154 jermo van nes
“classic study that provides an authoritative demonstration that Paul did
not write the Pastoral epistles in their present form.”5
In this study, however, the question is posited why it is that many
scholars still rely on Harrison’s work. As will be documented below, dur-
ing its 90 years of reception most of the statistical data have been severely
criticized for reasons other than being based on an outdated edition of the
Greek New Testament. Even those scholars who are willing to accept that
some data are in need of modification still use them to support a fragment
theory of authorship for the PE.6 However, as will be shown, this part
of Harrison’s argument has recently been exposed to severe criticism as
well. Therefore, it will be argued that Harrison’s overall thesis is difficult
to maintain.
2. P. N. Harrison: The Man and the Myth
Percival Neale Harrison was born 1874 in Hanley, Staffordshire (England).7
By the age of 46, he was awarded the degree Doctor of Divinity by the sen-
ate of London University.8 All that is known about his professional life is
that he became a Reverend who after the publication of The Problem of
the Pastoral Epistles wrote one other major monograph on the integrity
of Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians9 and a companion/supplementary
volume to his original study of the PE.10 He also wrote several articles, but
none of these would be as influential as his monographs.11 It is said that
n. 89; I. H. Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles (ICC: Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999; repr. 2006),
60–61.
5 B. D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian
Writings (5th ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 420. Cf. D. Burkett (An Introduc-
tion to the New Testament and the Origins of Christianity [Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002], 444), who describes it as a “classic study that shows the differences in style
between the Pastorals and Paul’s letters.” J. D. G. Dunn (“The First and Second Letters to
Timothy and the Letter to Titus,” in NIB XI [Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2000], 786)
even calls it the “most compelling statement of the case for post-Pauline authorship based
on the language of the Pastorals.”
6 E.g., Collins, I & II Timothy and Titus, 5; Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 59–92.
7 Cf. “England and Wales Census, 1911,” index, FamilySearch, https://familysearch.org/
pal:/MM9.1.1/ XW4X-V9P (accessed February 17, 2013).
8 Harrison, Problem, vi.
9 P. N. Harrison, Polycarp’s Two Epistles to the Philippians (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1936).
10 P. N. Harrison, Paulines and Pastorals (London: Villiers, 1964).
11 P. N. Harrison, “Onesimus and Philemon,” ATR 32 (1950): 268–94; “The Author-
ship of the Pastoral Epistles,” ExpTim 67 (1955): 77–81; and “The Pastoral Epistles and
Duncan’s Ephesian Theory,” NTS 2 (1956): 250–61. Other contributions include a review on