From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sun Sep 27 1998 - 18:36:01 EDT
<x-rich>At 1:31 PM -0500 9/26/98, GeorgiabobBeckman wrote:
<excerpt>good thread, sorry I missed it.
one point regarding external evidence. The almost universal testimony
of the manuscript evidence is that Hebrews is Pauline. While there were
still some theoretical concerns about Pauline authorship (stye,
vocabulary, lack of internal claims to authorship) the earl church
<italic>did</italic> settle the issue at a pragmatic level everytime
the NT was copied.
For most of my ministry I took the traditional <italic>Only God knows
who wrote the book of Hebrews</italic> approach. Within the last 3-4
years however I have conceeded that the manuscript evidence may be the
least speculative approach to resolving the issue. We still don't
<bold>know</bold> with complete certainty. . . but at least we are
resolved from rolling the dice on style issues. The problem therein is
that we have to assume that it is impossible for any author at any time
to intentionally adopt a specific style for reasons to which we don't
have access.
</excerpt>
This post is problematic in at least two respects. For one thing it
lacks a signature; while most of us perhaps do see the "From" header in
our e-mail reader, there are some whose mail program indicates only the
immediate sender, which is B-Greek. Our list Netiquette is clear about
the expectation that posters will clearly identify themselves. The
other problem is that there appears to be no basis at all in the NT
Greek text for the proposition being argued here--and although it is
proposed that "the almost universal testimony of the MS evidence is
that Hebrews is Pauline," I do wonder exactly what MS evidence is being
referred to here as "almost universal testimony." What evidence from
significant Greek manuscripts is there for Pauline authorship?
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
</x-rich>
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