---
title: "The thirteen Pauline letters"
canonical: "https://paulineletters.com/explore/letters"
published: "2026-07-19"
updated: "2026-08-02"
license: "https://paulineletters.com/explore/license"
source: "Pauline Letters"
---

# The thirteen Pauline letters

> The letters are occasional documents addressed to real communities, not detachable sayings; their sequence and attribution require explanation.

**Where was each letter written, what problem did it address, and why is its authorship accepted or debated?**

Nine of the thirteen name a place or a moment you can locate: Corinth, Ephesus, Rome, Macedonia, Syrian Antioch. Seven are undisputed across the range of scholarship, six are questioned to varying degrees, and the questioning is about authorship and date rather than about whether the letters are early.

## Thirteen letters bearing Paul’s name

The New Testament contains thirteen letters carrying Paul’s name, and scholarship does not treat them as one block. Seven, namely Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, First Thessalonians, and Philemon, are accepted as his by nearly everyone. Ephesians, Colossians, and Second Thessalonians are disputed. The three Pastoral Letters are disputed most sharply of all.

This project says letters bearing Paul’s name deliberately. It states the authorship position for each letter rather than flattening the corpus in either direction, because presenting the question as settled would misrepresent the field, and setting the disputed letters aside would discard evidence that early readers plainly valued.

## Occasion before doctrine

Each letter answers something. Corinth had factions, a lawsuit, and a dispute about meat. Galatia had teachers pressing circumcision. Philemon had a household problem with a name attached. Reading occasion first does not shrink these letters; it is what makes their arguments legible, because Paul is almost always arguing with someone.

That is why the letters sit beside the timeline and the map here rather than on a separate shelf. A letter written from Ephesus during a three-year stay, or from Corinth just before a dangerous journey to Jerusalem, carries its circumstances in its tone, and those circumstances are recoverable from the same sources that supply the route.

## Common questions

### Which of the thirteen are undisputed?

Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, First Thessalonians and Philemon are accepted as Paul’s across essentially the whole range of scholarship. The remaining six — Ephesians, Colossians, Second Thessalonians, First and Second Timothy and Titus — are questioned, and the Pastorals most sharply of all.

### What does disputed authorship actually mean here?

It means the vocabulary, sentence construction, church organisation or assumed situation sit at a distance from the undisputed letters that some scholars judge too great for the same author. It does not mean the letter is late, or fraudulent, or outside the canon. This site labels the dispute rather than resolving it.

### Where was each letter written from?

Five are placed at Rome, three at Corinth, three in Macedonia, one at Ephesus and one at Syrian Antioch — but several of those placements are reconstructions rather than statements. The imprisonment letters in particular could belong to Rome, Ephesus or Caesarea, and the choice changes their date by years.

### Why read them in date order rather than the order in the Bible?

Because the canonical order is roughly by length, not by time. Reading in date order puts each letter beside the crisis that produced it, and makes visible how Paul’s argument about Gentile believers develops between the earliest letters and the latest.

---

Canonical: https://paulineletters.com/explore/letters