Very well said. I do not remember what lecture it was, whether from Foundations, Defending Your Faith, or some other excellent series, where Sproul said the Bible is a fallible collection of infallible books.
And yet, are there even half a dozen critical scholars in the world that recognize the authoritative text of an apostle with Paul’s undisputed writings?
if interesting, This topic piqued my interest again and i’ve been reading a few more commentaries… found another interesting gem… one of the few that at least acknowledges (however pathetically) the observation about writing differently to different audiences…
from “Interpreter’s Bible”…
"If the vocabulary is strikingly un-Pauline, the style of writing is equally so. The spirited energy and emotional intensity which drive Paul to impassioned and sustained, even tortuous and involved, argument [just what you’d expect when Paul is speaking to a like-minded dear friend with whom he shares deepest agreement], the vivacity of spirit which runs faster than words, the wide range of mood as in humility he pleads, in boldness he commands, in love he yearns, in anger he sears, now soaring in ecstasy of hope and faith, now overwhelmed in frustration and despair; the richness of thought together with fecundity, incisiveness, and slyness of image and metaphor–all these dramatic qualities of the Pauline style [which any reasonable person would not expect to find in a personal letter to a like-minded professional colleague ] are conspicuous by their absence i the Pastorals. Here, the language is slow, diffuse, incoherent, repetitious, and on the whole lusterless.
Those who defend Pauline authorship in spite of stylistic differences do so on three grounds: (a) The subjects treated and the persons addressed determine style in any given case. Paul is not here concerned to demonstrate a thesis or argue a case [duh], but to regulate and exhort. The letters should therefore not be compared with the argumentative parts of earlier letters written under strong personal provocation…
Thank you, Captain obvious. The last sentence is what i call “self-evident” or “as obvious as the nose on one’s face”. But it continues…
(b) It is further urged that letters to individuals, fellow workers and friends of Paul, would naturally be more restrained than letters to churches or groups.
Forgive my veiled profanity, but i think statements like that are why the phrase, “No ----, Sherlock” was invented.
but then it gets good… after (finally) acknowledging the very, very obvious, what is the scholarly response to counter this blatantly obvious observation?
Nevertheless, in spite of the ingenuity which has been employed to deflect the argument from vocabulary and style from striking full force against the theory of pauline authorship, it must be insisted that to make the writer of the Pastorals simply a desiccated and senescent Paul with fires burned out and creative vigor abated is to commit injustice to both men, as well as to the pastorals themselves. Once the author of the Pastorals is seen as a separate individual, and not as a depleted or altered Paul, he assumes a new position of importance in the New Testament and in the history of the early church. The New Testament thereby becomes enriched with an important type of personality distinct and different from any of the other great figures delineated therein, a type without which the origin of the catholic church is inexplicable.
So many ways to respond…
“Is there an actual argument there?”
“responses like this are why the phrase “Hand-wave” was invented.”
Fallacy much? ("Assume there was a pseudepigraphal author… if so, arguments that claim Paul wrote the pastorals are invalid because it takes away from the assumed pseudopigraphal author’s glory…) This is question begging riding on top of an appeal to emotion.
and, as you pointed out so well above… " Forgeries, on the other hand, are elements that are written in bad faith, with the intent to deceive and misinform."
While I don’t find the arguments of literary criticism very convincing… the claim of inerrancy is far less believable to me to the point of absurdity. I am not even sure what it is supposed to mean except that some groups are demanding we accept the text when it is quite clear that they are using this selectively to prop up claims contrary to all reason and morality. Errors are easy to demonstrate, in the vast numbers of copies and translations of the text, making it clear that such errors are only too natural when human beings are involved. The errors may be as trivial as the lack of straight lines when the text is examined under a microscope, but they still make the word “inerrant” a foolish word to use for the Bible.
What I will support is the idea of the Bible being the word of God, meaning God has all the proprietary rights and we should not be changing it as we see fit. I find it plausible that the Bible even with its errors serves God’s intent regardless.
My first response was: “What on earth does that pompous, posturing, self-aggrandising verbosity even mean?”
Then the penny dropped. It’s nothing more nor less than a long-winded, highfalutin appeal to aesthetics. In other words, a way of saying “But it must be wrong because I don’t like it” in the most complicated and convoluted way possible.
But of course, it’s a better argument, because it’s “scholarly.”
a bit off topic of this thread, if you want to discuss this in depth i’d recommend we do so on a different thread…
but my basic observation when i consider this question is to ask if we have any communication from God that is, in fact, inerrant (i.e., true, and without error). i think about it this way which i think gets to the crux of the question:
Did Jesus ever make any mistakes or errors in what he taught?
If jesus did not ever so err, then the question isn’t one of whether “inerrancy” does or doesn’t exist, as we acknowledge that God can and has communicated unvarnished, unadulterated, uncorrupted, and inerrant revelation in at least certain limited contexts… then the actual question is as to whether Scripture can or should be considered one of those cases, and/or to what degree and exactly how.
If we say that Jesus could and did err in what he taught… well, then i submit that this is far more problematic… how we are to be justified before God? whether there is eternal life and how to get there? whether there is a hell and how to avoid it? is greed, lust, hatred, etc., actually all that bad? how, exactly, do we know if these are topics on which he was mistaken, if he was as fallible as the next man? spiritual topics about which we have no ability to independently verify his message, but which we are taking on faith that he was speaking inerranty with authority when he addressed these topics?
so i’d humbly ask, to clarify exactly what we are discussing… do you believe inerrant revelation to exist at all (including the words of Jesus as he originally spoke them to his contemporaries)? or do you think the very concept of inerrancy in any and every conceivable form to be ruled out entirely?
Precisely. This resonates with my own reaction.
(I sometimes call this the argument from personal preference: If X were true, i wouldn’t like it. therefore, X is not true).
The Westminster Confession Chapter 1 has comments pertinent to that.
A basic definition would be that it is the view that the bible does not contain any errors in what it intends to teach, i.e. no theological errors.
Congrats on posting a 40-50 year old quote and only a small snippet of it without context before or after. Does Perrin thinks this proves Paul didn’t write the pastorals or that it engenders doubt? Or that it is just part of a much bigger cumulative argument? Normin Perrin seems to be doing the latter but here is a text I don’t have. Here is a fuller quote:
Vocabulary. While statistics are not always as meaningful as they may seem, of 848 words (excluding proper names) found in the Pastorals, 306 are not in the remainder of the Pauline corpus, even including the deutero-Pauline 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians. Of these 306 words, 175 do not occur elsewhere in the New Testament, while 211 are part of the general vocabulary of Christian writers of the second century. Indeed, the vocabulary of the Pastorals is closer to that of popular Hellenistic philosophy than it is to the vocabulary of Paul or the deutero-Pauline letters. Furthermore, the Pastorals use Pauline words ina non-Pauline sense: dikaios in Paul means “righteous” and here means “upright”; pistis , “faith,” has become “the body of Christian faith”; and so on.
Literary style. Paul writes a characteristically dynamic Greek, with dramatic arguments, emotional outbursts, and the introduction of real or imaginary opponents and partners in dialogue. The Pastorals are in a quiet meditative style, far more characteristic of Hebrews or 1 Peter, or even of literary Hellenistic Greek in general, than of the Corinthian correspondence or of Romans, to say nothing of Galatians.
The situation of the apostle implied in the letters. Paul’s situation as envisaged in the Pastorals can in no way be fitted into any reconstruction of Paul’s life and work as we know it from the other letters or can deduce it from the Acts of the Apostles. If Paul wrote these letters, then he must have been released from his first Roman imprisonment and have traveled in the West. But such meager tradition as we have seems to be more a deduction of what must have happened from his plans as detailed in Romans than a reflection of known historical reality.
The letters as reflecting the characteristics of emergent Catholocism. The arguments presented above are forceful, but a last consideration is overwhelming, namely that, together with 2 Peter, the Pastorals are of all the texts in the New Testament the most distinctive representatives of the emphases of emergent Catholocism. The apostle Paul could no more have written the Pastorals than the apostle Peter could have written 2 Peter.
Now not all critical scholars agree with this. Ehrman doesn’t think the lack of fit in Paul’s life is a good argument. He has written so in his scholarly work.
The quote above is from Peter Kirby’s ECW website. He quotes Kummel after Perrin. I have his intro and while that is a bit dated as well, he puts out some solid arguments.
This is the typical apologists tactic. Poison the well. Try to point out a bad argument by a critical scholar while not dialoging with the current literature and the best formulations of these arguments that have convinced most scholars they are true. Continually dialoging with summary statements, poorer formulations and missing the actual nuance of the arguments. Are you actually seeking truth or just to placate doubts with a false sense of security?
I have repeatedly said I am not interested in bad arguments from anyone and noted that critical scholars do put out bad arguments in favor of pseudonymous composition from time to time. Ehrman said the same.
“Paul” isn’t actually writing a letter to a friend. Ehrman writes this after discussing the different oaths in the genuine Pauline corpus.
“The author of 1 Tim. 2:7 also utters an oath: “I am telling the truth, I am not lying.” This may sound like the other two instances, but it is strikingly different. Here “Paul” is writing to his close companion and erstwhile fellow-missionary Timothy, insisting that he really is a “herald, and apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.” Why would the historical Paul have to swear to this? Why would Timothy suspect anything different? They were companions on the mission field together for years.”
Excerpt From: Ehrman, Bart D. “Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics.” Apple Books.
Curiously, Paul felt compelled to write this to, as you put it, a ‘“true child in the faith”, a friend, colleague, and fellow minister’ with and oath authenticating himself like he did in Romans 9:1 and Galatians Gal 1:20. The cat is out of the bag. Your ship is taking on water. So maybe Dr. Perrin, who was, to use your own words, “dim” and “extremely well-studied, knowledgable, and highly qualified” realizes this. I doubt most scholars who think these letters are pseudonymous believe the internal context shows itself to actually be going to an individual and not meant to move a community. Just a hunch.
Interesting issue with this statement from 1 Timothy 2:7. I had never seen it before, and yet looking at it now for the first time, I’m struck by the lack of subtle distinction. Either the write of 1 Timothy was an outright liar, or Paul made this statement for reasons we are not entirely sure of. Kind of like an inside joke between two associates where an ironic meaning is shared.
Having been a teacher I know that this question is not as simple as you making it out to be. Teaching is a relationship between teacher and student. Even if everything the teacher says is correct it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a mistake when it comes to teaching. Sometimes it can even be better if what the teacher says ISN’T precisely correct. I think it all too likely that both of these are present in the teachings of Jesus.
That is helpful… but not completely… if you mean the intent of God… well… that would be my explanation of the Bible as the word of God… right? But we don’t have the intent of God before us. What we have is a text of words in human language and all the flaws inherent in this means of communication. So even with this definition, I doubt the description is accurate. And so I think my own formula is better… that we simply should not alter the text as we would prefer.
sounds too much like entitlement to me and I don’t believe in that.
That is a question which Jesus answered directly… “with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
The premise I am hearing in this is that we are accepting what you think Jesus’ answers to those questions are. Communication using human language is highly relative to the person who hears/reads the words. It is clear to me that to some people the words of the Bible do not communicate the correct things. And while I can credit that the text does serve God’s purpose, I do not credit that God communicates effectively to everyone who reads the words of the Bible.
I do not see the word “inerrancy” as being a good description of the Bible.
Keep in mind that, to my knowledge, no one who acknowledges Paul’s authorship (evangelical scholar or otherwise) believes that the letters to Timothy and Titus were intended as private letters. Rather they are understood to be letters written to those pastors but also written with the larger congregation as a secondary audience. Probably to assist these Pastors by ensuring that the congregation at large was aware that the things they would be doing in their ministry had Paul’s blessing, or imprimatur.
For instance, would anyone think Paul needed to explain to Titus, in strictly private correspondence, “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.” One would presume they’d have already had this conversation, and Titus would have known good and well why Paul left him in Crete. this statement was clearly not made for Titus’s benefit, no?
So this makes little sense if addressed privately to Titus… Obviously, they would have already had that conversation back when Titus was left in Crete, right? why in the world does Paul need to emphasize again to Titus, appoint elders in every town as I directed you." does he think Titus has that poor a memory?
But it also makes little sense as a pseudopigriphal work that was really written to a church at large in the 2nd century… Paul’s (fictional?) past instructions to Titus would seem largely irrelevant for the “real” author’s second century congregation where Elders have long since been running everything. the current question would be as to who now has authority to appoint elders.
But if this was written to Titus in order to (at least in part) confirm to any doubters in the congregation that Titus’s work in Crete, and his authority to appoint elders, in fact did come directly from Paul, then this “recollection” (or confirmation) of the previous conversation (of Paul’s prior instruction) makes perfect sense.
It really isn’t categorically different than how we use written instructions and orders in the military. we may write an order or instruction to the individual recipient, with whom we’ve in all likelihood already discussed the operation in person (and they may not really need the written guidance)… but the order is put in writing and given to them so that everyone else will know that they are executing that particular operation in the manner they are with the sanction, approval, and guidance of higher authority. I often do this very thing informally in email when i write to an individual but include other recipients in the “cc” line… i write to an individual (and i am indeed writing primarily to them), but i will include additional details that would be odd if it were strictly personal correspondence, which is written really with the “cc” recipients in mind, to make sure they are aware of my guidance to the actual recipient.
So i don’t find it odd at all that Paul would include items for the benefit of those additional recipients, even while the letter itself was indeed written directly to his friend. in the case of 1Tim2:7, i agree of course that we wouldn’t expect Timothy to need such assurance. But there may well have been members of Timothy’s congregation, who Paul intended as secondary recipients, that he may well have felt it necessary to emphasize this.
Now before @Vinnie accuses me of inventing this “ad hoc” explanation of a “dual intended recipients” as special pleading, a desperate apologetic goalpost-moving gambit invented purely from the imagination to try to explain away a difficulty…
I would point out this idea (the author having both the individual pastor and the larger audience simultaneously in mind) is derived quite explicitly from the text, it is not a contrived or manufactured explanation. The most obvious and direct (and succinct) example to my knowledge that explicitly reveals the author’s awareness of and intentionality in addressing both the individual receipient and the larger audience is the closing at the end of 2 Timothy:
Ὁ κύριος μετὰ τοῦ πνεύματός σου. ἡ χάρις μεθ̓ ὑμῶν.
The Lord be with your [singular] spirit. Grace be with you [plural].
The author was clearly writing to an individual, but with the clear expectation that said letter would be read by (or to) the larger congregation.
and the problem remans, as i just noted above, that they can’t acknowledge that it could in fact be both.
Thanks for explaining that, and I confirmed what you said in Gordon Fee’s commentary on I Timothy, “The letter betrays evidences everywhere that it was intended for the church itself, not just Timothy.”
So Ehrman’s point about Paul “writing to his close companion and erstwhile…” seems like a bald case of one scholar speaking past another.
Or it seems like a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it to. When Perrin points out the wild divergences between Paul and the Pastorals, Daniel dismisses him as idiotic because Paul is just writing to a close companion and not a community. So clearly he would write different. But the letter betrays it’s hand and shows itself being written to a community so Perrin’e comments are valid. Only in the land of confused apologetical thinking do you get to have it both ways and move goal posts indefinitely.
Paul has no need to tell Timothy “I swear I am telling the truth.” Either he is writing a letter of a very different sort to a close companion or he is not. Yes he could expect his words to be read to a community but then Perrin’s comments are still valid because Paul could just as easily say “tell the congregation this” and use the style and tone so evidence in his genuine letters.
What this verse does is legitimize Perrin’s arguments as does the other one Daniel mentioned.
It makes perfect sense. The point is to make your “forgery” look accurate.
Like an inside joke or a reference to a shared memory, it need not be necessary.
This is a textbook case of what’s wrong with evangelical apologetics. Imagine just about anything to preserve the status quo. I don’t see Paul’s oath, of which we find in Romans and Galatians, as an inside joke. You are completely fabricating this. A hypothetical what if of which there are endless possibilities and any chance of finding truth slips into obscurity. It looks more like someone emulating Paul’s style but either way, Perrin’s criticism is not absurd as Daniel makes it. Nor is it simple to just say the pastorals are to individuals while Paul’s other letters are to communities as apologists often do in trying to explain the differences.
Daniel’s exact words:
The worst to me is always the way they simply don’t (or won’t?) clue in on the blatantly obvious fact that people write differently to friendly like-minded individual colleagues than they do to audiences at large where they expect potential objections.
Vinnie
Hey it’s a personal decision. Belief in the inerrancy of Scripture is like a Noah’s ark in this upside down stranger world.
And not every explanation for an odd passage has to be absolutely plausible, for belief in the bible to be rational. I believe J.P. Moreland has an essay that’s well received on this subject.
Now, on the flip side, what about all those critical scholars that have no place in their epistemology for an inspired text to begin with???
Fee continues with a passage that is insightful:
“But because of defections in the leadership, Paul does not, as before, write directly to the church, but to the church through Timothy. The reason for this would have been twofold: to encourage Timothy himself to carry out this most difficult task of stopping the erring elders, who had become thoroughly disputatious, and to authorize Timothy before the church to carry out his task.”
Last one, as I’ve hit my 3 comment limit, Fee’s super succinct summary of 2 Timothy is pure gold. I won’t quote it in full, but would like to know if you have seen it, or would like to take a look. It can be found under ‘Occasion and Purpose’
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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