Radical criticism

Radical criticism names a late nineteenth century movement that treated the Pauline letter collection and the Acts as second century literary products and typically denied authentic authorship of any Pauline epistles. It developed in Dutch and German scholarship after Allard Pierson's 1878 study of the Sermon on the Mount, reached programmatic form in Abraham Dirk Loman's Quaestiones Paulinae of 1882–1886, and was elaborated in Willem Christiaan van Manen's three volume Paulus published 1890–1896.^[1][2][3]

Radical criticism
Rembrandt's depiction of the Apostle Paul
Type	Academic movement in biblical studies
Theology	Reassessment of the Pauline corpus and Acts as second century literature
Region	Netherlands and Germany
Founder	Allard Pierson, Abraham Dirk Loman, Willem Christiaan van Manen
Origin	c. 1878
Branched from	Bruno Bauer, Tübingen school
Defunct	1957
Publications	Theologisch Tijdschrift; W. C. van Manen, Paulus (1890–1896); later revival in the Journal of Higher Criticism (from 1994)

Building on Bruno Bauer's earlier critique of the Pauline corpus and of Acts,^[4][5] radical critics argued that the earliest dateable collection of Pauline letters is Marcion's Apostolikon, described by recent scholarship as the "earliest witness of Pauline letters."^[6] In the Netherlands the movement continued into the early twentieth century under Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga, but with his death in 1957 the line of university appointments associated with the school ended.^[7][8] Outside of a small circle, the thesis remained a minority view and faced sustained criticism from mainstream New Testament scholars.^[9][10][11]

Historical background

Radical criticism took shape in a learned milieu shaped by philology, the rise of historical method, and critical editions of classical and Christian texts. In the Dutch context these debates intersected with wider theological realignments of the nineteenth century.^[12]

Nineteenth century writers used radikale Kritik for positions that went beyond the Tübingen school's acceptance of four authentic Hauptbriefe and instead questioned the entire Pauline corpus.^[13][6] Writers in the Dutch school applied the term to a focused critique of Paul and Acts, while still engaging broader questions of Gospel tradition and early Christian history.^[7]

Precursors included Bruno Bauer's 1850 analyses of Acts as a literary work that harmonizes competing traditions, and of the Pauline letters as pseudonymous compositions.^[4][5] In 1878 Allard Pierson published De Bergrede en andere synoptische fragmenten, a study often cited as the movement's starting point in the Netherlands.^[1] Abraham Dirk Loman followed with Quaestiones Paulinae in Theologisch Tijdschrift between 1882 and 1886, arguing from argumenta externa that the epistles lack secure attestation before the mid second century.^[2][14] Willem Christiaan van Manen completed the school's classic statement with Paulus in three volumes between 1890 and 1896.^[3]

Dutch Radical School

The end of Ephesians, continuing on to Galatians 1:1–8 on Papyrus 46 (fol. 158 recto; c. AD 200)^[15]

The Dutch school comprised overlapping circles of theologians and classicists who concentrated on the Pauline letter collection, Acts, and second century witnesses such as Marcion's Apostolikon. The school worked from nineteenth century critical editions and repertories and made extensive use of Dutch and German periodical literature.^[7][16]

Radical critics advanced an interlocking theory of three claims. First, they held that the Pauline collection is largely or entirely pseudonymous and that its final form is second century.^[6] Second, they described Acts as a literary construct that reconciles Petrine and Pauline streams within emerging catholic Christianity.^[4] Third, they appealed to Marcion's Apostolikon as the "earliest witness of Pauline letters" and used this datum to frame hypotheses about the origin and circulation of the corpus.^[6] Some extended these arguments by analyzing dependence on Jewish scripture and Greco-Roman literary commonplaces.^[3]

Status	Categorization[3][6]	Work
Pseudonymous, second century	Attested in Marcion's Apostolikon, the earliest witness of Pauline letters.[17][18][6]	Epistle to the Galatians First Epistle to the Corinthians Second Epistle to the Corinthians Epistle to the Romans First Epistle to the Thessalonians Second Epistle to the Thessalonians Epistle to the Ephesians (as "Laodiceans" in Marcion)[18] Epistle to the Colossians Epistle to the Philippians Epistle to Philemon
Pseudonymous, second century	Absent from Marcion's Apostolikon. Catholicizing compositions later than the Marcionite set.[2][3]	First Epistle to Timothy Second Epistle to Timothy Epistle to Titus
Not Pauline	Anonymous sermon. Not part of the Pauline collection in any reconstruction.[3]	Epistle to the Hebrews
Second century literary construct	Harmonizes Petrine and Pauline streams within emerging catholic Christianity. Dated to the second quarter of the second century.[4][3]	Acts of the Apostles

The first page of the epistle in Minuscule 699 gives its title as προς θεσσαλονικεις, "To the Thessalonians."

Allard Pierson opened the discussion with philological criticism of the Sermon on the Mount and skepticism toward the Galatians.^[1] Abraham Dirk Loman pressed a comprehensive case for second century origins of the Pauline collection, disputing the value of early patristic testimony for the epistles. Loman explicitly began with argumenta externa, surveying citation chains and patristic testimony, then moved to internal features of style and rhetoric.^[2] Similarly, Willem Christiaan van Manen, who had written a doctoral thesis defending the authenticity of 1 Thessalonians, wrote in 1889 that he had come to the same conclusions as Loman. Willem Christiaan van Manen argued in Paulus that Acts should be dated in the second quarter of the second century and that none of the Pauline letters is authentically Pauline. Van Manen integrated literary criticism of Acts with close analysis of the epistles and their editorial seams.^[3][19] Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga summarized the school's history and defended its conclusions in 1912, then continued to publish on Pauline authorship until mid century.^[7][8]

Beyond the Netherlands, the school influenced the Swiss theologian Rudolf Steck, whose 1888 monograph on the Galatians contested the authenticity of the major letters.^[16] The German philosopher Arthur Drews also drew on Dutch discussions in his surveys of radical views.^[20]

The movement combined philological and stylistic analysis with source and redaction criticism. Later summaries continue to describe the letters as "second-century school-setting compositions," a formulation that captures the movement's focus on literary fabrication within specific social locations.^[21]

Key proponents

• Allard Pierson, Dutch theologian and literary critic^[1]
• Abraham Dirk Loman, Dutch theologian and biblical critic^[2]
• Willem Christiaan van Manen, Dutch theologian and New Testament scholar^[3][19]
• Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga, Dutch theologian and biblical scholar^[7][8]
• Gerardus Johannes Petrus Josephus Bolland, Dutch philosopher and theologian
• Bruno Bauer, German philosopher and biblical critic^[5]
• Rudolf Steck, Swiss theologian^[16]
• Arthur Drews, German philosopher^[22]

Reception

Members of the Radical Dutch School argued against the existence of Jesus, which caused controversy. New Testament scholar Robert Van Voorst wrote that "their arguments were stoutly attacked in the Netherlands, especially by other scholars, but largely ignored out it."^[9] Surveys of Pauline scholarship continue to report the Dutch radical theses as a significant, if minority, strand in the history of interpretation.^[23][6] Although the school lost institutional footing after 1957,^[8] its questions about authorship, editorial growth, and the second century reception of Paul have remained part of modern Pauline analysis.

In later twentieth century scholarship the theses were frequently dismissed, replaced by targeted criticisms addressing chronology, intertextual method, and the handling of patristic sources. Bart D. Ehrman in Forgery and Counterforgery analyzed the Dutch radical position within his broader study of pseudonymous Christian literature, evaluating their claims about Pauline authorship alongside criteria for detecting ancient forgery. Ehrman argued that the Dutch radicals' "wholesale rejection" of early patristic testimony failed to adequately account for the widespread attestation of Pauline letters in the second century, and that their chronological framework cannot explain the rapid acceptance and circulation of the epistles across diverse Christian communities. He distinguished their approach from his own analysis of pseudonymous attribution as authorial deceit rather than benign convention.^[10][11]

A limited revival associated with the Journal of Higher Criticism began in 1994 under Darrell J. Doughty, Robert M. Price, and Hermann Detering.^[24] Recent reassessment from Nina Livesey has reopened the question of Pauline authorship, challenging mainstream consensus. Livesey argues that the seven letters commonly labeled authentic should be treated as pseudonymous compositions and studied within Roman epistolary and moral discourses, dating their appearance to the "mid-second century" and locating their formation in the "Roman school of Marcion." She presents this project as "challenging a prevailing paradigm."^[6][25]

See also

• Authorship of the Pauline epistles
• Pauline interpolations and forgeries
• Tübingen school
• Marcion
• Christ myth theory