It seems to me that the authorship question will never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. What is interesting is how scholarly fashions change. It was not that long ago that commentators could confidently claim “scholarly consensus” on the pseudepigraphical nature of the PE. The current scholarly climate makes that consensus far less secure. It seems to me, regardless of authorship, that there is a genuine move to date the Pastorals much earlier than the previous generation of PE scholarship. An early date, of course, has always been held by those accepting Pauline authorship but there are now others such as Howard Marshall, Richard Bauckham and myself who, although unpersuaded by Pauline authorship, accept that the letters are first century, probably second-generation, documents.
Author: Ray Van Neste (Page 11 of 11)
Ray Van Neste is a believer in Christ, husband, father, pastor, and professor. He serves as the Dean of the School of Theology & Missions and Professor of Biblical Studies at Union University, and teaches classes on New Testament, Greek, and pastoral ministry.
In the previous post, I wrote that last Spring semester, I required my undergrad Pastoral Epistles class to purchase and write book reports on my book, Leadership Succession in the World of the Pauline Circle. I want to unpack my comment.
I came to KCU in fall 2003. I have taught the Pastoral Epistles to undergrads (300-level) every spring since then. I have also taught these letters in an online graduate seminar.
The graduate seminar students had few problems with my book. They understood it, were able to summarize the contents, and even offered a few helpful criticisms.
The Spring 2006 class: half the class was completely lost. One of the problems was that I had several second-semester Freshmen in the class. Freshmen should not take 300- or 400-level Bible classes. (Of course, ONE of the Freshmen actually did handle the book pretty well.)
I did not require the book in Spring 2004 or 2005, because it had not been released yet. But my impression of my students in those semesters was that they would have been able to handle the book, and would have benefitted from it even as they struggled with it.
My observations:
- The quality of students in a given class can fluctuate wildly from
semester to semester. This is frustrating for those of us professors
who really want our students to understand and benefit from the
material we try to teach them. - This is also one of the attendant joys of trying to teach serious Biblical studies classes in a Liberal Arts setting. In some of my Bible classes, I’ll have 30-40% of the students who are ministry majors. I may teach the same class the next year, but have only 10% of the students majoring in Bible or ministry.
- I tried to aim the book so that educated ministers, church leaders, etc., could benefit from it. It was not just written for eggheads like me. Most semesters, my Pastoral Epistles classes would have gotten it.
- I should quit beating myself up for requiring the book, and just chalk it up to experience.
- Will I require future undergraduate classes to purchase and use my book? Yes, but I’ll check the majors of preregistered students, etc., to determine ahead of time if they can handle the book.
So what am I doing over my Christmas break?
BIG TASK #1: generating syllabi for not one but TWO Pastoral Epistles-related classes for the spring.
- FIRST is a 300-level class in the Pastorals. I’ve taught this class every spring since I’ve been at KCU and have NOT been happy with it, ever. Previously, I’ve taught it where the students had to write several small research papers on issues like authorship, women in the PE, etc. I’ve also done it with other types of projects and papers. THIS SEMESTER, I’m going to have students make group presentation on the hot topics (women in the church, church discipline, etc.)
- SECOND is a class in expository preaching, which I’m teaching because our preaching professor left and hasn’t been replaced. I’m going to focus on exegesis and sermon development, and the Pastorals will be our primary text.
What books are we using? Towner’s new commentary; Luke Johnson’s offering from the Knox Preaching Guides, which I’ve had reprinted; Mark Harding’s What Are They Saying about the Pastoral Epistles?; I think that’s it.
Last spring, I required students in the undergrad class to purchase and write a book report on my book, Leadership Succession in the World of the Pauline Circle. It was a disaster. I felt guilty about requiring my students to spend $85 on my book, and it was WAY too far over their heads.
So now I only require it for my graduate seminar in the Pastorals.
Other things I’m doing, non-Pastorals related:
- BIG TASK #2: Installing Pergo on the top floor of our house. It’s a
Christmas present for both me and my wife. Honestly, it’s more a
present for my wife, but I’ve always wanted it too! - Doing all kinds of church and ministry related stuff;
- Doing all kinds of family stuff–Christmas concerts, basketball practice, daddy’s taxi service, shopping and cleaning up;
- Teaching an online class (200-level Gospel of Luke) from 15 December through the end of January. I’ve got a ton of emails and online discussion posts to read every day. (We’re using SAKAI, btw, and it ain’t great.)
- And (of course) watching football and eating way too much.
This is my first post and I am honoured to be involved in this blog with Rick and Perry. I echo the comments made by Perry in his first post. I would like to offer some thoughts that I hope will generate some discussion. As a first post I will restrict my comments to very general ones. I am sure the discussion will lead us to more specific deliberations.
The (previous) scholarly consensus on the Pastoral Epistles (PE) is that they are late documents reflecting Pauline communities which had become institutionalised and had come to terms with the delay of the Parousia by settling down into a form of accommodation with the wider society. My work disputes a number of aspects of this consensus and remains in dialogue with the Hermeneia commentary on the PE by Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann in which Dibelius famously argued that the PE promote the ideal of good christian citizenship (christliche Bürgerlichkeit) – a form of bourgeois christianity.
In my book, The Polemic of the Pastorals, I argued that the letters do not reflect communities in which Paul’s vision of the church as a charismatic community has faded through the process of institutionalisation. My current work focuses on the communities’ wider relationship with society. I am intrigued by the rhetorical function of 2 Tim 3:12. This verse receives scant attention in the Hermeneia commentary. Although sympathetic to the current emphasis on treating each letter separately and not taking the PE as a literary corpus, I personally remain convinced by the results of older scholarship that for reasons of style, vocabulary, etc. they should, with due sensitivity, be treated together. If so, the presence of a text like 2 Tim 3:12 in this corpus means that it is problematic to read 1 Tim 2:1-2 as a straightforward indication that the communities have accommodated themselves to society. For example, 16th century Anabaptists, who were persecuted by both Protestants and Catholics, regularly quoted 2 Tim 3:12 (it is one of the most cited texts in Martyrs Mirror, the Anabaptist martyrology first published in 1660), yet they also freely made use of 1 Tim 2:1-2. For example, Article XXVII of the Mennonite Confession of Faith (dated around 1600) begins: “we confess: [t]hat the office of magistracy is an ordinance and institution of God who Himself willed and ordained that such a power should be over every country in order that thereby countries and cities might, through good policy and laws, for the punishment of the evil and the protection of the pious, be governed and maintained in quiet and peace, in a good civil life …” (my emphasis). In this case persecuted Christians could echo the prayer expressed in 1 Tim 2:1-2 precisely because they were persecuted and marginalised in society. It seems to me that the PE can be read as instructions to communities who recognise only too well that the subversive claims of the gospel (e.g. God, not Caesar, as saviour) could lead to persecution at any time. If we take seriously Ephesus as the destination of 1 and 2 Timothy then is it illegitimate to view some of the vocabulary of at least these two letters in the PE as in conscious dialogue with the imperial cult?
I look forward to your comments!