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.
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This seems to fit right into Chris Palmero’s thesis in the Born in the Second Century podcast. I’m no expert, but that seems much more plausible to me than the usual story.
A fellow Born in the Second Century listener! Listening to interviews with Livesey talking about her latest book also made me think of Chris Palmero’s thesis. Too bad he ended the podcast.
I remember some years ago a discussion of “occasional letters” as a Greek and Roman literary style, and have wondered since then if Paul’s letters were a literary work. Livesey’s consideration of the ideas and her arguments for late dating seem spot on. I’ looking forward to the discussion of her work.
I have long thought that Paul’s letters were probably not letters, but creative works using the ‘epistle’ as a template. I have considered that the likelihood that letters were sent originally to all these far flung places then at a later stage salvaged from these places as problematic. Why did these churches preserve these letters? especially the Corinthians who seem to be the dunces of the early Christian world.
Nevertheless, my arguments have generally fallen flat, and I have not come across scholarship supporting this notion. So I hope Nina L can argue the case far better than I can!
Perhaps the main problem with this idea is that Romans seems to go to extraordinary lengths to name every supposed member of the Roman Church. It is hardly an argument for authenticity, but I have wondered why the writer would spend so much ink dropping names?
The extra-textual evidence certainly points Livesey’s way. Consider the following accepted scenario. The supposition for the existence of the Pauline letters is that they were copied and circulated, beginning sometime in the 1st century. That stands to reason, if you accept the usual Paul story. But given that circumstance, the lack of any historical mention of the letters in the first century makes one wonder. If they were popular enough to circulate so that a collection of them could be made by Marcion, then why didn’t anyone say anything about them in the first century. The picture of Paul is so engrained, the traveling missionary enduring all kinds of suffering, that to remove him seems ludicrous to many people, especially academics invested in the story of Paul, and of course, believers. So the second scenario is the letters were not well know at all, and hidden in little enclaves, read and studied by small communities. In that case, how did Marcion know where to go to collect them? This would be a feat rivaling Indiana Jones, tracking down the letters, copying them with his trusty scribe, but Marcion, if indeed he had done such a thing, surely would have written about his heroic journey to uncover them. It seems like that would become lore in the Marcionite church. But instead, they just pop into existence with Marcion’s Evangelion. The theory that the school of Marcion composed them, following Livesey’s investigation into epistolatory fiction, is an incredibly interesting theory. History is what’s uncovered, not what people have believed up until now. This idea makes some people really uncomfortable for variety of reasons, but I find the subject fascinating. When you have these scholars starting to get all weird about it and start acting like Christian apologists, you know you’ve struck a nerve. The Shakespeare Authorship is another of those cases where there’s zero evidence for the Startford author as writing the plays. And yet tourists flock to Stratford on Avon every year to honor the bard, who didn’t write the plays. It’s a mad mad world.
Why? The thesis that a number of different writers would adopt this epistolary fiction style to promote the values and theology of the Christians by creating a fictional character and common backstory is a puzzle. What was their motive?
Why? These epistles did become well known and well used by Christians. Or by Marcion, at the least. Why did Christians living at the time – there were quite a few across the Roman Empire and beyond – pick up these epistles and begin collecting and reading them and adopting them into a collection of writings they regarded as inspired?
Why? There are a great many assertions without evidence made about what happened. Why would Dr. Livesey write with such iffy support for her thesis?
Why? The epistles are all (with a couple of exceptions) written in a style and form that ordinarily says to literary people that they were written by one person rather than by a number of different people. If these were the work of a number of people, why would a number of authors make the effort to together copy a particular style and form?
Hi Don. The idea that there are different authors behind the epistles attributed to Paul in the NT is the consensus of biblical scholarship, as far as I am aware. Livesey is working with the consensus view on that point. The Pastoral epistles, most will agree, were not by the same author of Romans. Ephesians is by another author again, and so on. Livesey is agreeing with all her peers on that score.
Further, Livesey argues that the first collection of Pauline letters were all of a kind of unity and may well have been written by a single author, or certainly a tight group of authors.
As for why — there is no doubt that new epistles were being penned under the names of different apostles and followers throughout the second century and these were being accepted by different groups of Christians. Livesey is not saying anything radically new on that point, either.
Is there a specific argument Livesey makes that you find is not based on evidence? I thought she was trying hard to hew to the actual evidence while pointing out that it is the common apologetic view that the letters of Paul were all by a Paul in the first century is without any supporting evidence.
Happy to discuss further.
The character need not be “fictional”, or at least not believed to be fictional. Forging letters in the name of a person with stature and authority is something which continues to the present day – there was a case in India this week. The motive is fairly obvious and the forgers may have thought their actions were justifiable for the greater good – Google “pious forgery”.
As you say: “written in a style and form that ordinarily says to literary people that they were written by one person”. The intent is to make the letters seem to be by the same person, because each writer is appealing to/borrowing/usurping the authority of the same person.
In an age before even realistic portraiture, never mind photography, was common place people were very, very dependent on oral authority in the sense that they trusted names which they heard being invoked as authorities around them. They had almost no defence against this sort of thing short of going to the home town of the alleged writer and asking them directly.
Finally, writing style is hard to judge in translation and even in original language – handed down from copy to copy – two documents may seem “good” until one does a statistical analysis of word use, sentence length, and types of allusions etc. It can be a real surprise to see how dramatically different these things can be while still giving the lay reader no real indication of trouble under the surface.
I remember reading (in translation) Pliny’s famous letter about investigating the Christians in Asia Minor and being a bit shocked at his actions but not the text itself. And then someone did an analysis of the sort I mention above and it became clear that that letter is not like the other letters ascribed to him.