One of the eternally problematic passages in First Timothy is $esv(1Ti 2.13-15). This passage alludes to but does not directly quote from $esv(Genesis 3.15-16).
Today, on his blog Ancient Hebrew Poetry, John Hobbins blogs a bit about the Genesis passage. He has two posts that may be of interest:
A few items of note, particularly because they involve some gents who occassionally post at PastoralEpistles.com.
First, Lloyd Pietersen has an article in this week’s Expository Times. I don’t have access to the journal, so I’ve not read the article, but since it is on the Pastorals it does bear mentioning here. That is, I’m guessing it is an article and not a book review because of the way the title is listed in the Expository Times table of contents. (Lloyd, if you could provide a little more info that would be great!)
Lloyd K. Pietersen. “Salvation Language in the Pastoral Epistles: George M. Wieland, The Significance of Salvation: A Study of Salvation Language in the Pastoral Epistles (Paternoster Biblical Monographs; Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2006. £24.99. pp. xxii + 344. ISBN 1—84227—257—8)”. The Expository Times 2007 118: 487. (PDF, though you need to have SAGE access)
Next, the June 2007 issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society published Ray Van Neste’s review of Perry Stepp’s $amz(1905048734 Leadership Succession in the World of the Pauline Circle). If you have the print, the review is on page 405. I don’t believe this issue of the journal is online yet, though with the new ETS web site the promise is that issues will be available online, so … maybe in a few months.
Congrats Lloyd, Ray and Perry!
In this week’s Review of Biblical Literature, Raymond F. Collins reviews Alfons Weiser’s Der zweite Brief an Timotheus, which is part of the EKK (Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament) commentary series.
Since I’m not able to read German, I’m grateful for the review. Sounds like there is decent interaction with patristic literature (yay!), though it also sounds like Weiser approaches the text as a pseudepigraphon — in both sender and receiver.
A few items that may be of interest.
First, the Review of Biblical Literature (RBL) reviews two Pastoral Epistles commentaries:
Second, Michael Pahl talks about possibilities of Paul citing Luke’s gospel as Scripture. This is interesting because one of the possibilities is 1Ti 5.18. Michael writes
“The scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves to be paid.'” The first quotation is from Deuteronomy 25:4, and the second is word for word the same as Luke 10:7 (and not the same as the Matt 10:10 parallel).
This even has the citation formula that many think is a key to scripture citation. But it isn’t so easy, and Michael explains why. He is actually responding to a post from Richard Anderson on the same topic, which is worth checking out.
Christianity Today’s website has an article titled “Shedding Light on The Dark Tower: A C.S. Lewis Mystery Solved“. (h/t Targuman. Thanks, Chris!)
The backstory: There is a somewhat questionable work attributed to C.S. Lewis titled The Dark Tower. Katherine Lindskoog has disputed Lewis’ authorship of this work (and some other writings attributed to Lewis after his death). She published a book with her case.
In 1994, with the release of the Lewis bio-pic Shadowlands, an updated and revised version of her book was released. And the re-release included stylometric analysis to “prove” Lewis wasn’t the author. Here’s the paragraph from the CT story:
With the 1994 release of the movie Shadowlands, Lindskoog reissued her book as Light in the Shadowlands, adding two new chapters. In this edition, she reported on a new study by the Rev. A. Q. Morton, which employed cusum (cumulative sum) statistical analysis of the first 23 sentences of chapter one of The Dark Tower, the first 24 sentences of chapter four, and the first 25 sentences of chapter seven, comparing them with similar passages from Out of the Silent Planet and That Hideous Strength. This type of style analysis has been used to prove that Shakespeare did not write his plays, that Paul did not write some epistles attributed to him, and that Jesus did not speak some sayings attributed to him. It assumes that a person’s use of language remains constant over one’s lifetime and in all situations. Morton concluded that Lewis could not have written chapters one and four, but that he did write chapter seven. Therefore, The Dark Tower was “a composite work.“
The Point: A.Q. Morton’s work has been cited numerous times to support the argument that lexically, linguistically and stylistically, Paul couldn’t have written any of the Pastoral Epistles. Any discussion of authorhship of Pauline material usually cites a number of articles and a few books by Morton. He did, I would guess, use the same style of analysis here in examining Lewis’ work.
Note also that Morton’s analysis sounds sort of like P.N. Harrison’s “fragmentary” hypothesis of the Paulines. Could The Dark Tower be Walter Hooper’s pseudeipigraphic paean to Lewis? Tha’s what the stylometrist would have us believe.
Most of Lindskoog’s case (from what I can tell by the CT article) rests on her internalized read of what Lewis’ authorial tone should sound like; and The Dark Tower doesn’t sound like Lewis to her. That, plus she contends that there was no one living to confirm Hooper’s attribution of the work to Lewis — the only name he could muster has long since passed away. Because it couldn’t be proven directly, it was suspect. And the stylometric analysis proved it, at least from her perspective.
However, in this case we have a smoking gun. Lindskoog and Morton are wrong. The CT article continues (which I quote at length):
In 2003, Fowler wrote an essay for the Yale Review about Lewis as a doctoral supervisor. (I included his article in C. S. Lewis Remembered, a collection of essays by former students of Lewis.) Fowler began studies with Lewis in 1952. In describing how Lewis lectured, read, and supervised, Fowler also discussed how Lewis wrote.
In the Yale Review article, he mentioned that their relationship went to a different level when Lewis discovered that Fowler had writer’s block with a piece of fantasy he was attempting. Lewis helped Fowler through his block and continued to ask how Fowler’s fiction was coming. Fowler then added this about Lewis’s writing habits:
Not that he always wrote without difficulty; sometimes he had to set a project aside for a long period. He showed me several unfinished or abandoned pieces (his notion of supervision included exchanging work in progress); these included “After Ten Years,” The Dark Tower, and Till We Have Faces. Another fragment, a time-travel story, had been aborted after only a few pages.
Lewis told Fowler that getting to another world was a particular problem that had forced him to give up on several stories.
“Lewis certainly talked about TDT [The Dark Tower],” Fowler wrote to me. “He said he had been unable to carry it further. He didn’t say when he had written the fragment. I got the impression that tdt had been meant as a sequel, but I have no idea at what stage in the development of the published trilogy.”
“Like many fantasy writers,” Fowler wrote, “Lewis wasn’t much interested in the question of the literary quality of his writing.”
And there you have it. Stylometric analysis can be wrong. In this case, very likely using the same techniques, carried out by the same man (A.Q. Morton) responsible for the primary cited sources that conclude Paul couldn’t have written some of the epistles attributed to him, made the wrong conclusion.
Realize that even if one limits Lewis’ writing to his fantasy writings (even just to one volume of his Space Trilogy), that’s more material by far than we have for Paul. In other words, stylometry would be much more likely to get the C.S. Lewis case correct! But it didn’t work. Stylometrists have even less material upon which to base their conclusions regarding Paul and the NT. So in what esteem should we hold their conclusions? (Note I say conclusions, not the underlying work — stylometry need not only be marshalled in the argument about authorship!)
The lesson: Stylometry can be interesting, but it can tell us nothing definite regarding authorship of the letters within the Pauline corpus.
Thanks, Christianity Today!
Here’s the link to Michael’s summary.
Scot McKnight, author of several books and a blogger to boot (see his blog Jesus Creed) posts about that one passage in the Pastorals that everyone seems to gravitate toward: 1Ti 2.8-15.
McKnight reviews a few chapters from a book by Sarah Sumner called Men and Women in the Church. But what you really want to read through is the comment thread on the post — all sorts of opinions are being aired there.
If you’re interested in this sort of thing, you may want to check out the post and the comments.
Update: I realize I’ve blogged somewhat on this topic before; mostly thinking-out-loud sorts of posts. The posts go together; the second post really needs to be read after the first one. Check ’em out in the old blog for more info:
Rob Bradshaw, of the ever-helpful BiblicalStudies.org.uk, has recently posted the following article:
With the necessity to consider the view that the Pastoral Epistles are pseudepigraphal (or perhaps “allonymical”?), the article — which I have not read — sounds like one to read.
Note that Guthrie is the author of the Tyndale New Testament Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles.
Update (2006-12-12): I’ve read the article now and can recommend it. Guthrie unsurprisingly concludes that those who support a theory of canonical pseudepigrapha have built upon a shoddy foundation. Well worth the reading.
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