Article Review of Pastoral Epistles



Pauline Authorship and the Pastoral Epistles: Implications for Canon

Summary of the Article

The article which has been taken into the consideration is the 'Pauline Authorship and the Pastoral Epistles: Implications for Canon' which was written by Stanley Porter in 1995. The article has provided the discussion over the status of Pastoral Epistles in the New Testament canon. The article has focused on indentifying that Paul was actually the originator of the letters or he was not. For this concern, Stanley Porter has discussed some factors to reach to the reality which include the epistolary, theology, style, content, and chronology. However, according to the New Testament, Pail was not the author of the Pastoral Epistles as per the views of the number of scholars. Hence, for this concern, the evaluation of Pauline and non-Pauline authorship holds the immense significance. Moreover, it is also believed that Paul may have had the scribal help at the time of composing the letter. In addition to it, study has also discussed the fragmentary hypothesis of Harrison in which it has been hypothesized that the Pauline fragments are included in the Pastoral Epistles. Thus, it validates the removed sense of Pauline authorship. As a result, Harrison concluded that personal nature between Paul and Timothy or Titus is original.

The factors have been used under the article to weigh the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles which includes the chronology according to which the Pauline chronology reestablished through the letters and acts. As per the statement of the authentic letters that Paul had intention to visit Macedonia during his travels as well as he was also detained many of the times. Hence, this confirms that Timothy and Titus could be placed in the Pauline letter chronology. The second factor which has been discussed is about the epistolary format according to which that the letters were not belonged to Pauline authentically as they do not match with the typical epistolary style of Pauline. Hence, the style causes to create much dispute in the Pastoral Epistles due to the vocabulary and proper style. The other factor is pertinent to the content as the measure of authorship. According to a number of scholars that the pastoral epistle attempts to refer to the present structure of the church which includes the bishops, elders, and deacons and other authoritative positions of the community. The other factor which has been described ...