Pauline Authorship And The Pastoral Epistles: A Response To S. E. Porter -- By: Robert Walter Wall

Journal: Bulletin for Biblical Research
Volume: BBR 05:1 (NA 1995)
Article: Pauline Authorship And The Pastoral Epistles: A Response To S. E. Porter
Author: Robert Walter Wall


Pauline Authorship And The Pastoral Epistles:
A Response To S. E. Porter

Robert W. Wall

Seattle Pacific University

This brief essay suggests an alternative to modern critical orthodoxy which equates historical authorship with canonicity. Rather than settling the issue of authorship on historical grounds, a canonical approach shifts the reference point of exegesis to the biblical Sitz im Leben, where authorship of a document posits it in an authoritative theological tradition. In this case, the Pauline address of the Pastorals locates these letters within (and not outside) the Pauline corpus and so supplies additional details and perspective to the authorized (i.e., canonical) witness of Paul for today’s church.

Key Words: canon, authorship, pseudepigraphy, Pastoral Epistles, hermeneutics

Porter rightly asserts the modern opinion that the canonical status of the Pastoral letters is usually reduced to a question of their Pauline authorship—an “orienting concern” with which he evidently agrees. During this century, scholars have raised various reasons against Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Letters, including their chronology (does not fit well with other Pauline writings and Acts), literary form (lack of specific detail and other conventions of epistolary literature) and style (an idiosyncratic vocabulary), advice (including directives regarding church governance and false teaching), and theology (including different titles used for Jesus, the piety and quietism of Christian witness, and the lack of an imminent parousia). For these internal reasons, when coupled with the lack of a clear textual witness to them prior to the third century,1 most scholars think that

Paul did not write them, even though the letters directly attribute authorship to him. Without apostolic authorship, then, most question their “authenticity” and so canonical authority.

Porter summarizes the standard countervailing arguments to these various problems with uncommon clarity and bite. Although he claims otherwise, implicit in Porter’s assessment of the historical data and the different direction it takes him are those prior judgments about the canonicity (and, indeed, the Pauline authorship) of these writings, which he seems eager to defend. His work once again demonstrates that different convictions about scripture’s authority often result in different exegetical conclusions, and illustrates the practical difficulty of reaching a consensus in matters of historical reconstruction. At the very least Porter reminds us that we should guard against the easy acceptance of one or another opinion on this or...

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