Authorship of the Pauline epistles
The scholarly study of which New Testament letters attributed to Paul were written by him, and which may have been composed by later followers.
Undisputed Pauline epistles: Seven letters that most scholars regard as written by Paul: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. These seven letters form the broad scholarly baseline for comparison.
Stylometry: The quantitative analysis of writing style using measurable features such as word choice and sentence patterns. Statistical style comparisons test whether letters share a likely author.
Paul the Apostle: An early Christian missionary and author whose letters became foundational texts in the New Testament. His life and surviving writings provide the historical reference point for attribution.
Marcion of Sinope: A second-century Christian teacher whose scriptural collection included a version of Luke and ten letters attributed to Paul. His collection is an early witness to the circulation and reception of Pauline letters.
Secretarial authorship: The production of a text by a secretary or amanuensis working under another person's direction. It may explain stylistic variation without requiring a different author for every letter.
Pastoral Epistles: The New Testament letters 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, addressed to individuals and concerned with church leadership. Their vocabulary, organization, and circumstances lead many scholars to question Pauline authorship.
New Testament textual criticism: The study of handwritten copies of the New Testament to reconstruct their earliest recoverable wording. Textual evidence clarifies the wording being compared, though it rarely identifies an author.
New Testament: The collection of twenty-seven Christian writings included in the Christian Bible. The canonical collection preserves the letters whose attributions are under study.
Pauline letter collection: The gathered body of letters attributed to Paul that circulated among early Christian communities. Collection and copying helped preserve the letters as a recognizable group.
Pauline school: A proposed circle of followers who preserved and developed Paul's teachings in early Christianity. The idea offers a social setting for compositions attributed to Paul after his death.