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» Christian Message Boards   » Bible Studies   » Bible Topics & Study   » Paul's writings -- forged?

   
Author Topic: Paul's writings -- forged?
GaMinister
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The Early Church Fathers referred to and quoted Paul's letters verbatim. Many of these 1st Century pastors were in churches that Paul himself established, and had firsthand knowledge of his preaching and his letters. There is absolutely no empirical evidence that anyone other than Paul wrote the letters ascribed to him. In his History of the Church, ca. 300 AD, Eusebius states which books of the New Testament were written by whom. There was no doubt then, as there is none now.
Posts: 4 | From: Georgia | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
BORN AGAIN
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If these letters were forged, they are great forgeries. And what is a forgery anyway? Is a forgery not an exact copy of the original anyway? So I still got my New Testament, pirated copies or not, just like China. [Big Grin] ::::::::::::::::::::::
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Carmela
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Good scripture Seraph.

I think that the problem is that they choose to turn a blind eye. When I was younger someone asked me, "what if I died and found out there isn't a God?" I didn't know the bible as well back then but my answer was this. Right now I am living my life trying to improve myself daily so that I become a better person and the bible gives me direction on how I should be changing. So if I die and find out that there isn't a God ( I believe there is of course) but I wouldn't have lost anything because I am a better person in the long run. However, if I choose to live a wild, loose life style and I died only to find that God does exist, I have lost everything. So, what do I have to lose for believing? Nothing!!

Many people go out of their way to prove that the bible is wrong however the bible only tells us how to live a better life for the most part. The people that choose to prove the bible wrong are usually the people that don't want to change their life style so instead they choose to find ways to try and justify it. Either way, they are the only ones who lose in the end.

I have heard the arguments, but I choose to believe in the cross and the bible.

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www.pinecrest.org

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Seraph
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TG,

When I read over what your had written it made me think of 2 Tim 4: 3-4

'For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.'


God Bless you all!

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TEXASGRANDMA
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I believe that God allowed exactly what books He wanted in the Bible. Remember the Bible is the oldest book in the world. If God had not protected His Word from the very beginning it would have been lost. I believe that God who spoke the Word and the world was born is more than capable to make sure only what was His Word got into the Bible. To start questioning the Bible is to open yourself to the devil for who knows what ideas. I choose to believe the Bible, as is.

I have come across a group that totally dismisses all of Paul’s work. I believe the devil attacks Paul’s work because Paul spoke the truth about what God feels about homosexuals. This has made many in the homosexual community displeased with Paul and his writings. If they can dismiss Paul, then can ease their own conscious, and consider themselves right with God, while they live a sinful life. But, we cannot go through God’s word and dismiss scripture because it interferes with our sinful lifestyles.
betty

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Luk 21:28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
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Candle1978
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Obviously, *I* don't believe they're forged, but there is a new breed of Christians that is preaching that the Bible is not co-authored by God and that parts of the Bible (especially Paul's writings and Peter's, to an extent) are forged. Here's an example of this found at another message board:

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"The question is not whether or not first- or second- century Christians ever forged documents in Paul's name. We know they that it happened. 2 Thessalonians 2:2 refers to a forged letter, and a proto-orthodox Christian (the group who were the foundation of what became the Catholic Church) confessed to forging 3 Corinthians. In addition, we have other writings in Paul's name that no one thinks are genuine (including correspondence between Paul and the philosopher Seneca, as well as an apocalypse).

1 & 2 Timothy, as well as Titus, are collectively known as the Pastoral Epistles, because each deals with "Paul" writing to someone he had appointed to lead one of his church plants: Timothy in Ephesus, and Titus on the island of Crete. Also, each deals with pastoral advice.

The overall themes of each of these letters are more or less the same. The problems involve both false teachers creating problems for the churches, as well as the internal organization of those churches and their leaders.

Most scholars are reasonably convinced that all three Pastoral Epistles were written by the same author. The writing style, subject matter, and specific content are similar enough that if they weren't written by the same person, then one was used as a model by an imitator for the others. But was that one writer Paul?

Keep in mind that if someone "discovered" a never-before-seen Pauline letter that espouses attending Mass every Saturday night, going to confession, and saying Hail Mary's, what would you think of such a letter? Since those traditions developed long after Paul passed away, we would automatically see this letter as a forgery.

There are similar (but not quite as blatant) problems with the Pastoral Epistles. For starters, in the original Greek, there are 848 different words used in the Pastorals, and of these, 306 occur nowhere else in the Pauline corpus. So, over one-third of the vocabulary in non-Pauline. However, two-thirds of the non-Pauline words are used by second-century proto-orthodox writers. Is this alone convincing? No. But it is significant.

Some of the word meanings are different in the Pastorals, as well. For example, Paul's word for "having a right standing before God" ("righteousness") now means "being a moral individual" ("upright;" Titus 1:8), while the term "faith," which for the rest of the Pauline corpus refers to a trusting acceptance of the death of Christ for salvation, now refers to the body of teaching that makes up the Christian religion (see Titus 1:13).

Furthermore, the problem of false teaching being attacked in the Pastorals appears to be Gnosticism. However, the earliest we can date Christian Gnosticism is the early- to mid-second century. Not even Paul's opponents at Corinth were as advanced as these are made out to be.

Attacks against Christian Gnosticism were made by the second century proto-orthodox writers. The way that they were able to do this was to put on a unified front involving a rigorous administrative hierarchy (the clergy); insisting that all true Christians profess a set body of doctrines promoted by the members of the clergy (the creeds); and appealing to a set of authoritative books of Scripture as bearers of these truths (the canon). None of these things were used or were around in Paul's time. However, they are displayed in the Pastoral Epistles.

The methods that are discussed for appointing the clergy and passing on tradition in the Pastorals are closely aligned with what we find in the second-century proto-orthodox writers, but would have been foreign concepts in Paul's time.

Christian writings were not set on a par with the Jewish Scriptures until the second century, but there are traces of references to this activity in the Pastorals.

There are other things as well: their preoccupation with social arrangements in this world and respectability in the eyes of outsiders rather than with the coming apocalypse; their insistence that church leaders be married, rather than Paul's stated preference of single and celibate; their assumption that Timothy is a third-generation Christian (hardly possible in Paul's day). But the biggest problem is that their vocabulary and concerns reflect what was transpiring among prot-orthodox Christians a generation or two after Paul's death, rather than what Paul may have encountered in his day."

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What do you all think of this? I don't see any solid evidence of Paul's writings being forged, but what do you think?

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