Paul: Which Letters, or Epistles, Did Paul Really Write?

In my previous article entitled The Importance of Paul the Apostle, I posited five different areas I would be emphasizing in our effort to understand this great transformative figure better. This particular commentary will focus on the first of these: the fact that the overwhelming majority of scripture scholars insist that only seven of his thirteen letters found in the Bible were actually written by Paul himself.

These seven “genuine” letters of Paul are: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, I Thessalonians, Galatians, Philippians, and Philemon. These letters were written in the ‘50’s of the first century, some twenty to thirty years after the death of Jesus. By contrast, the Gospel of Mark, the earliest of the written gospels, was produced sometime in the 70’s, after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

“Thus the genuine letters of Paul are the oldest witness we have to what was to become Christianity.” (The First Paul, p. 14)

How do the scholars know this? They have deduced this based on three discoveries: differences in style of writing, differences in theological emphasis, and differences in historical allusions.

As Michael Gorman, in his book, Reading Paul, explains: “While it is possible that some … of these were written by disciples of Paul in his name after his death, it is also quite likely that some of the differences among the letters are due to the frequently underestimated role of Paul’s colleagues and assistants, who served as co-authors, secretaries, and bearers/interpreters for the letters.”

There are two letters that all the scholars appear to agree do not bear any real direct relationship to Paul: I Timothy and Titus. They were written somewhere around the turn of the first century, possibly a decade or two later, at a time when the church was going through a period of organization and systemization. “These are seen as ‘non-Pauline’ because they have what looks like a later historical setting and a style of writing quite unlike Paul’s in the seven genuine letters. Thus the letters of Timothy and Titus were written in the name of Paul several decades after his death …. This was a common practice in the ancient world. It was a literary convention of the time, including Judaism.” (The First Paul, p. 14)

Again, to borrow from Gorman’s book, Reading Paul: “Some people are understandably uncomfortable with the possibility of New Testament letters being penned in the name of an apostle by a later writer, for that phenomenon (called ‘pseudonymity’) appears fraudulent. We should not, however, impose contemporary understandings of either authorship or honesty on ancient texts. Furthermore, if … the New Testament contains examples of the ancient custom of honoring great teachers by (a) adapting their ideas for a later generation and (b) writing in the teacher’s name, there is no theological reason to think that such texts are uninspired. A healthy understanding of inspiration includes a recognition of all the human factors that go into the production of a document that later becomes recognized as Scripture.” To put it another way, “It is important to recognize that the inspiration of a Scriptural text is not dependent on its authorship – or on the knowledge of its author.” (u, p. 32)

Borg and Crossan, in their work, The First Paul, make the following distinctions concerning the letters of Paul:

1. First Paul, or what they call “radical” Paul, is the writer of the seven genuine letters named above, “the oldest witness we have to what was to become Christianity.”
2. The letters to Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians are “seen by a majority of scholars as not coming from Paul.” These three letters, or epistles, are often referred to as the “disputed” letters. Borg and Crossan refer to them as “post-Paul,” “second Paul,” or, most frequently, “conservative Paul.” They do so because many scholars believe they were written “a generation or so after his (Paul’s) death, midway between the genuine letters and the pastoral letters of Timothy and Titus.” (p.15)
3. The letters of 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus, are referred to as “third Paul,” or more strongly as “reactionary Paul.” They are given this name by Borg and Crossan because “the author of these letters is not simply developing Paul’s message, but countering it at important points. What we see … is a strong accommodation of Paul’s thought to the conventional mores of his contemporary time.” (p.15) (emphasis mine)
4. Fourth Paul: “… over half of the book of Acts (of the Apostles) is about Paul. By the same author who wrote the gospel of Luke, Acts was most likely written near the end of the first century, some thirty years or so after Paul’s death …. It focuses more on Paul’s activity than on his message…. Consequently, it will not be a part of the following discussion. More than that, ‘there is significant scholarly disagreement about the degree to which the portrait of Paul in Acts is consistent with or different from the radical Paul of the genuine letters.” (p. 16)

Why are these distinctions important?

They are significant because they help us see more clearly how Paul’s original and genuine beliefs (“first” Paul or the radical Paul) about issues like slavery, the treatment of women, and patriarchy were “transformed, first, into the conservative (second Paul) ‘Paul’ of the letters to Colossians and Ephesians and, then, into the (third Paul) reactionary ‘Paul’ of the letter to Titus. We watch, within the New Testament itself, the historical Paul become the post-Paul, the pseudo-Paul, and the anti-Paul.” (p.31) (emphasis mine)

Borg and Crossan conclude this summary with these words: “(Our) conclusion is that the radical (First) Paul opposes – and the conservative (Second) and reactionary (Third) ‘Pauls’ accept – the normalcy or Roman hierarchy in its most obvious social expressions. This is our first insight into how radical equality within Pauline Christian theology opposes and replaces the normal hierarchy within Roman imperial theology. And the tragedy is that the Paul of the post-Pauline tradition is not only de-radicalized; he is Romanized.” (p.31) (emphasis mine)

To make this more practical, let’s look at three examples of how Paul’s original insights (first or radical Paul) were changed by second or conservative Paul, and then even more changed by third or reactionary Paul to become the focus of much of what is criticized by people in our world of today.

1. Radical or first Paul’s teachings concerning the issue of slavery. First, all it’s important to remember that Paul often refers to himself as a “prisoner of Christ Jesus.” (Philemon 1:2) He pictures himself as a slave to or servant of Christ. The letter to Philemon is one in which Paul is pleading with a slave owner to “free” the slave Onesimus. Listen to how Paul speaks of the relationship he has developed between himself and this slave who is “owned” by Philemon: “I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.” He later beseeches Philemon to “welcome him as you would welcome me.” He describes his relationship to Onesimus, the slave, as one between a “child” and his “father.” He concludes by again asking for freedom from the servitude of a slave and the recognition of his equality as a human being. Read the whole letter to get the beauty and endearing quality of the relationship that developed between Paul and Onesimus. Then note how the radical Paul of the letter to Philemon “was so swiftly and thoroughly sanitized into the conservative Paul of Colossians and Ephesians. In both of these books, pseudo-Paul (second or conservative Paul) addresses Christian slave owners and thereby depicts those relationships as perfectly normal.” (p.45) Here is the text from Colossians 3:22 – 4:1: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ.” (see also Ephesians 6:5-9 where the conservative Paul begins with these words: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart as you obey Christ.” (emphasis mine) Borg and Crossan conclude: “With regard to the Christian community envisioned by the radical Paul, those texts are contradictory, conservative, and regressive. They are not just post-Pauline; they are anti-Pauline.” (p. 46) Paul’s message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is now interpreted to be fully in line with the hierarchical system of the Roman world at that time, and were used consistently by the world of our own time by slave owners to justify the ethic of slavery.
2. Another example of radical or first Paul’s teaching is that of gender equality.
   “Paul’s vision of gender equality extends from wife and husband within the Christian family to female and male within the Christian assembly, and especially within the Christian apostolate. It involves, in other words, all aspects of Christian life.” (p. 47) (emphasis mine) In 1 Corinthians 7, “Paul deliberately strains his syntax to make certain that any obligation of the wife is balanced by that of the husband and vice versa. It is always about mutual and reciprocal rights and duties.” This is so in terms of abstinence and intercourse (I Cor. 7:3-5), divorce (7:10-16), and virginity (7:25-28). “It is impossible not to recognize the deliberate balancing of female/male and male/female throughout that chapter. What is right for one is right for the other; what is wrong for the one is wrong for the other. Wife and husband are equal in the family.” (p. 50) This view, of course, was totally the opposite of the Roman hierarchical system of that time. In terms of the worship assembly, a matter of some division in today’s churches, “Paul presumes a Christian assembly that includes both ‘any man who prays or prophesies’ and also ‘any woman who prays or prophesies’ (I Cor. 11: 4-5). That equality is taken for granted – female and male are equal in the communal Christian assembly just as in the private Christian family.” (p. 51)
   
3. The final area of equality is “both the most important and the most climactic for Paul”: equality in the Christian apostolate. First, it is a woman who carries and reads Paul’s letter from Corinth to the Christian groups at Rome (Letter to the Romans.) Second, of the total of twenty-seven individual Christians listed by radical Paul as being exemplary, ten are women, five of whom are singled out for special attention. Third, Paul, in speaking of dedicated apostolic activity, applies the words of such activity only twice to himself, but uses it four times and exclusively for women in 1 Cor. 16:6 and 12. This, of course, is the same radical Paul who wrote in Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

In Galatians 4: 6-8, the radical Paul wrote: “As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.”

This ground-breaking imagery of our oneness in God is not evident, however, in the writing of “second” or conservative Paul. There, when talking about wives and husbands, children and fathers, slaves and masters in the letters to Colossians and Ephesians, “Pauline Christian gender equality is de-radicalized back into Roman gender hierarchy.” From that point on, “Christian tradition demanded subjection from wives.” (p. 55)

This reality is highlighted even more especially in the later, reactionary Pauline letter of 1 Timothy, 2:11-15: “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.”

This issue of the role of women in the church is a pressing one to this day. Recently, Pope Francis remarked publicly that the church has to create “more space for women.” Exactly what he means by that one can’t be sure. But the fact that he is naming this as a primary issue for the church indicates at the very least that he recognizes the validity of what John Allen wrote in the January 31, 2014 issue of National Catholic Reporter: “Francis grasps that if its women were to walk away tomorrow, the Catholic Church would come to a grinding halt. He knows its women who raise kinds in the faith, women who makes parishes run, women who keep alive popular devotions and practices, women who mobilize the church’s resources when people are in need, and on and on.”

It’s pretty clear that Paul the Apostle understood this very same reality some two millennia ago. He also believed he had the answer to it: equality; oneness in Christ; unity in the Spirit.

Unfortunately, the hierarchy of that time – second and third Paul –disagreed, and that same hierarchy still does. But maybe a return to a deep meditation on radical Paul’s understanding of who we are in Christ will be a help in revisiting this vital issue.

Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.

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7/14/15