David Pao, Dean and Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, has produced 1–2 Timothy, Titus as the inaugural volume of the Brill Exegetical Commentary. The cheerful-looking cover may not immediately suggest the heft of this volume, which at over 825 pages is a massive tome, and beats Mounce’s WBC contribution for page count. I’m looking forward to receiving a review copy of this volume.
I love the first paragraph of the preface:
“Those expecting an apologia here for burdening modern readers with yet another commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (PE) will be disappointed. Previous works have not exhausted either the meaning or the nuances of the PE, nor will this one. While the textual data argue against limiting the PE to either an abstract manual of ecclesiastic order or a narrow contextual response to the false teachings of the time, a consensus appears to have developed in certain circles where the author is considered to be a follower of Paul who reinvents Christianity into a faith that accommodates itself to the wider mainstream society. A reexamination of linguistic and conceptual patterns often seen as reflecting such an accommodating stance may, however, point in a different direction. Perhaps the subversive voice of the Pauline gospel can be heard afresh with the renewed appreciation of not only the rhetorical strategies of the author but also the theological significance of such strategies. And so the journey continues. It is my prayer that with this and subsequent commentaries, the complexity and richness of the PE will be further appreciated by those who may find this gospel equally relevant and urgent in the contexts they find themselves.”
I received word recently of two new Pastorals publications by Stefan Krauter and, given the volume of work he is producing, thought it might be helpful to provide a vignette of Krauter and his recent publications in the letters. One of the purposes of pastoralepistles.com is keeping researchers in the letters apprised of scholarly work being done in the Pastorals.
Stefan Krauter (PhD, University of Tübingen) serves as a professor of New Testament at the Univerisity of Zurich. His faculty page indicates that in addition to a research focus on the Pauline corpus, he devotes attention to the examination of the New Testament writings in their relationships to the Greek and Latin literature of the early imperial period and the interpretation of the Pauline letters in the 16th century.
Krauter has been commissioned to produce the commentary on the Pastoral Epistles in the Handbuch zum Neuen Testament to replace the hoary Die Pastoralbriefe of Martin Dibelius. Dibelius’s influential volume was originally published in 1913 as Die Briefe des Apostels Paulus. An Timotheus I, II an Titus, and saw its fourth edition in 1966, revised by Hans Conzelmann, then translated into English as The Pastoral Epistles in the Hermeneia series in 1972. Krauter’s replacement volume will thus come over a century after Dibelius’s first edition, and over fifty years after the Hermeneia volume.
Krauter’s research for this volume has produced a spate of recent publications, and more are forthcoming. At this point, I am aware of the following:
“‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’: La théologie de la création dans 1 Timothée.” Revue de théologie et de philosophie 155 (2023).
“Auf den zweiten Blick: Eine Hinführung zu den Pastoralbriefen.” Bibel und Kirche 78.2 (2023)
“Cretan Memories: Crete in the Letter to Titus and the Acts of Titus.” Early Christianity 13 (2022): 455–67.
“Exilliteratur und die Gattung des Zweiten Timotheusbriefes.” Revue Biblique 129 (2022): 183–98.
“Ein Geist der Besonnenheit? Σωφρονισμός in 2Tim 1,7.” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 114.1 (2023): 123–36.
“Geistlose Briefe? Πνεῦμα in den Timotheusbriefen und im Titusbrief.” In Geist | Ruach | Pneuma | Spiritus. Exegetische, theologische, religionsgeschichtliche und phänomenologische Perspektiven. Edited by R. Feldmeier, J. Frey, and B. Schliesser. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming.
“Genderrollen in den Pastoralbriefen: ein Experiment mit verschiedenen Lesestrategien.” Theologische Literaturzeitung 146.5 (2021): 375–88.
“Ich weiß, wem ich mein Depositum anvertraut habe (2 Tim 1,12).” Biblische Zeitschrift 68 (2024).
“Die Kirche – Pfeiler und Fundament der Wahrheit? Zur Übersetzung und Auslegung von I Tim 3,15f.” Theologische Zeitschrift 77.1 (2021): 45–59.
“The Lord be with your spirit (2 Tim 4:22a).” Revue Biblique 130 (2023).
“The Pastoral Epistles and the Jewish Paul.” Pages 139–156 in Reception of Paul during the First Two Centuries: Exploration of the Jewish Matrix of Early Christianity. Edited by František Ábel. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2023.
“Die Pastoralbriefe im Dienst reformatorischer und antireformatorischer Polemik bei Caspar Cruciger dem Älteren und Ambrosius Catharinus.” Pages 247–68 in Reformatorische Paulusauslegungen. Edited by Stefan Krauter and Manuel Nägele. History of Biblical Exegesis 5. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023.
“In Würde altern: Tit 2 und antike Vorstellungen vom Alter.” Theologische Zeitschrift 79.2 (2023): 146–65.
“Zwischen Oikos und Polis: Die Gemeinde und ihre Gemeindeversammlung in den Pastoralbriefen.” in Qahal und Ekklesia: Typen und Funktionen von Versammlungen im Alten und Neuen Testament und ihren Umwelten. Edited by Joachim J. Krauter, Stefan Krauter, and Wolfgang Oswald. Studies in Cultural Contexts of the Bible. Leiden: Brill, 2024.
The 2023 ETS program does not appear to list any sessions whose titles specify a connection to the Pastorals. Note the following possibilities, however:
The Evangelicals and Women session titled “Come Let us Reason Together: Women, Authority and Scripture”
David W. Hester, “Did Paul Accept the Apocryphon of Jannes and Jambres as Scripture?”
Julie Walsh, “Theological Motivations: Eph 5.33 Compared to Other NT Household Code Subsection Interpretations”
Kyeong Seo, “Anthropological Significance in the Emergence of the Concept ‘Conscience’ in the Pauline Epistles.”
Isaiah Allen, Booth University College, “The Fictional Household of Titus 2:1–15”
Michael Bird, Ridley Melbourne, “Can We Place the Pastoral Epistles in the Chronological Space of the Second Century?”
Esther Cen, Seattle Pacific University, “A Chinese Interpretation of Youth Leadership and the Household Metaphor in 1 Timothy”
A. Andrew Das, Elmhurst University, “The Faithful Univira and Remarriage in the Pastorals”
Tobias Hägerland, University of Gothenburg, “To the Jew First but Also to the Greek: Why Are There Three Pastoral Epistles?”
Jens Herzer, Universität Leipzig, “Between Cowardice and Courage: A Philonic Background of 2 Tim 1:7?”
Lyn Kidson, Macquarie University, “‘Go Home!’ Divisions between Private and Public Space in the Pastoral Epistles“
Lyn Kidson, Macquarie University, “Intimate Partner Violence, Male Headship, and Reading 1 Timothy 2:13 as the Basis for Women’s Autonomy”
Scot McKnight, Northern Seminary, “Eusebeia as Social Respectability: The Public Life of the Christian Pastor”
Katherine Shaner, Wake Forest University, “Timothy, Slave of Christ, Slave of Paul?”
W. Andrew Smith, Shepherds Theological Seminary, “ECM Pastoral Epistles: Report”
Note also the panel discussion on Edith M. Humphrey, Mediation and the Immediate God: Scriptures, the Church, and Knowing God, which appears to engage 1 Timothy 2:5 substantively.
Andrew Langford’s University of Chicago dissertation, completed under the guidance of Margaret Mitchell, is now available from Mohr Siebeck. Its publication continues a recent, though doubtless inadvertent, outsized presence of Pastorals work in Mohr Siebeck’s WUNT series.
Andrew M. Langford, Diagnosing Deviance: Pathology and Polemic in the Pastoral Epistles. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2/592. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023.
Mohr Siebeck provides this summary: “In this study, Andrew M. Langford demonstrates that the single, post-Pauline author of the Pastoral Epistles (‘the Pastor’) crafts a stigmatizing depiction of his theological opponents by spatializing, demonizing, and pathologizing their alleged deviance. Through close comparative readings of ancient medical and philosophical literature, the author argues for the necessity of interpreting the Pastor’s pathologizing of deviance in light of ancient disease etiologies and models of corporeality. With this book, the author contributes to recent interpretive insights about the function of authorial fiction in antiquity and demonstrates that the Pastor is self-consciously appropriating the Pauline epistolary to craft his approach to his theological opponents.”
In connection with this new work, note an earlier article by Pastorals scholar Abraham Malherbe, which doubtless covers similar ground in seminal form:
Abraham J. Malherbe, “Medical Imagery in the Pastoral Epistles.” Pages 19–35 in Texts and Testaments: Critical Essays on the Bible and Early Church Fathers. Edited by W. E. March. San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1980. Reprint, pages 117–34 in vol. 1 of Light from the Gentiles: Hellenistic Philosophy and Early Christianity. Collected Essays, 1959‒2012. Edited by Carl R. Holladay, John T. Fitzgerald, Gregory E. Sterling, and James W. Thompson. Novum Testamentum Supplements 150. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
A new monograph on 1 Timothy is scheduled for release in early 2024:
Mona Tokarek LaFosse, Honouring Age: The Social Dynamics of Age Structure in 1 Timothy. Studies in Christianity and Judaism. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, forthcoming 2024.
“We all age. But how we understand age and aging depends on cultural context. The early followers of Jesus experienced growing up and growing old in a world where more than a third of children never reached adulthood, married women could expect to become widows, and, above all, elders were to be honoured. In the ancient Mediterranean, expectations associated with one’s age could be a source of social power, as well as a source of tension within families and communities, and between generations.
“Honouring Age positions age as an essential aspect of communal identity and familial roles in the early Christian experience by examining one of the most contentious and perplexing texts in the New Testament: the first letter to Timothy. First Timothy reflects a one-sided conversation between an older Paul and a younger Timothy, in which the author hopes to influence both the old and young in fulfilling their traditional roles in the “household of God.” It was a time of tumult, and relations were fraught, with potential consequences for the reputation of the nascent Christian community: some children were neglecting their aging parents, which was culturally unacceptable behaviour; older women who should have been encouraging young widows to remarry were discouraging them, exposing them to ridicule; young men who should have been respectful to their elders were shamefully turning on them. In recognizing the responsibilities of young and old to each other, and the reputational damage they otherwise risked, this study demonstrates that age is integral to understanding the complexities of 1 Timothy.
“Drawing on modern ethnographies corroborated by ancient evidence to interpret social aspects of 1 Timothy, Honouring Age shows convincingly that, in emerging Christian communities in the ancient Mediterranean world, age mattered.”
I will read this monograph with interest. LaFosse’s volume will mediate her dissertation work and related publications to a wider audience. Following is a brief bibliography of her other pertinent works and conference presentations:
LaFosse, Mona Tokarek. “Age Hierarchy and Social Networks among Urban Women in the Roman East.” Pages 204–20 in Mediterranean Families in Antiquity: Households, Extended Families, and Domestic Space. Edited by Sabine R. Huebner and Geoffrey Nathan. Chicester, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017.
________. “Age Hierarchy, Honourable Reputation, and Widows in 1 Timothy 5:3–16.” Presentation at the SBL Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 21 November 2011. Abstract: https://www.sbl-site.org/meetings/abstract.aspx?id=19640 = “Age Hierarchy and Widows in 1 Timothy 5:3–16.” Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, Montreal, QC, 29 May 2010.
________. “Age Matters: Age, Aging and Intergenerational Relationships in Early Christian Communities, with a Focus on 1 Timothy 5.” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2011.
________. “Honour Your Elders: An Anthropological View of Aging and 1 Timothy 5:17–25.” Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, Saskatoon, SK, 28 May 2007. Abstract: https://www.csbs-sceb.ca/2007_programme_abstracts.pdf
________. “Inspiring Intergenerational Relationships: Aging and the New Testament from One Historian’s Perspective.” Religions 13 (2022): 1–10, article 628. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070628.
________. “‘Like a Father’: Age Hierarchy and the Meaning of Parakaleo in 1 Tim 5:1–2.” Presentation at the SBL Annual Meeting, Baltimore, 24 November 2013. Abstract: https://www.sbl-site.org/meetings/abstract.aspx?id=28327. = Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, Waterloo, ON, 29 May 2012. Abstract: https://www.csbs-sceb.ca/CSBS-2012-Long-Programme.pdf
________. “Pauline Language in 2 Timothy.” Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, Toronto, 26 May 2002. Abstract: https://www.csbs-sceb.ca/2002Abstracts.htm
________. “Situating 2 Timothy in Early Christian History.” M.A. thesis, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2001.
________. “Those Who Hear: The Power of Learners in 1 Timothy.” Pages 147–70 in Religions and Education in Antiquity: Studies in Honour of Michel Desjardins. Edited by Alex Damm. Numen: Studies in the History of Religions 160. Leiden: Brill, 2018.
________. “Why Sixty? A Question of Age and Reputation in 1 Timothy 5:9.” Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, Fredricton, NB, 30 May 2011. Abstract: https://www.csbs-sceb.ca/2011_Programme.htm
________. “Women and ‘the Faith’ in 1 Timothy 5: A Battle for Faith and Faithfulness.” Presentation at the SBL Annual Meeting, 30 November 2020.
________. “Women, Children and House Churches.” Pages 385–405 in The Early Christian World. Edited by Philip Esler. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2017.
________. “Women’s Roles in the Letters to Timothy and Titus.” Christian Reflection [Center for Christian Ethics, Baylor University] (2013): 30–39.
Paul S. Jeon, Lecturer in NT at Reformed Theological Seminary and senior pastor at NewCity Church in Vienna, VA, has reviewed the recently published volume by David C. Wright, Integration: A Conversation between Theological Education and the Letters to Timothy and Titus, International Council for Evangelical Theological Education Series (Carlisle: Langham Global Library, 2022). The review is exclusive to this blog and may be accessed here.
The most recent edition of Bibel und Kirche, a “journal on the Bible in research and practice [Die Zeitschrift zur Bibel in Forschung und Praxis],” has taken the Pastorals as its theme. It describes its theme in this summary:
“The two letters to Timothy and the letter to Titus are the focus of this issue. In current biblical scholarship, the three letters have a decidedly poor image. A majority assumes that the sender and addressees are a literary fiction: Neither were the letters really written by Paul, nor were Timothy and Titus their real recipients.In recent years, however, there has now been renewed movement in the discussion. The Pastoral Epistles are one of the focal points of the renewed debates about dating and authorship of the New Testament writings. There is also a new discussion about the content, especially the history of impact on the image of the church, questions of office – and also on the image of women and the question of women’s offices.” (Translation from German via DeepL)
The contents include the following articles:
Stefan Krauter Auf den zweiten Blick Eine Hinführung zu den Pastoralbriefen
Karl Matthias Schmidt Larven des Lehrers Der Abschluss der neutestamentlichen Paulus-Pseudepigraphie
Joram Luttenberger Prophetenmantel oder Bücherfutteral? Überlegungen zu den persönlichen Notizen in den Pastoralbriefen
Ulrike Wagener Was sollen die Außenstehenden von uns denken? Orientierung an der Reaktion der nichtchristlichen Umwelt in den Pastoralbriefen
Gerd Häfner »Eine gute Aufgabe« (1 Tim 3,1) Ämter in den Pastoralbriefen und ihre Fortschreibung in neuen Kontexten
Angela Standhartinger Ältere Frauen, Presbyterinnen und Witwen in den Pastoralbriefen
Bettina Eltrop Die Israelvergessenheit der Pastoralbriefe
Barbara Lumesberger-Loisl “Predigtberbot für Frauen – bis heute?” Ein Zwischenruf
Jonathan Sanchez, “Making an Example: The Rhetorical Usefulness of Timothy in 1 Timothy.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 45.4 (2023): 351–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142064X231163230
Abstract: Scholars of pseudepigraphal letters have recognized that pseudepigraphy troubles the identification of the alleged addressee with the historical addressee. This means that the rhetorical addressee is a matter of choice. Building on Benjamin Fiore’s work on exemplarity, I argue that Timothy as addressee of 1 Timothy helps the Pastor articulate specific aspects of his program. Timothy, like Paul, is an example and serves as a link between Paul’s exemplarity and this letter’s readers. Through Timothy’s exemplarity, the Pastor legitimates young leadership, addressing a second-century controversy in the Jesus movement. Finally, the Pastor reframes Timothy’s reputation, distancing him from Jewish law.
Within the Pastorals, 1 Timothy 2:9–15 holds pride of place as having more secondary literature devoted to it than any other passage in the letters. Within that passage, verse 15 has received particular focus, and has been interpreted in a surprising number of ways. With the amount of attention given to this crux interpretum it might be thought that possible understandings of the verse have been exhausted, but a new article presents yet another take on this disputed passage:
R. Gregory Jenks, “Eve as Savior of Humanity? From the Genesis Narrative to Paul’s Comments on Childbearing in 1 Timothy 2:15.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 66.1 (2023): 133–61.
Abstract: As the concluding text to one of the more controversial Pauline teachings about women in the church community, 1 Timothy 2:15 carries a host of grammatical, semantic, and cultural questions that tax the most motivated and careful exegete. It is rendered distinctly troublesome by the change in number in the verbs and debates about their referent(s), the meaning of “salvation,” and Paul’s choice of desired attributes. I examine Paul’s use of the figure of Eve by looking first at the Genesis passage, where I consider her role as Adam’s helper, her fall, her curse, and her recovery as keys to interpret her mention in 1 Timothy 2. I offer a surprising solution: Adam, not Eve, is saved through childbirth; that is, humanity is saved from extinction through the woman’s role of mother with the condition that the couple, that is, men and women in the church, maintain the godly attributes listed.
A new volume by Brill has several articles oriented toward the Pastorals:
Studies on the Paratextual Features of Early New Testament Manuscripts. Edited by Stanley E. Porter, Chris S. Stevens, and David I. Yoon. Texts and Editions for New Testament Study. Leiden: Brill, 2023.
Solomon, S. Matthew. “Segmentation and Interpretation of Early Pauline Manuscripts.” (pp. 123–45). “Manuscripts from the ancient world had less stereotyped formatting rules than books and media today. Unfortunately, some of these features are greatly underap-preciated for their potential interpretive value. In this paper, attention is given to how scribes of the Pauline corpus used spatial segmentation for their distinct pur-poses. The aim is to provide insights into how these scribal choices may influence the interpretation of certain texts, including 1 Cor 7:39, 14:33, Eph 5:21, 1 Tim 3:1, and Phlm 7. Finally, the chapter concludes that paragraphing and segmentation in the ancient world are quite different from today, and some of these differences are exe-getically significant.”
Tommy Wasserman and Linnea Thorp. “The Tradition and Development of the Subscriptions to 1 Timothy.” (pp. 172-201) “This study examines the textual tradition of the subscriptions to 1 Timothy, proposing a typology based on a collation of 415 Greek manuscripts. The authors discuss the traditions about 1 Timothy reflected in the subscriptions in relation to other paratexts, internal evidence, Corpus Paulinum, Acts, and the wider church history. The creation and elaboration of subscriptions to Pauline letters, shaping the way they are read, not only satisfies human curiosity but serves to further authenticate the writings by connecting them to Paul and his circle of co-workers. The location of the letters in time and space reflects the ongoing construction of a “landscape of memory” in the early church.”
Conrad Thorup Elmelund and Tommy Wasserman. “Second Timothy: When and Where? Text and Tradition in the Subscriptions” (pp. 202–26). “Based on full collations of the subscriptions to 2 Timothy in 485 Greek manuscripts, this study presents the textual tradition and development of these subscriptions and explains their relationship to other subscriptions, paratexts, the internal evidence in 1–2 Timothy, Acts, and the wider church history. The study tracks the source(s) be-hind the tradition that the letter was sent to Timothy, installed as the first bishop of the church of the Ephesians, sent from Rome when Paul had appeared before Nero a second time and relates this tradition to the competing ancient biographies of Paul.”
Chris S. Stevens, “Titus in P32 and Early Majuscules: Textual Reliability and Scribal Design” (pp. 267-87) “Manuscripts in the ancient world are the products of many scribal decisions. The relationship between the final product of these scribal choices and the functionality of the text, both textual and paratextual, is easily underestimated or ignored. To move forward, this chapter conducts a process of manuscript criticism of P32. First, the textual transmission will be compared with other manuscripts for transmissional lines. Second, the paratextual features, most notably segmentation and layout, are assessed and compared across the first millennium. The results indicate the scribal transmission was highly uniform, P32 is from a multi-text codex, and the design fea-tures in Codex Sinaiticus strongly suggest a Sitz em Leben within public reading and liturgical services.”
