Computational Stylometrics and the Pauline Corpus: Limits in Authorship Attribution

The computer age has transformed Pauline stylometric analyses by enabling quick, repeatable studies. However, studies continue to produce conflicting results. This paper highlights the core limitations of computational stylometric analyses in contributing to Pauline authorial-attribution questions. Without secularly verifiable, authentic texts, there is no referential Pauline stylome and thus the proper mathematical model to evaluate authorship cannot be deciphered. The theoretical objections presented are supported by an NLP-study of the New Testament texts and letters from the Roman emperor Julian that produces characteristically incoherent, and malleable, results. These findings suggest researchers should proceed with caution when applying quantitative methods to fundamentally epistemological problems.