Paul

AND FIRST-CENTURY LETTER WRITING

Secretaries, Composition and Collection

E. Randolph Richards

InterVarsity Press

Downers Grove, Illinois

Apollos

Leicester, England

InterVarsity Press, USA

P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426, USA

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APOLLOS (an imprint of Inter-Varsity Press, England)

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Website: www.ivpbooks.com

E-mail: ivp@uccf.org.uk

©2004 by E. Randolph Richards

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press®, U.S.A., is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a student movement active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept., InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at <www.intervarsity.org>.

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from Cicero’s Letters are reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library from Cicero: Volumes XXV, XXVII, XXVIII, Loeb Classical Library Volumes 205, 216, 230, 462, translated by W. Glynn Williams, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1927, 1929, 1929, 1972. The Loeb Classical Library ® is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Excerpts from the Michigan Papyri are reprinted by permission of the publisher of Papyri and Ostraca from Karanis, ed. Herbert Chayyim Youtie and John Garrett Winter, Ann Arbor, Mich.: The University of Michigan Press, ©1944 by The University of Michigan Press.

Chapter 14 is an expansion of a previously published article (“The Codex and the Early Collection of Paul’s Letters,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 8 [1998]: 151–66 and is used by permission.

Design: Cindy Kiple

Images: Alinari/Art Resource, NY

USA ISBN 0-8308-2788-9

UK ISBN 184474-066-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Richards, E. Randolph (Ernest Randolph)

Paul and first-century letter writing: secretaries, composition,

and collection/E. Randolph Richards.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN 0-8308-2788-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Bible. N.T. Epistles of Paul—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2.

Classical letters—History and criticism. 3. Letter writing,

Classical. I. Title.

BS2650.52.R53 2004

227’.067—dc22

2004017267

British ...