Pauline Authorship and the Pastoral Epistles: Implications for Canon

Abstract

The question of authorship usually dominates discussions of the states of the Pastoral Epistles in the New Testament canon. A number of factors have often been suggested as important to consider: chronology, epistolary format, style, content, and theology. This paper's concern is not ultimately to adjudicate the issue of authorship, but to examine some of the evidence, and then to raise some questions regarding canon that are suggested by the conclusions.