84 stanley e. porter
relationship with other prison epistles, present the greater plausibility,
within this proposal.
this concludes a basic summary and specific assessment of various
chronological proposals regarding Paul and the Pastoral epistles, includ-
ing the post-Pauline composition that inherently suggests pseudepigraphal
authorship, post-acts 28 release that posits unrecorded journeys of Paul
in the eastern mediterranean either along with or in place of travels to
spain, and composition within the acts chronology.
Assessment of Chronology and Pseudepigraphy
at this point, i wish to offer a few words of general assessment of how
chronological arguments related to the Pastoral epistles relate to the
issue of pseudepigraphy. let it be kept in mind that i am trying to confine
myself to matters related to chronology, and not become entwined in the
other possible issues that are often mentioned—including style, content,
and theology—in assessment of the authorship of the Pastorals in relation
to pseudepigraphy. the examination above indicates that there are in fact
two major views of the Pastoral epistles and Pauline chronology—one is
to reject fitting the Pastoral epistles into the acts chronology (and create
another scenario for their authorship, whether it be pseudonymy or not)
and the other is to fit the Pastoral epistles into the acts chronology even
if it means possibly positing more events than acts records.
the post-Pauline composition hypothesis is one of the two that rejects
fitting the Pastoral epistles into the acts chronology and creates another
scenario for their authorship, in this case pseudonymous authorship. on
the basis of the matters of chronology raised, i find it hard to believe that
anyone would strongly argue that the Pastoral epistles were post-Pauline
and hence pseudepigraphal, at least on the strength of the arguments that
have been cited above. there is what appears to be a strong irony involved
in the arguments put forward. the long-standing tradition of german crit-
icism of acts and the Pastoral epistles is to doubt the historical veracity of
acts51 and to dismiss fairly summarily the authentic authorship of the Pas-
toral epistles. however, one of the major bases for dismissing authenticity
51 this tradition also dates back to the time of f. C. Baur, and is ably summarized
in W. Ward gasque, A History of the Criticism of the Acts of the Apostles (repr., grand
rapids: eerdmans, 1975), and disputed by Colin J. hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting
of Hellenistic History (ed. Conrad h. gempf; repr., Winona lake, in: eisenbrauns, 1989),
among others.