Nina Livesey’s The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context raises questions that go beyond the authenticity and date of Paul’s letters. If we no longer discern a wandering charismatic preacher, one who is competing with other preachers, and planting house churches in Asia Minor and Greece as he works his way, via a thriving Jerusalem, to Rome, then what do we have in his place?
The argument structure of The Letters is as follows:
- — an explanation of the origin of the current consensus that the New Testament letters of Paul include some that are authentic, mid-first century, writings to real churches; Nina Livesey (NL) shows that the arguments giving rise to this view [that is, the historicity of Paul, the authenticity of the letters, their first century date, and the related “home churches”] are circular and grounded more in conservative piety than independent evidence;
- — a comparison of the letters of Paul with letter-writing more generally at this time (the Roman world of the first and second centuries); NL explains how the training of authors prepared them to create characters, both of apparent authors and recipients, and situations that attracted readers because they seemed “so real” and “personal”; NL further compares Seneca’s use of fiction to teach applied Stoic philosophy through artificial letters with the Pauline correspondence, pinpointing many similar literary devices. A case is made that Paul’s letters were a collection intended for general publication from the point of their creation by “a school” of a highly educated elite.
- — independent evidence that explains the contents of the letters does not appear until the wake of the Bar Kochba war that (132-135 CE), far more than the first Jewish war of 66-70 CE, saw a genocide of the inhabitants of Palestine and even a denial of their name for their homeland as an ultimate punishment. In the context of Judea and Jewish practices like circumcision becoming a byword for all that Rome found contemptible, “Christian” teachers migrated to Rome where they set up “schools” not unlike other philosophical schools. It was from here that one such teacher, Marcion (later relegated by the “proto-orthodox” teachers as a “heretic”), identified with “Paul” and purportedly produced the letters under his name around 144 CE.
Further, the letters point to intertextuality with Acts and the gospels, indicating that the authors of all these works knew one another. Indeed, in Acts one finds the name of Paul emerging in the context of a work with a cluster of other fictional names, double-names and cipher (or symbolic) names (e.g. Stephen, the first martyr, meaning “crown”).
I look forward to discussing some aspects of NL’s book in more depth. This post is only an introductory overview.
NL’s overall argument does not identify an indisputable, concrete piece of evidence that directly places the letters of Paul (PL) in the mid second century and no doubt many readers will prefer to fall back on their “gut feelings” about the epistles. What NL offers is an argument that has fewer unsupported assumptions than are required by those who trust in at least their partial authenticity. The NL view appeals more directly and simply to the context of the external evidence. This external evidence is used to offer more direct explanations of the contents, the style and the known first appearances of the PL. Most simply:
- — there is no first century external evidence to explain the contents and traditional beliefs about PL
- — there is second century external evidence that does explain the contents and style of the PL
- — what is known of literary education of the time further explains the PL as consisting of literary devices to teach a philosophical or theological set of beliefs; many inconsistencies and other difficulties within the PL that have engaged scholars who read the PL at face value are resolved by NL’s hypothesis of a second century school producing them.
Not too long ago I posted a very lengthy series on three books by Thomas Witulski proposing a Bar Kochba War context for the Book of Revelation. Witulski understood not only that war but the rebellions and massacres of Jews in the eastern Mediterranean under Trajan (prior to Hadrian) had a major impact on “Christians” at that time that was expressed in the “four horsemen” chapters of Revelation preluding the Bar Kochba revolt. Revelation expresses a remarkably different kind of Christianity that we know from the gospels and PL (see Couchoud’s discussions), even pointing an accusing finger at Christians who appear to embrace customs that surface in the PL (e.g. eating meat sacrificed to idols). Joseph Turmel (=Henri Delafosse) considered the “Man of Sin” Antichrist figure of 2 Thessalonians (see 2 Thess at his commentary page) to have been Bar Kochba but I wonder if a better case could be made for it being Hadrian, especially given Revelation’s favourable view of Bar Kochba (Witulski). How that interpretation might fit with NL’s arguments is a question I’d like to think through. Certainly Hermann Detering’s scenario of the “Little Apocalypse” prophecy of Mark 13 (and Matthew 24 and Luke 21) being best explained in Hadrianic times comes to the fore, as does his evidence (much drawn from Rudolf Steck) for Paul’s opponents belonging to the second century. The surviving writings of Justin (post the Bar Kochba War) also strongly suggest — contrary to conventional attempts to read his knowledge of our canonical gospels into his works — a time when there was a free-for-all scope for interpreting Jewish Scriptures as prophecies of “Christianity”.
So you can see how NL’s book ties in with many ideas I have been toying with for some years now. I look forward to discussing some of its details.
Livesey, Nina E. The Letters of Paul in Their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024.