One of the most talked-about sessions at this year’s Society of Biblical Literature meeting was the panel on Nina Livesey’s new book, The Letters of Paul in Their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship (Cambridge University Press, 2025). Livesey’s thesis is bold: the Pauline letters are not first-century correspondence at all, but second-century literary inventions crafted in Roman philosophical circles. According to her, these texts emerged in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt, shaped by schools like Marcion’s and designed to project apostolic authority through fiction.
Before I go further, let me stress: what follows is my own interpretation of the discussion. I’m not speaking for the other panelists, and I would never share unpublished material in detail. These reflections aim to capture the themes and questions raised—not direct quotes or definitive summaries.
The Panel in Brief
Nina Livesey attempts to dismantle the long-standing assumption that seven Pauline letters are authentic. She argues that this model is a nineteenth-century construct, patched together to preserve a theological narrative of early Christian origins. Her alternative: the letters are literary exercises, akin to Seneca’s Moral Epistles, designed to instruct and persuade through rhetorical artistry and that they date to the Second Sophistic (possibly a school of Marcion’s in Rome)— that is, the second century.
Markus Vinzent largely agrees, situating the earliest Pauline collection in Marcion’s school and emphasizing its fictional character. For him, Livesey’s thesis converges with his own work on the formation of the Pauline corpus. I will note, however, that he chose not to read his prepared paper in the panel and, after hearing the other responses, backed off of his original, more full-throated support of the thesis.
Paula Fredriksen pushes back, questioning Livesey’s reliance on the Bar Kokhba revolt as a causal context and her assumption that literary tropes equal fiction. Fredriksen defends a historical Paul and notes that eschatological urgency in the letters makes little sense as a second-century invention.
Jason BeDuhn finds Livesey’s demolition of the “authentic letter” model convincing but raises major questions about her positive hypothesis. If Marcion composed the letters, why don’t they reflect his theology more clearly?
My Reflections: Literary Invention and Historical Imagination
Livesey’s book is provocative and creative, but in my view, it depends on a series of assumptions that don’t hold up under scrutiny.
First, by reading Paul as a second-century construct, Livesey sidesteps the philosophical and rhetorical elements in the letters that firmly situate them in the first century. Paul’s engagement with Middle Platonic ideas and Stoic physics is not incidental—it reflects a specific intellectual moment. To imagine second-century authors “tea-staining” these features to make them look outdated strains credulity.
Second, the book presumes that the communities addressed in the letters are fictional yet cohesive. This assumption underwrites the claim that the letters simulate apostolic authority. But as Stanley Stowers and others have shown, the notion of stable, bounded communities is a modern projection. Paul’s letters reveal interpretive sparring, not communal harmony.
Third, Livesey treats Acts as a literary template for the Pauline letters, assuming editorial changes respond to Acts. This reverses the historical order and ignores Acts’ own rhetorical function as a late synthesis.
Finally, the argument misunderstands ancient epistolary conventions. Letters in antiquity were not seamless literary wholes but flexible instruments of social action—tools for exhortation, rebuke, and philosophical reflection. Composite hypotheses often reflect modern aesthetic judgments, not ancient practice.
Why This Debate Matters
Livesey’s thesis forces us to revisit long-standing assumptions about authenticity and authorship. Even if we reject her conclusions, the conversation opens space for interdisciplinary approaches that integrate literary theory, social identity frameworks, and comparative studies. It reminds us that early Christian texts were not static mirrors of historical reality but dynamic, rhetorical works shaped by—and shaping—their intellectual world.
Again, these are my own reflections on the themes raised in the session. The debate is ongoing, and that’s a good thing. Questioning our assumptions is vital to the health of the field.