Did Paul Write the Letters to Timothy?

[Deacon_Ed]

T. More:

I would be cautious with this assessment. Deacon Ed equivocates allot and mixes many discrete issues. The epistle expressly says it is from Paul (in whatever authorial sense this means). The best Deacon Ed can say is “I would hesitate to assert that Paul was not the author.” That is a not the same an unqualified affirmation of the truthfulness of epistle’s express affirmation of Pauline authorship.

I equivocate only when certainty is not possible. This is one such case. Since this is a complex issue it is not possible to make it simple and, consequently, there are discrete issues that come to the fore as they are related. Sorry, that’s the best I can do. Simplification leads to error in this case.

Deacon Ed

 

[itsjustdave1988]

we can conlcude that the Church no longer considers Paul to be the author of Hebrews.

I can’t agree. Instead, I agree with the most probable solution that I posted above from the 1909 Catholic Encyclopedia. I don’t believe any official magisterial texts have abrogated the PBC decision of Pauline authorship, yet that authorship ought to be understood in it’s intended context, which I believe is expounded upon in the excerpt I provided above.

 

[Deacon_Ed]

T. More:

Deacon Ed: Again, you are confusing discrete issues and you are outside the teaching of the encyclical you cited. As to talking about the Matthew passage, again this would be fruitless. Even if we ultimately agreed on that one passage, you could just pull a list from Internet Infidels, some resource by other biblical skeptics, or higher critics. There would be no end. People who do not approach the Scriptures with the humility and patience required by Divino Afflante Spiritu (see especially paragraphs 44 and 45) will always perceive errors that are not there. This thread is on Timothy, and I have discussed that passage expressly.

While the thread may be on Timothy, you raised the issue of error, and I have addressed that. I have also given you the best answer I can regarding the authroship of the Pastoral letters. I cannot assert that Paul wrote the letters personally. I can state, and have on three occasions, that Paul is certainly the author in terms of having provided either a scribe with the basic information to be conveyed or, perhaps, inspired someone to write in his name with the message that Paul would have sent. This is consistent with the Chruch’s teaching on this. Since the original question dealt (or at least I interpreted it to deal) with the issue of whether or not Paul personally wrote the letter, I gave the best answer I could.

BTW, there is also no need to be testy - my question about birth control was perfectly fine and was exactly the question I wanted to ask. I will craft my questions in the way I see fit, as I trust you will. You can answer as you choose and make the distinctions you want.

One of the problems of written communication is that we lose the body language that accompanies it. I interpreted your question as one of my faithfulness to the Church and suggesting that I was certainly a dissident. You have already questioned my knowledge of Scrpture asserting that I “approach the bible wrongly.” After some 40 years of studying Scripture as a faithful Catholic who has been called by God to serve as a deacon in not one but two ritual Churches, as one who has made certain that I can read the New Testament in the original language (my Hebrew is pathetic so I don’t even try to read the Old Testament unless I have a lexicon and a good translation at hand) I find it strange that you think I approach it wrongly.

To clarify: the Bible is the inspired word of God. It was written by men whom God inspired. They worked within the constraints of their own culture and history using language as it was used in that period. God did not dictate the Bible on a word-for-word basis (as some fundamentalist Protestants assert). The Bible presents Truth and does so without error. That some of the facts presented, if read literally, are in error does not in any way reduce the validity of the Scriptures. BTW, my faith is not based on the bible, although the bible validates what I believe. My faith is based on Jesus who is the Christ as experienced in the Sacraments. The Church is the mediator of those Sacraments and, therefore, my faith is shaped and formed by the Church.

Any other questions?

Deacon Ed

 

[T.More]

Any other questions?

Let’s just suffice to say that we disagree on some vital matters.

T. More

 

[Deacon2006]

I always find scholarship that denies the authorship of Paul (perphaps exception of Hebrews) to be a little bit trivial and in some cases mean spirited.

I really hope nobody seriously compares my term papaers from the 80’s and my memos from the 90’s and my online posts from the 00’s and concludes it is not possible for me to have written some of these works because they find inconsistencies in my style.

God Bless

 

[DominvsVobiscvm]

And since that time the Church has stated that Paul did not write the “Letter to the Hebrews” (actually a collection of homilies and not a letter) which previously had been attributed to Paul. The teaching today is that Paul is “most likely” the author of the Pauline corpus.

In 1913, the PBC issued a declaration entitled “On the Author and the Manner and Circumstances of Composition of the Epistle to the Hebrews”. It declared that “we may not hesitate” in counting this book among the epistles of Paul, because of its harmony of doctrine and principles, cautions and counsels, and close correspondence in words and phrases with the writings known to be those of Paul, and because of its acceptance as such by the Church; but it need not be regarded as certain that Paul planned it and composed it in its entirety, or that he put it in the form in which it now stands.

This remains the official teaching of the Catholic Church.

The closest you’ll get is that the lectionary used at Mass no longer attributes Hebrews to Paul. Since the Lectionary is an authentic teaching of the Church, we can conclude that the Church no longer considers Paul to be the author of Hebrews.

No such conclusion, in my humble opinion, should be reached unless the Church authoritatively, and postively, pronounces otherwise.

And besides, the Eastern liturgies, if I’m not mistaken, still refer to this Epistle as written by Paul.

And the liturgical texts of the Tridentine Mass, still in use by the Church today, also refer to this text as written by Paul.

Surely you would agree that the Pauline authorship of Hebrews, as affirmed and qualified by the PBC, still represents, not only the official teaching of the Church, but also the findings of orthodox scholarship?

 

[Deacon_Ed]

Rather than attempt to reply to each of the posts that address this, let me simply post some additional information.

This first is from the Pontifical Biblical Commission:

It is in the light of the events of Easter that the authors of the New Testament read anew the Scriptures of the Old. The Holy Spirit, sent by the glorified Christ (cf Jn. 15:26; 16:7), led them to discover the spiritual sense. While this meant that they came to stress more than ever the prophetic value of the Old Testament, it also had the effect of relativizing very considerably its value as a system of salvation. This second point of view, which already appears in the Gospels (cf. Mt. 11:11-13 and parallels; 12:41-42 and parallels; Jn. 4:12-14; 5:37; 6:32), emerges strongly in certain Pauline letters as well as in the Letter to the Hebrews. Paul and the author of the Letter to the Hebrews show that the Torah itself, insofar as it is revelation, announces its own proper end as a legal system (cf. Gal. 2:15-5:1; Rom. 3:20-21; 6:14; Heb. 7:1119; 10:8-9).

*The Interpretation of the Bible in Church, *Pontifical Biblical Commission, March 18, 1994

I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting the salient portion. Note that the PBC is treating the author of Hebrews as being someone other than Paul.

As early as the end of the second century, the church of Alexandria in Egypt accepted Hebrews as a letter of Paul, and that became the view commonly held in the East. Pauline authorship was contested in the West into the fourth century, but then accepted. In the sixteenth century, doubts about that position were again raised, and the modern consensus is that the letter was not written by Paul. There is, however, no widespread agreement on any of the other suggested authors, e.g., Barnabas, Apollos, or Prisc(ill)a and Aquila. The document itself has no statement about its author.

Among the reasons why Pauline authorship has been abandoned are the great difference of vocabulary and style between Hebrews and Paul’s letters, the alternation of doctrinal teaching with moral exhortation, the different manner of citing the Old Testament, and the resemblance between the thought of Hebrews and that of Alexandrian Judaism. The Greek of the letter is in many ways the best in the New Testament.

This citation is from the Introduction to Hebrews found in the New American Bible and copied from the USCCB web site (usccb.org/nab/bible/hebrews/intro.htm))

Finally, in response to the request for a document that reverses the previous PBC position – there is none. But this is not unusual. The Church rarely (but not never) writes papers which contradict previously held positions. For example, no less than four popes condemned lending money at interest. Today the Vatican Bank lends money at intereset, and the Church does not object to this, or to the practive of lending money at interest unless the interest is usurious.

Since faith and reason are not incompatible, it follows that we can reason from the two citiations above (and they are not the only ones I could have chosen) to the understanding that the Church no longer holds with Pauline authorship of Hebrews.

And, to make people happy, this is my last post on this topic.

Deacon Ed

 

[DominvsVobiscvm]

Keep in mind that, since 1968, the PBS is no longer an organ of the Magisterium. It is merely a body of scholars, not all of whom are even Catholic, who write stuff about the Bible. At best they’re advisory, and certainly not authoritative.

That having been said, it should not surprise us that today the PBC issues statements that pretty explicitly contradict Magisterial teaching. Ditto for the New American Bible and its footnotes. (Remember, the U.S. Catholic Conference is no real authority either. At best, it’s a forum for bishops to hash out their ideas. The sole exception is a plenary Council, and a few other exceptions, when ratification by the Vatican makes something into law. For example, the issuance of the *Baltimore Catechism * or the Sex Abuse Charter.)

Do we really need to get into a discussion about how Modernism has infected the Church, even at the highest levels? When an advisory body, or a statement by the U.S. Catholic Conference, contradicts Magisterial teaching (even those that are not infallible, but haven’t been revoked), then we have to stick with the Magisterial teaching.

This is exactly what happened when a Commission of the U.S. Catholic Conference issued a document saying that Jews don’t need to convert to Catholicism. Orthodox Catholics, including Catholic Answers, exposed this document for what it really was: a charter for heresy. The U.S. Bishops, while not specifically repudiating the document (but insisting on its non-binding character) removed it from their website.

It really is no different here. Theologians are certainly within their rights to hypothetically put forward positions which are contrary to established Magisterial teaching, so long as said teaching is not fogmatic or otherwise infallibly held. But such contradictory opinions cannot be presented as fact.

In all fairness to the NAB (in this istance, anyway), even it treats the non-Pauline authorship of Hebrews as hypothetical, not reflecting the teaching of the Church.

 

[DominvsVobiscvm]

Finally, in response to the request for a document that reverses the previous PBC position – there is none. But this is not unusual. The Church rarely (but not never) writes papers which contradict previously held positions. For example, no less than four popes condemned lending money at interest. Today the Vatican Bank lends money at intereset, and the Church does not object to this, or to the practive of lending money at interest unless the interest is usurious.

A poor analogy. There is no question here of the changing of Church teaching, much less a reversal. (In fact, the Church’s condemnation of usury remains infallible teaching.) Rather, the stance of the Church has modified due to the different economic principles of today; namely, the way money is used and how it is considered. As put by Envoy Magazine:

“Usury” means the acceptance of a premium for a pure loan of money or goods. The Natural Law, as well as Sacred Scripture, forbids usury. In the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord tells us to loan or give our goods away without looking for a profit. But let’s analyze what exactly constitutes usury.

First, to require that another pay back more than the amount he has borrowed is unjust. This is a principle which can never change. Indeed, the Gospel norm assumes the opposite, that the lender will give more than he is asked to, rather than that the borrower will pay back more than he received.

For many centuries, the Church forbade Christians from taking any profit on loans; many European states, following the Church’s lead, also decreed usury to be illegal. However, it was always permitted by the Church for the lender to hold something as collateral in case the loan was not repaid. From this reasonable practice developed the acceptable practice of taking interest on loans for some reason other than the loan itself, for example: damage to the property loaned, loss of profit due to loaning, a reasonable risk of loss, and the borrower’s delay in repaying. Exacting interest on a loan for these reasons was not viewed by the Church as usury since all these factors are part of the property of the lender, and he was not charging interest simply to get back more money than he loaned out. All of this was worked out theologically by the great moral theologian St. Antoninus of Florence, in the 1400s, as the age of bankers and the high-risk industry of world exploration began.

Prominent theologians who explained why interest may be licitly earned on certain kinds of loans, but not on others, include St. Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Luis de Molina, and Pope Benedict XIV, in his encyclical Vix Pervenit (1745).

You can go here for a fuller treatment on the subject.

The unrevoked declaration of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the universal tradition of the Church, as well as the explicit identification of Pauline authorship made by every sinlge one of the Church’s official liturgies (except the Latin Church’s Missa Normativa) show that the teaching of the Pauline authorship of Hebrews is still in effect.

Again, while theologians may treat non-Pauline authorship hypothetically, no cleric or other Catholic writer has any business making the opposite view appear factual to the general Catholic public, like at Mass or in books intended for general readership.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

DominvsVobiscvm http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon14.gif

 

[Deacon_Ed]

I know I said I would not reply to this thread any further, but I feel that I must. First, I have never *denied *the Pauline authorship of any of the Pastoral letters or of Hebrews. At the same time, I cannot assert as certain that he was the author in anything more than inspiration (what is in these letters certainly reflects Pauline thinking and teaching).

Second, with regard to the PBC, I must take exception to the claim that they “are advisory and not authoritative.” This is only partly true. The preface to the work I cited above explains this – and Cardinal Ratzinger is the author of this preface.

Preface

The study of the Bible is, as it were, the soul of theology, as the Second Vatican Council says, borrowing a phrase from Pope Leo XIII (Dei Verbum, 24). This study is never finished; each age must in its own way newly seek to understand the sacred books.

In the history of interpretation the rise of the historical-critical method opened a new era. With it, new possibilities for understanding the biblical word in its originality opened up. Just as with all human endeavor, though, so also this method contained hidden dangers along with its positive possibilities. The search for the original can lead to putting the word back into the past completely so that it is no longer taken in its actuality. It can result that only the human dimension of the word appears as real, while the genuine author, God, is removed from the reach of a method which was established for understanding human reality.

The application of a “profane” method to the Bible necessarily led to discussion. Everything that helps us better to understand the truth and to appropriate its representations is helpful and worthwhile for theology. It is in this sense that we must seek how to use this method in theological research. Everything that shrinks our horizon and hinders us from seeing and hearing beyond that which is merely human must be opened up. Thus the emergence of the historical-critical method set in motion at the same time a struggle over its scope and its proper configuration which is by no means finished as yet.

In this struggle the teaching office of the Catholic Church has taken up positions several times. First, Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical “Providentissimus Deus” of Nov. 18, 1893, plotted out some markers on the exegetical map. At a time when liberalism was extremely sure of itself and much too intrusively dogmatic, Leo XIII was forced to express himself in a rather critical way, even though he did not exclude that which was positive from the new possibilities. Fifty years later, however, because of the fertile work of great Catholic exegetes, Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical “Divino Afflante Spiritu” of Sept. 30, 1943, was able to provide largely positive encouragement toward making the modern methods of understanding the Bible fruitful. The Constitution on Divine Revelation of the Second Vatican Council, “Dei Verbum,” of Nov. 18, 1965, adopted all of this. It provided us with a synthesis, which substantially remains, between the lasting insights of patristic theology and the new methodological understanding of the moderns.

continued in the next post…

 

[Deacon_Ed]

In the meantime, this methodological spectrum of exegetical work has broadened in a way which could not have been envisioned 30 years ago. New methods and new approaches have appeared, from structuralism to materialistic, psychoanalytic and liberation exegesis. On the other hand, there are also new attempts to recover patristic exegesis and to include renewed forms of a spiritual interpretation of Scripture. Thus the Pontifical Biblical Commission took as its task an attempt to take the bearings of Catholic exegesis in the present situation 100 years after “Providentissimus Deus” and 50 years after "Divino Afflante Spiritu.

"The Pontifical Biblical Commission, in its new form after the Second Vatican Council, is not an organ of the teaching office, but rather a commission of scholars who, in their scientific and ecclesial responsibility as believing exegetes, take positions on important problems of Scriptural interpretation and know that for this task they enjoy the confidence of the teaching office. Thus the present document was established. It contains a well-grounded overview of the panorama of present-day methods and in this way offers to the inquirer an orientation to the possibilities and limits of these approaches.

Accordingly, the text of the document inquires into how the meaning of Scripture might become known—this meaning in which the human word and God’s word work together in the singularity of historical events and the eternity of the everlasting Word, which is contemporary in every age. The biblical word comes from a real past. It comes not only from the past, however, but at the same time from the eternity of God and it leads us into God’s eternity, but again along the way through time, to which the past, the present and the future belong.

I believe that this document is very helpful for the important questions about the right way of understanding Holy Scripture and that it also helps us to go further. It takes up the paths of the encyclicals of 1893 and 1943 and advances them in a fruitful way. I would like to thank the members of the biblical commission for the patient and frequently laborious struggle in which this text grew little by little. I hope that the document will have a wide circulation so that it becomes a genuine contribution to the search for a deeper assimilation of the word of God in holy Scripture.

Rome, on the feast of St. Matthew the evangelist 1993.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

I have, once again, highlighted the salient portions.

Deacon Ed

 

[Deacon_Ed]

DV,

My analogy was to lending and charging interest, not usuary which was, and continues to be, condemned by the Church.

Deacon Ed

 

[DominvsVobiscvm]

"The Pontifical Biblical Commission, in its new form after the Second Vatican Council, is not an organ of the teaching office, but rather a commission of scholars who, in their scientific and ecclesial responsibility as believing exegetes, take positions on important problems of Scriptural interpretation and know that for this task they enjoy the confidence of the teaching office. Thus the present document was established. It contains a well-grounded overview of the panorama of present-day methods and in this way offers to the inquirer an orientation to the possibilities and limits of these approaches.

All Ratzinger is saying is that the PBS is sponsored by the Magisterium, not that any of their statements is authoritative, much less binding. In fact, he explicitly says that they are not an organ of the teaching office.

 

[Deacon_Ed]

DominvsVobiscvm:

All Ratzinger is saying is that the PBS is sponsored by the Magisterium, not that any of their statements is authoritative, much less binding. In fact, he explicitly says that they are not an organ of the teaching office.

You are correct – the PBC no longer teaches with pontifical authority. That does not mean, however, that we can ignore what the PBC writes. Clearly Cardinal Ratzinger would not have allowed this particular item to contain his endorsment if he felt it were in error.

Deacon Ed

 

[DominvsVobiscvm]

That does not mean, however, that we can ignore what the PBC writes.

That’s exactly what it means.

You have any idea how much “unoficcial” stuff is published by the Vatican? They’ve even got an astronomical journal, for goodness sakes. These things are really meant for scholars; they have no binding authority, much less relevance, for your average Joe-Schmoe Catholic.

And where they contradict Magisterial teaching, they should be ignored.