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Ancient authors are not
that easy to pin down. Often, it was
considered too egotistical to attach your own name to a book you had written,
so many books were given pseudonyms of famous people. Tradition has assigned Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John to the four Gospels, but there is little to go on regarding exactly
who the evangelist “Matthew” was. The
best we can do is to call whoever wrote the first Gospel “Matthew.” Not everybody today believes William
Shakespeare wrote all those plays.
Still, whoever wrote them, they are still the best of plays. The Apostle Paul has a
slightly different dilemma with all of his letters. No doubt that he was a real person and
whatever biographical details are found in the letters are considered
genuine. No one doubts that he wrote a
number of letters to the churches he had established, although there are a number
of letters most now believe he didn’t write.
Instead, disciples of Paul probably wrote some of the others using his
style and vocabulary as much as they could.
Not fraud, but the honour of imitation. One of the most debated
letters is Ephesians. Some still
believe Paul wrote Ephesians, but most say now that it was someone else who
wrote the letter. Exactly who did is
still a guessing game that may never be answered. Nevertheless, does it matter in the final reading? “Be imitators of God” is the word, or as
Eugene Peterson translates it, “Watch what God does.” That is not easy, but it is Good News no
matter who said it. |
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