Pauline epistles?

[minichibi]

We know that from the 13 pauline epistles, only 7 of them were genuinely written by Paul himself (I and II Corinthians, Philippians, Galatians, Thessalonians and Philemon.

Why are the other 6 included in the Canon of the Bible if they are apocryphal and might be fake?

 

[The_Bucket]

Well first off, seven are basically indisputably written by St. Paul. Only three are widely considered to be pseudepigraphic and those are 1 and 2 Timothy and the letter to Titus. Ephesians, Colossians and 2nd Thessalonians are up in the air.

But why would you say they are “fake” or “apocryphal” if St. Paul did not personally write them? We have no idea who wrote most of the Old Testament or how many revisions it underwent. We know for a fact that the synoptic Gospels are compilations and underwent several revisions by multiple manuscript writers. We don’t know who wrote the Letter to the Hebrews or who John of Patmos, the author of Revelation, really was but both of those books are in the Bible.

We simply trust that God inspired the authors of Scripture, whoever they may be (I mean, who were any of the evangelists that wrote the Gospels really? We don’t know) and that the Spirit guided the Church to include the books it includes in the final form of the Bible. That’s pretty much it. And we also know that the Bible speaks to spiritual truths and recognize that it contains historical errors, but those errors do not change the spiritual truths it reveals to the world.

 

[RPRPsych]

Traditionally, all 13 of the Pauline epistles have been attributed to St. Paul.

The notion that these may be pseudo-epigraphia (that is, written by someone else and then attributed to St. Paul) is a very recent one, hardly a century and a half old. The arguments for this position can get quite abstruse, and are based on word usage, writing style, perceived theological differences, and so on.

However, these arguments are not conclusive. Even liberal Bible commentators (such as the annotators of the Jerusalem Bible) have remarked that Pauline authorship is still both possible and probale. And there have been critiques of the “historical-critical” method.

Personally, I hold to Pauline authorship. Each of the letters was written to a particular church or person, and their specific troubles or concerns could have been quite different. (For example, 1 and 2 Corinthians deal with the troubling issue of excommunication and reconciliation - it’s natural that these are more “emotional” than Romans, which is a systematic series of theological and doctrinal points.) The Pontifical Biblical Commission (if I’m not mistaken) also said the same some time ago, and the Church has never “officially” endorsed the “pseudo-epigraphia” theory, even if such views appear in the notes to some Catholic Bibles.

 

[Taestron]

We know that from the 13 pauline epistles, only 7 of them were genuinely written by Paul himself (I and II Corinthians, Philippians, Galatians, Thessalonians and Philemon.

Why are the other 6 included in the Canon of the Bible if they are apocryphal and might be fake?

I would hesitate to say we know that the other 6 are not written by Paul. In scholarship you get those who wish to undermine traditional authorship and those who wish to defend it. I will say the advocates on both sides tend to use very convenient arguments. However, I will share with you something one of my professors shared with me. He said that he was allergic to arguments against traditional authorship purely based on word choice, style, or theological position and that the difference between recipients and context is sufficient enough to explain all perceived distinctions within the letters of Paul. My analogy is this: Frankenstein has four unique points of view and styles, yet we do not claim that this great work was written by four different authors.

Anyway, even if we were to find irrefutable evidence that certain NTbooks were not written by the traditional authors, this would provide no danger to their canonicity. First, pseudipigraphical authorship was an accepted method at the time of writing of the NT; the first Christians new this and didn’t bat an eye, so why should we? Second, those who gathered the NT books believed that these books were either written by an apostle or had sufficient apostolic teaching that the exact authorship did not matter (Hebrews). So on the question of authorship, I would accept the opinions of someone living within 300 years of the author rather than 1800 years.

 

[Publisher]

I’m not sure it’s a matter of accepting the opinions of those living within 300 years of the document written verses those living 1800 years afterwards. Today we have many tools available to us not available to those living 300 years after the NT writings…linguistic analysis…computer programs to assist discecting syntax and word choices…phrases not usied by a certain author…and when coupled with history the progression of doctrinal development and organizational structures not found in the early Christian movement ALL contribute to determining the liklihood that the “disputed letters” were not written by Paul…but as stated…“written in Paul’s name” by an author who believed he understood what Paul “would have said”. Pseudegraphia WAS an accepted literary venue then.

 

[minichibi]

Thanks for all the answers