The First Century Void

[Secular Elf]

It's all well and good to assert that there are 7 authentic pauline epistles except we know they have been tampered with.

http://vridar.org/2017/05/26/why-many-in...ry-likely/

William Walker, Jr’s conclusion, then, is that

But, perhaps even worse....

https://www.umass.edu/wsp/alpha/texts/pa...tions.html

This notes the detected interpolations but the old adage "when one lie is detected a thousand must be suspected" comes into play.

Where does the "authentic" part come in?

One of the more interesting aspects of New Testament literature, is that not all of the supposed authors of these books were actually written by the men who were said to author them. When scholars apply the principles of textual criticism and redaction, comparisons of lines within and between texts, etc. etc., there are doubts and even certainties that books like First Epistle of Peter (1 Peter) were not actually written by Peter the Apostle. To quote from the Wikipedia article on First Epistle of Peter, it says that " Many scholars are convinced that Peter was not the author of this letter because the author had to have a formal education in rhetoric/philosophy and an advanced knowledge of the Greek language."

This is especially true of writings alleged to be written by Paul. Out of all the writings attributed to Paul, some are judged to not actually been written by him.