Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:11:26.187Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - The Press toward the Authentic-Letter Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2024

Nina E. Livesey
Affiliation:
University of Oklahoma
Get access

Summary

Through a broad history of the interpretation of Pauline letters, the chapter highlights a difference between their earliest understanding as authoritative and scripture-like, and Enlightenment readings when they became valued for their historical worth. Both during and following the Enlightenment, issues surrounding the letters became relevant, such as authorship, provenance, language style, and social-political context. In addition, scholars like F.C. Baur and others mined the letters they deemed authentic for what they might reveal about Early Christianity. Yet the methodologies adopted to assess a letter’s authenticity (authorship) and historical reliability were variously flawed and very often circular, with the result that the scholarship reified a subjective an and unsubstantiated history. Criteria of authenticity reveal Pauline favoritism. The interpretation of Pauline letters as genuine correspondence can be attributed in large part to the flawed interpretation of the nineteenth-century scholar Adolf Deissmann. While rejecting Deissmann’s underlying and determinative rationale, NT scholars nonetheless carried forward his overall assessment of the letters as genuine correspondence.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context
Reassessing Apostolic Authorship
, pp. 31 - 72
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×