the same person? I mean, could Paul have changed his style (found in his undisputed letters) because he wasn’t in front of the paper itself (disputed letters)?
Nothing specifically on that for a simple reason: it is impossible most of the time to know whether an author wrote him/herself or dictated.