Are the Pauline Epistles all forgeries?

[Swammerdami]

Is there a summary of her conclusions on-line? The links show "Livesey dates the letters' emergence to the mid-second century and the Roman school of Marcion" which is not quite the same as OP's synopsis ("fabricated"?).

In this hypothesis, I suppose Acts of the Apostles was also part of this 2nd century "hoax"?

From the Introduction of Livesey's book:

...this book argues that [Paul's] letters are instead pseudonymous, literary, and fictional, letters-in-form-only. Their likely origin is Marcion’s mid-second-century speculative/philosophical school in Rome, the site and timeframe of our earliest evidence of a collection often Pauline epistles. Deploying the letter genre, trained authors of this school crafted teachings in the name of the Apostle Paul for peer elite audiences.

And yes, she seems to agree with Richard Pervo and Joseph Tyson that Acts was also written in the second century.

Am I not correct that Marcion's Gospel expunges all references to Jesus' brothers, i.e. James? WHY exactly did he do this?

Surely there is a consensus that
* Acts and Galatians were written BEFORE Marcion;
* Acts and Galatians were written independently of Marcion
* Marcion deliberately expunged mentions of James.
Yes?

 

[DBT]

But why include contradictions like three different versions of Pauls conversion on the road to Damascus?

You mean the discrepancies in Acts as to whether Paul and his companions "saw" or "heard" a magic voice and/or a magic light? That's not much different from the various contradictions in the Gospels.

It appears to be more than a mere discrepancy:

''The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, for they heard the voice but could see no one.”

''My companions saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who spoke to me.“

 

[fta]

It appears to be more than a mere discrepancy

''The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, for they heard the voice but could see no one.”

''My companions saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who spoke to me.“

Well, the Gospels and Acts are full of contradictions like this. (We could also add the discrepancy over whether Paul's companions here were standing or had fallen to the ground.) Is this directly relevant as to whether Luke and Paul wrote the NT books attributed to them?

 

[unapologetic]

what's to be gained by the forger?

Depends on what the letters say.
I haven't read them. How do they differ from the other books?

To me the whole bible is fiction. It doesn't matter who wrote what.
If the editor (the church) approves and publishes it, it is not forgery, it is 'ghost righting'.
A fan, Fred Hembeck, independently drew satires of Marvel and DC superheroes. DC editors liked them so much they published a few.
Nobody thinks of them as forgeries.
If I wrote a short story with Harry Potter, Only the editor can say if it's forgery or cannon.

 

[lostone]

The first question to consider when assessing whether something is a forgery is, what's to be gained by the forger? The gain of counterfeiting money is obvious, and a newly discovered will benefits someone, but I'm trying to imagine the motivation for creating a bunch of letters written by a guy who died a century before.

Was there a prayer meeting where someone declared, "That's not what Paul said!" and someone shows up at the next meeting with a well worn papyrus scroll and says, "Oh yeah. Read it for yourself."

It's certainly plausible that the second century Christians only had copies of copies of Paul's letters, with all the errors inherent in that process, but that's not forgery, however they might diverge from the original.

There was much to be gained by a forgery if it allowed one subset of Early Christians to gain the upper hand over another subset of Early Christians. Those boys were very busy excommunicating and anathemizing each other, over even slight differences in doctrine, up to and beyond the time of the Council of Nicea. We may consider it a tempest in a teapot, but It was serious business for them.

 

[SLD]

The first question to consider when assessing whether something is a forgery is, what's to be gained by the forger? The gain of counterfeiting money is obvious, and a newly discovered will benefits someone, but I'm trying to imagine the motivation for creating a bunch of letters written by a guy who died a century before.

Was there a prayer meeting where someone declared, "That's not what Paul said!" and someone shows up at the next meeting with a well worn papyrus scroll and says, "Oh yeah. Read it for yourself."

It's certainly plausible that the second century Christians only had copies of copies of Paul's letters, with all the errors inherent in that process, but that's not forgery, however they might diverge from the original.

There was much to be gained by a forgery if it allowed one subset of Early Christians to gain the upper hand over another subset of Early Christians. Those boys were very busy excommunicating and anathemizing each other, over even slight differences in doctrine, up to and beyond the time of the Council of Nicea. We may consider it a tempest in a teapot, but It was serious business for them.

I think this analysis misunderstands how literature and epistolary was done in the ancient world. It would not have been considered immoral type forgery to write a letter as if you were Paul. A typical assignment by a tutor to his pupil would be to write a letter in the style of Paul, or some other famous epistolary writer. Such imitation was common and considered complimentary. No specific gain was considered.

Regardless, the undisputed Pauline epistles are confirmed as genuine the first century bishop, Clement of Rome. That’s better evidence than the gospels. While he may not have personally met Paul, he would likely have interacted with people who did know him. That he didn’t mention the other Epistles does seem to imply that they may be from other authors. But then again, he may not have been familiar with all of Paul’s writings. Someone wrote them.

 

[fta]

Regardless, the undisputed Pauline epistles are confirmed as genuine the first century bishop, Clement of Rome. That’s better evidence than the gospels. While he may not have personally met Paul, he would likely have interacted with people who did know him. That he didn’t mention the other Epistles does seem to imply that they may be from other authors. But then again, he may not have been familiar with all of Paul’s writings. Someone wrote them.

We won't go into the question of whether the Epistle of Clement is genuine...

 

[SLD]

Regardless, the undisputed Pauline epistles are confirmed as genuine the first century bishop, Clement of Rome. That’s better evidence than the gospels. While he may not have personally met Paul, he would likely have interacted with people who did know him. That he didn’t mention the other Epistles does seem to imply that they may be from other authors. But then again, he may not have been familiar with all of Paul’s writings. Someone wrote them.

We won't go into the question of whether the Epistle of Clement is genuine...

Everything is a forgery. Damn. Starting to look like the flat earthers.

 

[Politesse]

I think this analysis misunderstands how literature and epistolary was done in the ancient world. It would not have been considered immoral type forgery to write a letter as if you were Paul. A typical assignment by a tutor to his pupil would be to write a letter in the style of Paul, or some other famous epistolary writer. Such imitation was common and considered complimentary. No specific gain was considered.

Not the same thing as actually signing a letter wth someone else's name, unless you were their scribe. That was verboten, and historians contemporaneous with Paul were as concerned with rooting out pseudoepigrapha (literally, "Deceitful letters") as are modern scholars. Writing about thirty or forty years after Paul's death, the noted Roman librarian and grammarian Quintilian described his work thusly:

"Not only is the art of writing combined with that of speaking, but correct reading also precedes illustration, and with all these is joined the exercise of judgment, which the old grammarians, indeed, used with such severity that they not only allowed themselves to distinguish certain verses with a particular mark of censure, and to remove from their sets, as spurious, certain books which had been inscribed with false titles, but even brought some authors within their canon, and excluded others altogether from classification."

He does also recommend in the same book teaching one's young charges to write via imitation, yes, but also to develop their own style of writing and oratory over time, and certainly not to steal anyone's signature, seal, or authority.

 

[lostone]

Regardless, the undisputed Pauline epistles are confirmed as genuine the first century bishop, Clement of Rome. That’s better evidence than the gospels. While he may not have personally met Paul, he would likely have interacted with people who did know him. That he didn’t mention the other Epistles does seem to imply that they may be from other authors. But then again, he may not have been familiar with all of Paul’s writings. Someone wrote them.

We won't go into the question of whether the Epistle of Clement is genuine...

Everything is a forgery. Damn. Starting to look like the flat earthers.

Considering the religious propaganda wars that were going on at the time of the late Roman Empire, that anything and everything of a religious nature written back then is a forgery seems like a perfectly plausible and defendable POV.

 

[SLD]

Regardless, the undisputed Pauline epistles are confirmed as genuine the first century bishop, Clement of Rome. That’s better evidence than the gospels. While he may not have personally met Paul, he would likely have interacted with people who did know him. That he didn’t mention the other Epistles does seem to imply that they may be from other authors. But then again, he may not have been familiar with all of Paul’s writings. Someone wrote them.

We won't go into the question of whether the Epistle of Clement is genuine...

Everything is a forgery. Damn. Starting to look like the flat earthers.

Considering the religious propaganda wars that were going on at the time of the late Roman Empire, that anything and everything of a religious nature written back then is a forgery seems like a perfectly plausible and defendable POV.

Well, it’s all myth. But it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a Paul who wrote these various epistles, a Clement who wrote his letters.

If they are all fabricated, then who wrote them and why? And when? What evidence do we have to indicate that they were utterly fabricated? (as opposed to some of the content which is indeed mythical.). That all of these are forgeries written in the later Roman Empire is a serious stretch given that we have numerous Christian writers and others attacking Christianity for centuries. You’ve got to assume that Pliny’s letter to Hadrian is a forgery. So also is every reference to Christianity by Celsus, Clement of Alexandria, basically all of these writings here: https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

No. The most plausible explanation is that Christianity arose in the late first century. Probably started by Paul, or whoever wrote his letters calling himself Paul. Maybe he used a real person to base his beliefs, or maybe he made it up whole cloth.

 

[lostone]

Even Marcion got excommunicated in 144 AD. Perhaps you are correct to assume that both Paul and Clement existed, but what is real and not real is difficult to determine, with all the conflict within the early church over what was heresy and not heresy.

 

[SLD]

Even Marcion got excommunicated in 144 AD. Perhaps you are correct to assume that both Paul and Clement existed, but what is real and not real is difficult to determine, with all the conflict within the early church over what was heresy and not heresy.

Indeed. A good reason to reject Christianity as a religion to follow. The discrepancies are impossible to reconcile.