The following post is an adaption of what I recently wrote to someone who had emailed me for an opinion on a study he had written on the origins of Christianity. His thesis rested entirely on acceptance of the conventional scholarly view of the authenticity of certain letters of Paul. I was reluctant to burst his balloon and only wrote the following after being pushed for a detailed explanation of my reservations.
Being on time
If we rely on external controls for verification, on the understanding that self-witness of a narrative or document alone is insufficient to establish authenticity, then we have no certainty that the Pauline letters were composed earlier than the second century.
We do not see evidence that anyone knew of them until the second century. They are first testified as belonging to Marcionite and other “unorthodox” Christianities.
We can take internal indicators, such as his flight from Damascus under king Aretas. That’s fine, but it also raises methodological questions that are discussed below. Continue reading “Precautions to take when dating and getting to know Paul”
