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Secretaries and the Authorship of New Testament Epistles: Evaluating the Historical Method behind the Amanuensis Hypothesis
Abstract
Abstract: The amanuensis hypothesis has long been a popular method of defending traditional authorship claims of disputed NT epistles. Scholars who espouse this view maintain that, in the Greco-Roman world, secretaries were afforded the freedom to (extensively) shape the letters they transcribed. As a result, proponents contend that authenticity judgments cannot be based on the style or content of a given letter. While various objections have been leveled against the theory over the years, its methodological underpinnings have been largely overlooked. With a view toward the standard objectives and processes that define the historical method, I examine how the amanuensis hypothesis has been constructed. I seek to demonstrate the (methodological) fragility of the theory by focusing on its historiographic aims, argumentative logic, and evidential basis.
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(2026) · Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht eBooks · doi:10.13109/9783666502781.337
Metadata
- Authors
- Williams, T. B.
- Corresponding author
- Williams, Travis B.
- ORCID
- Williams, Travis B.
- Venue
- The Catholic Biblical Quarterly
- Publisher
- Project MUSE
- Published
- 2025-07
- Volume
- 87
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 502-520
- ISSN
- 0008-7912 (ISSN-L)
- 2163-2529
- OpenAlex
- W4414670166
- Cited by
- 1
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1
- FWCI
- 20.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Catholic Biblical Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Biblical Studies and Interpretation
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Classical Studies and Philology
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Authorship Attribution and Profiling
- Keywords
- New Testament epistles, disputed authorship, secretaries, amanuenses, historical method, authenticity of letters, historiography, epistolary style
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