156 jermo van nes
to be irreconcilable with Pauline authorship, even by referring to (1) the
author’s versatility in vocabulary usage, (2) alternating circumstances,
(3) the letters’ different subject-matter, (4) the possibility of scribal assis-
tance, (5) the letters’ individual addressees, (6) early Christian intolerance
to the practice of forgery, (7) literary analogies (e.g., in William Shake-
speare), (8) the author’s use of derivate words, (9) citations from the LXX,
and/or (10) the author’s familiarity with classical writings.
Second, Harrison argued that the vocabulary of the PE is closer to that
of second-century Hellenistic authors than to Paul. It is shown that of the
131 Pastoral hapaxes 77 (over 58%) are found in the writings of the Apos-
tolic Fathers and early Apologists. The amount of words shared between
both corpora and the non-Pastoral Paulines ranges from 2.9 (Col) to 4.9
(1 Cor) per page, whereas for the PE this number ranges from 9.2 (2 Tim)
to 13.9 (Titus). Conversely, the PE share only 18 words with the rest of the
Pauline corpus that are missing in both the Apostolic Fathers and early
Apologists. Since there is a higher percentage of words shared between
the PE and Apostolic Fathers (78.3%) than between the non-Pastoral
Paulines and Apostolic Fathers (70.9%), Harrison assumed the PE to be
written between 95 and 145 ce. A second-century date is also supported
by the fact that 75 of the 82 words used in the PE which are not found in
any Christian document written prior to 170 ce, occur in Greco-Roman
sources dating from 95–170 ce.
Finally, evidence is presented that the author of the PE was well versed
in the other Paulines, using five strings of genuine Pauline notes: (1)
Titus 3:12–15; (2) 2 Timothy 4:13–15, 20, 21a; (3) 2 Timothy 4:16–18a (18b?);
(4) 2 Timothy 4:9–12, 22b; and (5) 2 Timothy 1:16–18, 3:10–11, 4:1, 2a, 5b, 6–8,
18b, 19, 21b, 22a. These fragments “are too vivid, individual, concrete, and
altogether too lifelike to be dismissed as mere fiction—at any rate until
every other possibility has been exhausted” (95). Because of their inner
contradictions, Harrison argued, they could not have originated from a
second Roman imprisonment but must have been written by Paul himself
at different times and places. This is to suggest that the author of the PE
wanted to preserve Paul’s legacy faithfully, thus writing in admiration of
Paul with no intention to deceive his audience(s).
Not impressed by his critics,14 Harrison re-affirmed this conclusion 34
years later in an article series entitled “important hypotheses reconsidered.”15
14 For which Harrison himself was criticized by B. M. Metzger, “A Reconsideration of
Certain Arguments Against the Pauline Authorship of the Pastoral Epistles,” ExpTim 70
(1958): 91–94.
15 Harrison, “Authorship.”