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How To Read A Book: Irenaeus And The Pastoral Epistles Reconsidered, Benjamin L. White

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Both the title of Irenaeus’ Refutation and Overthrow of Falsely-Called Knowledge and the opening lines of the preface to Book One of this work feature language from 1 Timothy. This prominent positioning once garnered significant attention from scholars, who, building on a larger narrative of a second-century Pauline captivity to “the heretics,” argued that it was only with the pseudonymous Pastoral Epistles that a Paul emerged who could be useful for the proto-orthodox church (Irenaeus, in particular) in its fight against the “heretics.” More recently, however, the role of the Pastorals in Irenaeus has been downplayed by those who are …