 Authorship of Pauline epistles revisitedJacques Savoy Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, 2019, vol. 70, issue 10, 1089-1097 Abstract: The name Paul appears in 13 epistles, but is he the real author? According to different biblical scholars, the number of letters really attributed to Paul varies from 4 to 13, with a majority agreeing on seven. This article proposes to revisit this authorship attribution problem by considering two effective methods (Burrows' Delta, Labbé's intertextual distance). Based on these results, a hierarchical clustering is then applied showing that four clusters can be derived, namely: {Colossians‐Ephesians}, {1 and 2 Thessalonians}, {Titus, 1 and 2 Timothy}, and {Romans, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians}. Moreover, a verification method based on the impostors' strategy indicates clearly that the group {Colossians‐Ephesians} is written by the same author who seems not to be Paul. The same conclusion can be found for the cluster {Titus, 1 and 2 Timothy}. The Letter to Philemon stays as a singleton, without any close stylistic relationship with the other epistles. Finally, a group of four letters {Romans, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians} is certainly written by the same author (Paul), but the verification protocol also indicates that 2 Corinthians is related to 1 Thessalonians, rendering a clear and simple interpretation difficult. Date: 2019 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jinfst:v:70:y:2019:i:10:p:1089-1097 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article More articles in Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology from Association for Information Science & Technology |
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