[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

...churches knew that counterfeits existed they wouldn't readily accept books from unknown sources. If the writing didn't conflict with doctrines extablished by trusted scriptures they might be read. But churches required convincing. The earlier books in the canon had the testimony of the Apostles to authorize them. After they were all gone the testimony of the church Fathers and the histories of the churches who first recieved these epistles had to do.

You are correct on the bolded part: that individual pieces of writing were accepted or rejected almost primarily upon the basis of how well they accorded with official church "doctrine." However, this was NO guarantee at all that all the writings that eventually came to form the NT canon were in fact written by those who were purported to have been their authors. One method to ensure the viability of one's ideas was to locate them within a "school" of one of the known prophets or apostles. We have in our possession hundreds of such know examples of this pseudonymous writing, and a considerable amount of it tends to be in close keeping with what would have been considered "sound doctrine". Their existence is one of the reasons why there is a considerable amount of skepticism towards the authorial claims of a number of the NT epistles.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

The evidence would consist of the testimony of the churches that first received the letter and any written material from the first century that commented or quoted the letter. If it was known to be accepted by an Apostle that would have helped. Books that lied about their authorship would obviously been rejected.

How is this obvious?! Pauline authorship was attached to the Epistle to the Hebrews and is now universally rejected. As I mentioned earlier, if the claims of a given piece of writing were doctrinally sound, highly useful and presented no problems for the cardinal position of a given church community, then there was never any reason at all to raise questions regarding its authorship.

The reasons that scholars tend to doubt the authorial claims of the Pastoral Epistles stem from literary and sociological evidence, as well as from history and from technical studies of manuscripts. This is far different than the sort of investigation that would have taken place in the post-first century Church, whose concerns were entirely theological. The disputed epistles would not have raised any questions concerning their authenticity, simply because there was nothing within them that presented much in the way of any serious contraventions of church doctrine.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

...Polycarp...

The 2 heretics we've been discussing were excommunicated because they left sound doctrine. The doctrine they left is found in scriptures. Also the authority to do such a thing is found in scriptures.

I think that this is actually very supportive of my point, which is that doctrine proceeded Scripture. The two heretics in Polycarp are not censured for having accepted some anathema piece of writing as "Scripture", nor are they charged with having doubted the authenticity of one of Paul's letters or such. They are charged with denying specific doctrines that have been established by the Church. There is a sharp difference between "Scripture" and "doctrine" that I believe you have overlooked.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

...the fact that these epistles were received early as scriptures and with no significant opposition until the 1900s weighs in faviour of their authenticity. I don't discount the scholarship of the men who asked these same questions over the last 1800 years.

The theory of a flat earth and a closed universe received no significant opposition for thousands of years as well. Do you discount the scholarship of the men who supported this position? One wonders why in light of the benefit of doubt that you so willingly have extended to the proponents of disputed authorship.

Furthermore, why does the longevity of a given position "weigh in its favour"? If something is wrong, it is wrong regardless of how long it was believed to be right.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

And I think you've been sold a load of goods. This discussion began with you stating that Paul didn't write the pastorial epistles. You don't know that. You've also never looked at your "evidence" with a critical eye or you would have found it wanting.

With this statement, I very seriously wonder how carefully you have yourself looked at the evidence. The argument for pseudonymity in the Pauline corpus is quite strong on the basis of literary as well as sociological grounds. Of course, all of this is not provable one way or the other, but for you to merely dismiss the position is a "bill of goods" is both preposterous and disingenuous.