By What Authority?: Companion A & B

By What Authority? - Reference Companions A and B contains both scholarly companions in a single binding: The Verse-by-Verse Analysis (Companion A) and The Reconstructed Pauline Letters (Companion B). This is the complete analytical apparatus behind the By What Authority? argument.

Companion A documents every classification made in the main series. Each of the 1,794 verses in the authenticated Pauline corpus receives an entry: the verse text, signal codes for each of eleven evidence categories, a composite confidence score, Marcionite attestation status, patristic reception notes, and membership in identified editorial units.

The eleven signal categories are calibrated against five uncontested interpolation cases - the long ending of Mark, the Comma Johanneum, the pericope adulterae, the women-must-be-silent passage in 1 Corinthians, and 1 Timothy 2:12. The same signal profile that identifies these accepted additions is applied uniformly across the corpus. The confidence formula is a probabilistic union: P = 1 - ∏(1 - P_signal). Signal weights were tested under four alternative schemes; the rankings are stable across all of them.

Companion A also includes a full sensitivity analysis of the scoring model, with documentation of every table, formula, and dataset so the reader can replicate, challenge, or extend the analysis independently.

Companion B presents what remains when the interpolated passages are set aside: a continuous, readable text of each Pauline letter, reconstructed from the verse-level classifications in Companion A.

Each letter appears in two forms. First, an annotated text marking every passage classified as a probable or possible interpolation, with marginal notes giving the driving signals and confidence score. Second, a clean reading text showing only the passages classified as authentically Pauline, with interpolated material replaced by brief bracketed summaries of what has been removed and why.

The reconstructed letters are not a replacement for the canonical text. They are a tool - a way of reading what Paul most probably wrote, set against what the canonical tradition presents, so the difference between the two is visible rather than assumed.

The full verse-level dataset is freely available at the Internet Archive under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. The series has no institutional home and no protected methodology. The argument is open to challenge and the tools to challenge it are in the reader's hands.

These companions are designed to be used alongside the three narrative volumes, available separately or as a collected paperback edition. Volume 2 of the main series - How Paul's Letters Were Edited - is the narrative counterpart to Companion A. Volume 3 - The Chain from Scripture to Sovereignty - is the institutional consequence of what the companions document.