Studying Paul
Benjamin L. White · 2025
Abstract This chapter describes the contours of the discipline of Pauline Studies and argues that its historiographical practices are still grounded in F. C. Baur’s powerful double move in the early nineteenth century—the delimiting of the authentic Pauline Epistles to just four (i.e., fewer than what the canon has given us) and the devaluation of Acts as a historical account. It shows how arguments about authenticity have always devolved into circular and subjective forms of reasoning and how the way out of such a problem has often been to secure a mathematical solution based on quantifying the differing literary styles of the Epistles. The chapter posits that in many cases math and science as applied to the Pauline authorship problem has been little more than scientificity, and that fuzzy math and statisticulating have papered over decisions already assumed to be true on account of the theological preferences of largely Protestant researchers.