Epilogue

Summary

The authentic-letter perspective has been remarkably durable and presents as a long-settled position on Pauline letters. In terms of certain understandings of early Christianity, the perspective is both attractive and productive. For to locate Paul and Christ groups in the mid-first century is to give historical grounding to Christianity as well as the sense in which there was an ongoing presence of the movement from the time of Jesus. However, an analysis of the historical moorings of the authentic-letter perspective indicates a distinct lack of evidence of Paul, the communities as live entities, and Pauline letters as genuine correspondence. Justifications offered in support of the historicity of Paul is often circular: Paul is said to exist because he authored letters or is mentioned in Acts (a text deemed historically suspect), and support of this assertion comes only from the letters and Acts. Other defenses of the historicity of Paul’s first-century activity, Pauline communities, and the letters as genuine correspondence rely on idealized notions or uncritical methodologies.