I tracked down two more reviews of Nina Livesey’s book, “The Letters of Paul in Their Roman Literary Context,” these two in peer-reviewed journals. Because rethinking the date and authorship of these letters is important to how I am now thinking about early Christianity, I am trying to find reasons to question her arguments. I still haven’t found anything to dissuade me that she is on to something important.
The first review is by Christian D. Cardona in the Bulletin for Biblical Research, v. 35, n. 2 (Oct. 2025), pp. 302-306. Cardona offers four criticisms.
First, he questions her rejection of internal evidence for the existence of Paul. Internal evidence is evidence found within the letters attributed to Paul. To me the problem is that such evidence, while worth considering along with other evidence, is insufficient when the reliability of the letters themselves are up for question. And there is not a lot of other evidence.
Second, he charges that the lack of external evidence for the existence of Paul (other than in the Acts of the Apostles) is an argument from silence. That is, the fact that no non-Christian writer mentions Paul cannot establish that Paul was not real. While he is right about this, the lack of such evidence does at least put the traditional claimed authorship of the letters in question.
Third, he questions how, if the letters were created by a school of Marcion in the mid-2nd century, they became known by the author of 2 Peter, which most scholars regard as a mid-2nd century composition. I have two responses to this. One is that I don’t think it is infeasible that knowledge of “Paul”‘s letters could have spread some distance within a decade or two. The second is that I too am doubtful about Livesey’s thesis that the letters were a product of Marionites, but that does not affect her arguments against the early dating of the letters.
Fourth, he points out that the letters of Seneca, which she uses as a model of rhetorical essays disguised as letters, were actually written by Seneca. He says Livesey needs examples of letters in which the supposed author is not the actual author. My response is that the letters of Peter (alluded to above) are now regarded as exactly that. We could say the same about the pastoral letters of “Paul” to Timothy and Titus, which are now widely regarded as pseudonymous.
So none of his criticisms, in my opinion, really landed.
The second review is by Donghyun Jeong in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament, v. 47, n. 5 (Aug. 2025), pp. 41-43. Jeong concedes that Livesey offers a “significant challenge” for dating the letters to the 1st-century but regards her as less successful in placing the letters in a Marionite context. Jeong also allows that she is more convincing in showing the letters are literary-rhetorical constructs.
As mentioned above, I too have reservations about her alternative for the province of the letters. Jeong argues that opponents of Marcion could object that no one heard of the letters before he used them, and that Livesey fails to consider passages in the letters that do not line up with Marcionite positions. Those are good arguments, but lead me to want to consider other 2nd-century possibilities rather than reverting to the 1st century thesis.
Other than that, Jeong’s evaluation rests on the claim that Livesey failed in “completely disproving” the 1st-century thesis. This raises the issue of burden of proof. Are we to accept the 1st-century date if it cannot be “completely” disproved? Why privilege that position when there are good reasons for doubt? And I think Livesey does provide good reasons for doubt. So to me, the date and authorship of the letters are open questions, questions that need to be addressed because so much of early Christian history depends on the answers.
