Redescribing the Pauline Corpus as a Pseudonymous Collection of the Second Century

Abstract

The authenticity and genuineness of seven Pauline letters is rarely questioned in modern scholarship. Yet by scratching beneath the surface of arguments made in support of this perspective, one finds porous ground. Scholars do not substantiate the perspective with adequate evidence and employ dubious arguments for authenticity that do not withstand modern critical scrutiny. Rarely considered is the lack of secure evidence of Pauline letters prior to the second century. While Pauline letters fail to meet modern standards warranting their status as authentic, genuine, and historically reliable, they demonstrate, by contrast, exactly the features we would expect of a pseudonymous letter collection.