Imagine being such a persecuted group in America that you get to blast spam mail to everyone in your community in the name of religion with no repercussions.

  • HelixDab2@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    Even if that’s true–and I don’t know if it is or not, because I’m not a true biblical scholar–the fact is that 1 Timothy is recognized as canon throughout the Christian world. Even if it’s a forgery, it’s been accepted as gospel for the last 1800 years or so.

    …And that’s completely ignoring the fact that most people that get really deep into scholarly historical bible studies very quickly end up as agnostics and atheists, because you can’t square the historical record with any religion currently practiced.

    • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      Here’s a chart of a poll of scholars on the letters: https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/uq26n8/which_nt_epistles_did_paul_actually_write/

      And yes, often people who pursue scholarship tend to have a deconversion moment, especially if they were coming from more conservative or orthodox backgrounds. I’ve also seen people go the other direction, which is a bit odd to me, but whatever floats their boat. The texts are a mess of revisionism and edits that fly in the face of any kind of literalism.

      But those revisions and edits reveal a lot in what they sloppily cover up, or the motivations behind the changes, etc. It’s actually a really fun field of study.

      For example, I disagree with the consensus linked for 2 Timothy, as if you look at the letters given a recent finding that covert narcissists talk about themselves more in their writing, Paul talks about himself vs others at a similar relative rate as the undisputed Epistles, which isn’t the case for any other disputed Epistle, and is much more than all the other Epistles. (Some other reasons too, but that’s the main data point I think is interesting.) Paul definitely appears to have been that type of narcissist, and it may reveal what he did or didn’t write.