The purpose of this study is not to prove the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles.
This work is an attempt, to evaluate some of the most important arguments that have been made against Pauline authorship.Some of the objections to Paul’s authorship of the Pastorals focus on the linguistic characters of the letters, historical background of the letters, organization of the church and the doctrinal content of the letters.
The Linguistic Character of the Pastorals
One major objection to the pauline authorship was the language used in the Pastoral letters.
P.N. Harrison conducted a study that became the benchmark for the case against the Apostle Paul as the author for the Pauline Epistles.He conducted an comparison …show more content…
Harrison methods and results received many serious objections one of which was Hitchcock. Hitchcock pointed out that many of the words used in the PE appeared in the LXX, and Harrison had no idea of Paul’s knowledge of the LXX.Another point of Hitchcock article pointed out that Harrison's method would date the Pastorals closer to Philo than to the second century. Michaelis,another objector suggested that if Harrison work was based on the percentage of hapax legomena per book he would have found that Romans, 2Timothy and Titus had the nearly the same percentage. In 1959 Grayston and Herdan, joined on the debate of the authorship of the PE using statistical method and were able to improve on Harrison's methods and their results confirmed Harrison's basic conclusions. Grayson said statistics can only establish differences, and that the PE were not Pauline based on the difference in the writings, not in the authors. while linguistic evidence can conclude to a very different styles in the Pastorals, it can show that
This work is an attempt, to evaluate some of the most important arguments that have been made against Pauline authorship.Some of the objections to Paul’s authorship of the Pastorals focus on the linguistic characters of the letters, historical background of the letters, organization of the church and the doctrinal content of the letters.
The Linguistic Character of the Pastorals
One major objection to the pauline authorship was the language used in the Pastoral letters.
P.N. Harrison conducted a study that became the benchmark for the case against the Apostle Paul as the author for the Pauline Epistles.He conducted an comparison …show more content…
Harrison methods and results received many serious objections one of which was Hitchcock. Hitchcock pointed out that many of the words used in the PE appeared in the LXX, and Harrison had no idea of Paul’s knowledge of the LXX.Another point of Hitchcock article pointed out that Harrison's method would date the Pastorals closer to Philo than to the second century. Michaelis,another objector suggested that if Harrison work was based on the percentage of hapax legomena per book he would have found that Romans, 2Timothy and Titus had the nearly the same percentage. In 1959 Grayston and Herdan, joined on the debate of the authorship of the PE using statistical method and were able to improve on Harrison's methods and their results confirmed Harrison's basic conclusions. Grayson said statistics can only establish differences, and that the PE were not Pauline based on the difference in the writings, not in the authors. while linguistic evidence can conclude to a very different styles in the Pastorals, it can show that