Using Computer-Scored Measures of Emotion and Style to Discriminate among Disputed and Undisputed Pauline and Non-Pauline Epistles

Abstract

The Dictionary of Affect in Language that allows measurement of Pleasantness, Activation, and Imagery in texts and a computer program that provides several additional stylistic measures were used to score samples from Disputed (n = 22 samples) and Undisputed (n = 40) Pauline epistles and from Other New Testament epistles (n = 16). All samples came from an English translation. Several significant mean differences were noted between samples from Disputed and Undisputed epistles. A discriminant function predicting Disputed or Undisputed authorship limited to five predictors was 85% successful in assigning samples to either category. The majority of samples from Other epistles were classified as Disputed, i.e., less likely to have been written by Paul. Undisputed Pauline samples were predicted to be those with lower Imagery, shorter words, less frequent words, greater repetitiveness, and greater Pleasantness. There were significant differences in patterns of word use (vocabulary) between Disputed and Undisputed samples.

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