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Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Marcoin actually only accepted 11 of the 27 New Testament books into his canon. He only accepted 1 of the gospels(Luke) and he edited it himself before accepting it into his canon.

There was no canon at that point, so to say Marion only accepted 11 of the 27 books is misleading. Marcion chose those 11 not out of 27, but out of many gospels, letters, and apocalypses.

The whole idea of a "canon" of Christian writings may have even originated with Marcion, certainly the earliest list of writings that the list's author thought were authoritative was from Marcion.

After that various lists circulated for hundreds of years before settling on the set used by many churches today (not all though, there's still disagreements about which NT books are canonical). Of course each person's list is going to reflect their outlook on various doctrinal questions, that's why there were generations of many different lists.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

It should be telling that both Origen and Marcoin were excommunicated by their own religious communities at some point in their short lives. They both rejected certain books of the Bible because they conflicted with their personal teachings.

This makes no sense. "Sorry we're excommunicating you because you rejected certain books of a canon of scripture that hasn't even been made yet."

They were rejected by those who had a different view, and accepted by those who accepted their view or held the same views, the same as proto-othodox writings and authors were rejected by those who held different views.

All of which is interesting but hardly relevant, the authorship of Paul's letters isn't disputed because of the authority of Marcion or Origen.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Apparently according to your article

It's not my article, it's just a convenient summary of the issues with lots of references.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

most modern scholars reject or have serious doubts about the authorship of some of Pauls epistles but, I see no examples of denominations altering their Canons in light of this witness. I also am not aware of any of the new translations omitting some of Paul's epistles. With two or three new translations coming out every year you would think someone would stick to this new revised Canon. I see no movement in that direction.

Why would there be? It's "The Bible", not "The list of what we currently think is right".

Scholars and people willing to accept a more nuanced view wouldn't remove the pseudepigraphic letters because there's no point, and those with a literalist view would never accept the possibility of such a thing anyway.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I also wonder why modern scholarship would have more credibility than the scholarship 1600 years closer to the source?

Modern scholarship just goes by what is written, it's not like they have access to more information. But they have access to much better technology, much better methodology, much better communication. It wasn't nearly as organized or developed back then.

When Jesus was walking the earth, no one beyond a few followers and locals knew or cared. Who would care to examine the claims of some guy named Paul or some gospel authors when they were going on about someone no one else had heard of or written about? And by the time enough cared for scholarship had begun, a century or more of proliferation of writings and copies had taken place.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I mean wouldn't there be a net loss of information over that time?

Not necessarily, more copies means more information, not less. Not necessarily GOOD information though

The question is is there enough loss of information to make something like the authorship of a letter indeterminable. You can't both argue that there is enough information loss to make authorship impossible to determine AND argue that there's little enough information loss that there's zero change to the meaning and intent.

We're in a much better position to evaluate that information loss though, if you wanted a copy of a letter to study back then you had to have one commissioned, which was another copy with its own set of errors, making the problem worse. Now scholars can have access to detailed images of every single copy, and computers to analyze and index and cross reference every word.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Most likely some of the churches still existed that these letters were written to. There is no doubt that more of the early writings of the church Fathers still existed which would have referenced Paul's writings. Obviously the copies of the originals were nearer to the source as well.

But unless they traveled to each church and viewed or took that original they wouldn't have access to it. If they went and viewed it they wouldn't have it for reference. If they took it then the church would be left with a (flawed) copy. Don't view the problem in light of our fast travel, perfect copies, and instant communication.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

In the absence of new compeling evidence wouldn't the early scholarship carry more weight?

But new and compelling evidence is exactly what there is. No one 1600 years ago could take all the existing copies of all the letters of Paul in Greek and analyze their vocabulary. Or at least they couldn't within a reasonable amount of time and get someone to pay for it. Today a large number of scholars can spend significant portions of their adult lives analyzing doctrinal positions of Paul's letters and comparing and contrasting them, all communicating their findings back and forth and discussing and working out the issues and finding a consensus. That simply wasn't possible 1600 years ago, things were too slow, far less literate people, far less educated people...

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

What have I missed that cause you to say with any certainty that Paul didn't author some of the books that is credited to him within the Canon of scriptures? Could you tell me in your own words rather than just providing a link? Thanks.

First it was common in those times. Many authors wrote about the problems of pseudonymous writings (things written in an author's name, but not by that author).

There are many examples of this happening. Third Corinthians was written in the 2nd century in the name of Paul to combat views that Jesus was not flesh and blood at all that were circulating then. Another is the Sibylline oracles where Christian authors took the writings of a pagan prophetess and inserted references to the coming of the Messiah to support their cause. Or another when Paul(?) in Colossians tells his readers to also read his letter to Laodicea, of which there are no copies.. except when someone helpfully writes one in Paul's name in the 2nd century. There's tons more.

So it was a common phenomenon. It's not implausible at least that some of the writings claiming to be written by Paul aren't.

One thing used is vocabulary. Everyone has a vocabulary that they use. The pastoral epistles have a significantly different vocabulary than the rest of Paul. Over 35% of the words used in the pastorals don't appear anywhere else in Paul, and more than 2/3rds of those words are words common to 2nd century Christian writings. Even specific meanings of words vary, the meaning of some words Paul uses in the pastorals is different than how he uses the same words in the other letters.

Another is style. Same thing, except with patterns of words and common phrases and the thousand other things which you can identify in someone's style. Paul generally wrote short simple sentences but the author of Ephesians and Colossians both wrote long and complicated sentences. Almost 10 percent of the sentences in Ephesians are over fifty words, while Galatians (undisputed) has only one.

Another way is by the actual theological content.

2nd Thessalonians for example tells people to stop thinking the end has already arrived, that there will be clear signs, while 1st Thessalonians has a different theme, calming people who are worried that Jesus hasn't returned yet and that some of them have died, that the dead will be raised first and to be vigilant because the end will come suddenly.

Or the author of Colossians disagrees with Paul's view on baptism. Paul clearly says that baptism is dying with Christ but the resurrection has not yet happened, 1 Corinthians is all about the future resurrection because the Christians there thought they had already experienced a kind of resurrection and were already ruling and reigning. Colossians specifically says though that "When you were buried with him in baptism you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. (2:13)".

The pastoral epistles deal with a different structure of church than Paul describes in 1 and 2 Corinthians, one that seems to be closer to the 2nd century of church than the apostolic era of Paul.

There's mountains of books and scholarly works on the subject.. not a case of people trying to disprove belief in god, just people trying to better understand this piece of writing. This isn't meant to be exhaustive, it's just touching the surface.