Paul S. Jeon, Lecturer in NT at Reformed Theological Seminary, has reviewed the recently published Pastorals commentary by Christopher Hutson. The review is exclusive to this blog and may be accessed here.
Category: Books (Page 2 of 11)
Michael Theobald is a German academic who published rather extensively on the Pastorals in his later career. To my knowledge, however, all of his work on the letters is in German (save for the just-published entry on Titus in The Paulist Bible Commentary), and so English-speaking students of the Pastorals may not be as familiar with his scholarship.
The single monograph Theobald produced on the Pastorals was published in 2016: Israel-Vergessenheit in den Pastoralbriefen: Ein neuer Vorschlag zu ihrer historisch-theologischen Verortung im 2. Jahrhundert. n. Chr. unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Ignatius-Briefe [Forgetting Israel in the Pastoral Letters: A New Proposal for Their Historical-Theological Location in the 2nd Century A.D. with Special Consideration of the Ignatius Letters]. In this work, he examines the origination of the Pastorals through the lens of the topic of Israel. He is particularly concerned to compare the engagement with Israel in Romans (another book in which he specializes) over against what he finds to be a lack of engagement with Israel in the Pastorals. He ends up dating the letters to c. 140 AD.
Jonathan Lookadoo has served English-speaking students of the Pastorals well by reviewing Theobald’s monograph for RBL, and has graciously agreed to upload the review to Academia, allowing general access. In his review, he notes Theobald’s valuable highlighting of connections between Romans and the Pastorals, and appreciates the case Theobald makes for reading Titus as the first of the Pastorals. Lookadoo notes, “Those who argue for authentically Pauline Pastoral Epistles or for another first-century date will likely take issue with some of Theobald’s arguments, but this does not take away from the value of his study. “
Over at the Logos Academic Blog, Nijay Gupta has been posting a series titled “Best Commentaries on Paul.” In his latest installation, he discusses what he finds to be the best modern technical (*Johnson, Marshall, Towner), semi-technical (*Dunn, Kelly, Spencer, Wall/Steele), and non-technical (*Fee, Oden, Towner) commentaries on the Pastorals, adding Trebilco’s Asia Bible Commentary contribution on 1 Timothy as a “hidden gem.”
For SBL members, RBL still has copies of Bray, Yarbrough, van Nes, and Joshua for review (see previous post for volume details).
In Journal of Theological Studies 70.2 (2019), Markus Vinzent reviews Harry Maier’s Picturing Paul in Empire: Imperial Image, Text and Persuasion in Colossians, Ephesians and the Pastoral Epistles.
Here are the Pastorals-related items I noted in the latest edition of New Testament Abstracts (63.2 [2019]). As with the last volume of NTA, the letters are quite well represented.
(789) Janusz Wilk, “Charakterystyka Tymoteusza w 1 Tes 3,2 (The Character of Timothy in 1Thess 3,2).” Collectanea Theologica [Warsaw] 84.3 (2014): 19–30.
Available to review:
Students of the Pastorals who are members of SBL may be interested in four volumes on the letters currently available for review at RBL:
Each year, the Journal for the Study of the New Testament puts out an issue giving recently-published books in categories related to NT studies. The Pastoral Epistles are a distinct category in the issue each year, and usually garner two or three entries. This year, JSNT highlighted three volumes, each with two-paragraph annotations:
Külling, Heinz. Mann und Frau, Eltern und Kindern als Bewohner ihres Hauses in den Pastoralbriefen. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zurich, 2017. (annotation by Peter Oakes)
The Spiritual Depository of Paul the Apostle: (Modern-)Greek-Language Edited Volume on the Pastorals
Volumes of collections of essays which are entirely about the Pastorals (in whole or in part) are not common. Until a year or so ago, I was only aware of six:
Bieringer, Reimund, ed. 2 Timothy and Titus Reconsidered / Der 2. Timotheus- und der Titusbrief in neuem Licht. Colloquium Oecumenicum Paulinum 20. Leuven: Peeters, 2018.
Among the many literary accomplishments of Bruce Winter, onetime warden of Tyndale House and presently professor emeritus at Queensland Theological College, is his engagement of the connection between the Pastorals and their Greco-Roman cultural context. Published works in this regard include:
“The ‘New’ Roman Wife and 1 Timothy 2:9–15: The Search for a Sitz im Leben.” Tyndale Bulletin 51.2 (2000): 285–94.
Van Neste reviews van Nes. In the current issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Ray Van Neste provides a 1000-word evaluation of the recent and important Jermo van Nes, Pauline Language and the Pastoral Epistles: A Study of Linguistic Variation in the Corpus Paulinum. Linguistic Biblical Studies 16. Leiden: Brill, 2018. [Brill description; N.B.! The very valuable appendices — over 250 pages worth of data — are open access through the Brill page: “Hapax Legomena in the Corpus Paulinum“; “Lexical Richness in the Corpus Paulinum“; “Missing Indeclinables in the Corpus Paulinum“; “Interclausal Relations in the Corpus Paulinum“; “Structure Irregularities in the Corpus Paulinum.” Not to mention van Nes’s extensive bibliography.]
“It would be difficult to overstate the significance of this contribution to the study of the Pastoral Epistles.”
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