Are christians aware that it seems Paul wrote less than half the epistles?

Question

And it seems they weren't originally intended as "epistles" or "open letters" either. They were intended as letters to specific people or groups to reign in desent.

Computer analysis of them shows that 8 of them were written in such a different manner that they would have come from different authors.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_ntb3.htm

Dosn't this lack of credibility to the authorship undermine much of what christians believe in?

idfb believer.............do you find it a joke because you don't agree with them, or do you have a basis for the statement?

Answer 1

No.

It does however appear that it is your personal mission to discredit Christianity at all cost by casting doubt on anything and everthing possible without actually trying to understand it. In your efforts, it will be excrutiatingly important to steer clear of what Jesus actually taught.

Answer 2

I was aware

Luke wrote Romans, maybe some other (Paul dictated though).
Nobody knows who wrote Hebrews.

Also, its implicit that they were intended as specific letters to groups of people, still, the letters present important theological and historical fundamentals to Christan faith.

The lack of credibility does not, however, undermine Christian beliefs . It is clear that Although Paul didn't wrote all the letters he dictated almost all of the ones he didn't wrote himself (as far as i know only Hebrew's authorship is really questioned, even though nobody question that it was inspired).

Also revelations was probably not entirely written by John, some of his disciples might have finished it after he died. Again this does not undermine Christian faith in any way.

Paz de Cristo

Answer 3

Hey, it is a free country. You can hate Christians 24/7 if you want. No one is going to force you to believe in God.

This doesn't phase me a bit. Paul's message is about the love of Christ. The texts were often copied by monks and such and there was interpretation that went on. It isn't surprising that it was written by 8 different authors. Paul's message seems to be consistant though. It doesn't change the basic tenants of the Christian faith.

Most people have trouble with Paul because he was so anti-gay. Folks if you read what Paul says he states that all sin has equal weight in God's eye. That means those "Christians" who thump you with their Bible are sinning as much as the gays doing their thing. Paul also lambasts trouble makers in Corinth because they tried to distrupt the church there. They happened to be women and Paul gets a lot of scorn today. "Christians" who beat their wives are not practicing the faith the way it is intended.

This evidence does not change the message. Would the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution change in meaning if it were written by Karl Marx? The words are the words. Paul's word is the Word.

Answer 4

Well there should be a bibble with just these books as some so called christians base the whole faith on what is called Pauls writings

Answer 5

Paul was simply writing to his audience as he has done this several times (look at acts where Paul is talking with the greeks). Paul understood that greeks and romans would not get the jewish religion, so why would he use the jewish tradition to prove his point? so he changes his style for his audience. so no, there is no lack of credibility. if anything the simple fact that his letters were passed around from church to church shows that his letters showed substantial authority.

Answer 6

There is no argument over who did NOT write the books of the new testament. It is accepted than none were written by the names on them. The split is over whether they should be taken literally since the authors are unknown. That is the fight in the Southern Baptist Convention, not the authorship.

Answer 7

The bible was written by about 40 different authors - yet they present a unified message. There is no lack of credibility.

Answer 8

Most christians are horse-collared with the paradigm that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ACTUALLY WROTE the gospels that are attributed to them.. When, in fact, they were only COMPILING stories that they had heard from other people
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[A]ll four Gospels are written in Greek, by authors who were reasonably well educated and literate. In comparison with most other persons in the Roman world, all four authors, in fact, evince a high level of education. Something like 90% percent of the general population was completely illiterate — that is, unable to read and write at all.

To be sure, the Gospels are not among the literary masterpieces of antiquity. Their style, for example, is fairly rough overall (Mark is probably the worst, Luke the best). But it’s not easy to write a book, even for well-educated people today, in our highly literate and markedly literary world...

For someone to pull it off in antiquity required a good deal more than the average amount of literary training. And training of that kind required leisure time and money, since the vast majority of people had to work very long days. [...] In the end, it seems unlikely that the uneducated, lower-class, illiterate disciples of Jesus played the decisive role in the literary compositions that have come down through history under their names.

Answer 9

No. What lacks credibility is that you are spiritually blind, therefore can't interpret the one true source, God's Word. It is hilarious to me that any non-believer even has the audacity to think that they can go outside of God's Word and try to dismiss our faith in God or enlighten us of some new revelation that's going to destroy our belief in God. Sorry, you don't hold any power over God's truth or His children! In fact, you have no power because you are puppets on a string being manuvered by your god, Satan, who controls your every move and thought. Did you know that the apostle Paul was a"chosen vessel of God" ( Acts 9:15 ) and he had all nine Gifts of the Spirit?

Answer 10

Perfect example of non believers trying to undermine the authority and credibility of the Bible. Evwen some believers get taken in by this.
It was known they would be circulated.