Sources

Part 1: PAUL AND HIS WORLD
Chapter One RETURN OF THE RUNAWAY?
2 Philemon and the Study of Paul
(v) Sources

The first question most historians ask has to do with sources. Here we face a problem as much of scholarly fashion as of historical substance. Since the present volume is designed to challenge and reshape in quite a radical way the ‘normal’ ways of understanding Paul historically and theologically, and since the judgments made about ‘authenticity’ grow directly out of, reflect and perpetuate the views I am challenging, it seems to me absurd simply to collude with the ruling hypothesis, to concede as it were some of the prosecution’s main points when in fact there is a good defence to be offered...