Month: May 2008

Entrusted with the Gospel

I am honored to be participating in a new book from B&H Academic entitled Entrusted with the Gospel:  Paul’s Theology in the Pastoral Epistles.  It will be a collection of essays focusing on specific aspects of the Pastorals written by scholars who have been working on these letters for some time.  Contributors include Howard Marshall, Andreas Kostenberger, and Terry Wilder.  Work is just beginning but I thought readers of this blog would be interested to know of the project.

Westcott & Hort Outline First Timothy

When Westcott & Hort published their edition of the Greek New Testament in 1881, they also released (in $amz(159244198X a second volume)) a 300+ page Introduction discussing their text-critical principles (the volume also has 200+ pages of appendix, equaling 600+ pages of goodness). That introduction also discusses in some detail the typesetting of the edition in Section E, “Punctuation, Divisions of text, and Titles of books” (§§417-423, pp. 318-322).


[[NB: I’ve discussed the introduction on my other blog, ricoblog. The Intro/Appendix is available from Google Books if you’d like to check it out.]]


In the introduction (§419, p. 319) they discuss how they encode what is essentially a discourse-level hierarchy (sentence level and above) into the text using paragraph formatting, casing, and spacing.


Have you ever wondered why (if using a printed WH or an electronic edition with proper casing/punctuation) some paragraphs/sections begin with words in ALLCAPS; why sometimes there is vertical space before a new paragraph, and most of all why there are these long spaces (over a centimeter!) within paragraphs? And why sometimes sentences start with a capitalized letter, and others do not?


Well, you’ve stumbled onto WH’s typography/casing/spacing based outline of the text without knowing it. Here are the basics:



Major Section: vertical white space above, headed by word in CAPS
Section: vertical white space above, no initial CAP WORD
Paragraph: Newline with indentation
subparagraph: full stop followed by large amount of horizontal whitespace
UC-initial sentence: “Groups of sentences introduced by a capital bear the same relation to subparagraphs as subparagraphs to paragraphs”
lc-initial sentence: When a lower-case initial word starts a sentence. lowest punctuated unit; grammar dictates structure within the sentence unit.


Following this, I’ve examined a printed edition of WH and distilled the outline to First Timothy, which is below. I’ve only gone through this once (and that was hasty) so there may very well be some errors. Also note that the hierarchy I’ve implied is based on containing references; WH’s typography/casing/spacing does not imply a strict heirarchy (see Matthew). Also, dialogue in Greek NT’s typically begins with a sentence-initial cap; I’ve yet to determine how that would mesh with the encoded structure, largely because no such dialogue exists in First Timothy. That said, here’s the outline. Notable is how $esv(1Ti 3.1a) is handled, and also $esv(1Ti 6.2b).



1.1-6.22: Major section headed by ΠΑΥΛΟΣ

1.1-2: Paragraph
      1.1-2: UC-initial sentence

1.3-20: Paragraph
   1.3-7: subparagraph, UC-initial (single sentence)
   1.8-11: subparagraph, UC-initial (single sentence)
   1.12-17: subparagraph
      1.12-16: UC-initial sentence
      1.17: UC-initial sentence
   1.18-20: subparagraph, UC-initial (single sentence)

2.1-3.16: Paragraph
   2.1-7: subparagraph, UC-initial
      2.1-4: UC-initial sentence group
         2.1-2: UC-initial sentence
         2.3-4: lc-initial sentence
      2.5-7: UC-initial sentence
   2.8-3.1a: subparagraph, UC-initial
      2.8: UC-initial sentence
      2.9-10: UC-initial sentence
      2.11-12: UC-initial sentence
      2.13-3.1a: UC-initial sentence group
         2.13-15: UC-initial sentence
         3.1a: lc-initial sentence
   3.1b-13: subparagraph, UC-initial
      3.1b-7: UC-initial sentence group
         3.1b: UC-initial sentence
         3.2-6: lc-initial sentence
      3.8-13: UC-initial sentence group
         3.8: UC-initial sentence
         3.9-11: lc-initial sentence
         3.12-13: lc-initial sentence
   3.14-16: subparagraph, UC-initial
      3.14-16a: UC-initial sentence
         3.16b: metrically arranged

4.1-10: Paragraph
   4.1-5: subparagraph, UC-initial
      4.1-5: UC-initial sentence group
         4.1-3: UC-initial sentence
         4.4-5: lc-initial sentence
   4.6-10: subparagraph, UC-initial
      4.6-10: UC-initial sentence group
         4.6-7: UC-initial sentence
         4.8: lc-initial sentence
         4.9-10: lc-initial sentence

4.11-16: Paragraph
      4.11-16: UC-initial sentence group
         4.11-12: UC-initial sentence
         4.13: lc-initial sentence
         4.14: lc-initial sentence
         4.14-16: lc-initial sentence

5.1-6.2: Paragraph
   5.1-16: subparagraph, UC-initial
      5.1-2: UC-initial sentence
      5.3-8: UC-initial sentence
      5.9-13: UC-initial sentence group
         5.9-10: UC-initial sentence
         5.11-13: lc-initial sentence
      5.14-16: UC-initial sentence group
         5.14-15: UC-initial sentence
         5.16: lc-initial sentence
   5.17-25: subparagraph, UC-initial
      5.17-20: UC-initial sentence group
         5.17-18: UC-initial sentence
         5.19-20: lc-initial sentence
      5.21: UC-initial sentence
      5.22: UC-initial sentence
      5.23: UC-initial sentence
      5.24-25: UC-initial sentence
   6.1-2a: subparagraph, UC-initial
      6.1-2a: UC-initial sentence group
         6.1: UC-initial sentence
         6.2-2a: lc-initial sentence

6.2b-6.21a: Paragraph
   6.2b-10: subparagraph, UC-initial
      6.2b-10: UC-initial sentence group
         6.2b-5: UC-initial sentence
         6.6-8: lc-initial sentence
         6.9-10: lc-initial sentence
   6.11-16: subparagraph, UC-initial
      6.11-16: UC-initial sentence group
         6.11: UC-initial sentence
         6.12: lc-initial sentence
         6.13-16: lc-initial sentence
   6.17-19: subparagraph, UC-initial
      6.17-19: UC-initial sentence
   6.20-21a: subparagraph, UC-initial
      6.20-21a: UC-initial sentence

6.21b: Paragraph
      6.21b: UC-initial sentence

Reconciling 1Ti 4.3 and 1Ti 3.2

I’ve had the question of how 1Ti 4.3 and 1Ti 3.2 fit together rolling around in my head for awhile.

1Ti 4.3 is in the context of a description of the false teachers of Ephesus, noting things they (unjustly) forbid. Below is 1Ti 4.1-3:

4.1 Τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ῥητῶς λέγει ὅτι ἐν ὑστέροις καιροῖς ἀποστήσονταί τινες τῆς πίστεως προσέχοντες πνεύμασιν πλάνοις καὶ διδασκαλίαις δαιμονίων, 2 ἐν ὑποκρίσει ψευδολόγων, κεκαυστηριασμένων τὴν ἰδίαν συνείδησιν, 3 κωλυόντων γαμεῖν, ἀπέχεσθαι βρωμάτων, ἃ ὁ θεὸς ἔκτισεν εἰς μετάλημψιν μετὰ εὐχαριστίας τοῖς πιστοῖς καὶ ἐπεγνωκόσι τὴν ἀλήθειαν. (1Ti 4.1-3, NA27)

4.1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. (1Ti 4.1-3, ESV)

1Ti 3.2 (along with 1Ti 3.12 and 1Ti 5.9) specify a marriage relationship for those in leadership positions in the fellowship.

3.2 δεῖ οὖν τὸν ἐπίσκοπον ἀνεπίλημπτον εἶναι, μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἄνδρα, νηφάλιον σώφρονα κόσμιον φιλόξενον διδακτικόν, (1Ti 3.2, NA27)
3.12 διάκονοι ἔστωσαν μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἄνδρες, τέκνων καλῶς προϊστάμενοι καὶ τῶν ἰδίων οἴκων. (1Ti 3.12, NA27)
5.9 Χήρα καταλεγέσθω μὴ ἔλαττον ἐτῶν ἑξήκοντα γεγονυῖα, ἑνὸς ἀνδρὸς γυνή, (1Ti 5.9, NA27)

3.2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, (1Ti 3.2, ESV)
3.12 Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. (1Ti 3.12, ESV)
5.9 Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, (1Ti 5.9, ESV)

So, how does all of this fit together? The false teachers say that marriage is forbidden, but Paul says that those in positions in the church (Overseer, Deacons, and Widows) should be or have been married.

This popped in my head again as I’ve been reading Lloyd K. Pietersen’s $amz(0567081834 The Polemic of the Pastorals), where he mentions the "status degradation" aspect of the whole thing:

Finally, Garfinkel draws attention to the fact that, in any successful status degradation ceremony, the typical, negative characteristics of those being denounced must be appreciated by the witnesses by means of a ‘dialectical counterpart’. In this way the community cannot conceive of those denounced without reference to this positive counter conception. In the Pastorals, the qualities of bishops, elders and deacons serve as dialectical counterparts to the deeds of the opponents. Thus, for example, the injunction in 1 Tim 1.2 [sic] that the bishop should be μιας γυναικος ανδρα serves as the dialectical counterpart to the opponents who, among other things, κωλυοντων γαμειν (1 Tim 4.3). Goulder is thus right to argue that the qualifications of leadership function polemically. (Pietersen 111)

I don’t buy all of what Lloyd mentions here (specifically that the Pastorals may be "a literary version of a status degradation ceremony" (Pietersen 111)), but I do think there is significant value to noting that what the false teachers forbid (marriage) is prominent in the descriptions of those in positions of leadership and influence in the church.

Whatever your view of the polemic/paraenesis of the Pastorals, this disparity between the what the false teachers espouse (no marriage) and what Paul espouses for those in prominence in the church (marriage is not just OK, it is expected) needs to be noted.

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