Bible. New Testament -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Jesus Christ -- Historicity
In opposition to this view the authenticity of even these epistles is
contested, apart from Bruno Bauer, especially by Dutch theologians,
by Pierson, Loman, von Mauen, Meyboom, Matthes, and others; and, in
addition, recently the Bern theologian R. Steck, and B. W. Smith,
Professor of Mathematics in the Tulane University of New Orleans,
with whom the late Pastor Albert Kalthoff of Bremen was associated,
have contested the traditional view with objections that deserve
consideration. They have attempted to prove the Pauline epistles, as a
literary product, to be the work of a whole school of second-century
theologians, authors who either simultaneously or successively wrote
for the growing Church.
This much is certain--a conclusive proof that Paul was really the
author of the epistles current in his name cannot be given. With
regard to this it must always remain a ground for doubt that Luke,
who accompanied Paul on his missionary travels, was completely silent
as to such literary activity of the apostle; and this, although he
devoted the greatest portion of his account in the Acts to Paul's
activities. [293] Also the proof given by Smith, that the Pauline
epistles were as yet completely unknown in the first century a.d.,
that in particular the existence of the Epistle to the Romans is not
testified to before the middle of the second century, must speak
seriously against Paul's authorship, and is evidence that those
epistles cannot be accepted as the primary source of the Pauline
doctrines. For this reason it can in no way be asserted that the
critical theology of last century has "scientifically and beyond
question established" [294] the authenticity of the Pauline writings.
It is well known that the ancient world was not as yet in possession of
the idea of literary individuality in our sense of the word. At that
time innumerable works were circulated bearing famous names, whose
authors had neither at the time nor probably at any time anything
to do with the men who bore those names. Many such productions were
circulated among the members of Sects of antiquity, which passed,
for example, under the names of Orpheus, of Pythagoras, of Zoroaster,
&c., and thereby sought to procure the canonical acceptance of their
contents! Of the works of the Old Testament neither the Psalms, nor
the Proverbs, nor the so-called Preacher, nor the Book of Wisdom,
can be connected with the historical kings David and Solomon, whose
names they bear; and the prophet Daniel is just such a fictitious
personality as the Enoch and the Ezra of the Apocalypses known under
their names. Even the so-called Five Books of Moses are the literary
product of an age much later than the one in which Moses is supposed
to have lived, while Joshua is the name of an old Israelite God after
whom the book in question is called. [295] There has never anywhere
been such a Moses as the one described in the Old Testament.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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