Category: Pastoral Epistles|2 Timothy (Page 1 of 6)

Majtán, La crescita nella responsabilità di Timoteo

A remarkable-looking contribution that had escaped my notice until now:

L’ubomír Majtán. La crescita nella responsabilità di Timoteo. Storicità ed esemplarità di Timoteo [The growth in Timothy’s responsibility. The historicity and exemplarity of Timothy]. Rome: Angelicum University Press, 2021.

I knew of a few earlier articles produced by Majtán in Slovak and Italian, which had been noted in New Testament Abstracts:

  • “Timotej—Pavlov delegát v komunitách: Osoba delegáta v Pavlov‎‎ých listoch vo svelte grécko-rimskej korešpondencie a rabínskej halachickej literatúry” [“Timothy—Paul’s Agent in the Communities: The Status of Agent in the Pauline Epistles in the View of Greco-Roman Diplomatic Correspondence and Rabbinic Halachic Literature”]. Studia Biblica Slovaca (Bratislava) 11.1 (2019): 42–56. [Slovak]
  • “Timotej a charizma v 1Tim 4,14 Ratifikácia alebo transfer pri vkladaní rúk starších? [Timothy and Charisma in 1 Tim 4:14: A Recognition or a Transfer through the Laying on of Hands by the Elders?]” Studia Biblica Slovaca (Bratislava) 11.2 (2019): 103–19. [Slovak]
  • “Motívy obriezky Timoteja v Sk 16,1–5: Historický, etnický, a náboženský aspekt obriezky Timoteja v Skutkoch apoštolov a teologická interpretácia z pohl’adu spoločenstva prvotnej Cirkvi [Motives of Circumcision of Timothy in Acts 16:1–5: Historical, Ethnical and Religious Aspects of the Circumcision of Timothy in the Acts of the Apostles and the Theological Interpretation from the Perspective of the Early Church Community].” Studia Biblica Slovaca (Bratislava) 13.1 (2021): 74–94. [Slovak]
  • “È vero che Timoteo sostituisce Paolo a Tessalonica in 1 Ts 3,1–10? // Ali drži, da Timotej nadomesti Pavla v Tesalonikah v 1 Tes 3,1–10? // Is It True that Timothy Substitutes [for] Paul in Thessalonica in 1 Thess 3,1–10?” Bogoslovni vestnik 81.1 (2021): 47–56. [Italian]

These seem to have been preparatory for Majtán’s monograph, which I presume is a published doctoral thesis. Timothy is significant enough a figure in the New Testament that there have been numerous treatments of him in the scholarly literature, both as standalone essays and in broader treatments of Paul’s coworkers (in addition, of course, to commentary discussion). Here is a sampling of those treatments:

  • Franz X. Pölzl, Die Mitarbeiter des Weltapostels Paulus (Regensburg: G. J. Manz, 1911), 136–70.
  • William E. Hull, “The Man—Timothy,” RevExp 56 (1959): 355–66.
  • Pedro Gutiérrez, La paternité spirituelle selon saint Paul, EBib (Paris: Gabalda, 1968), 225–31 (“Fils, Disciples, Successeurs (Timothée et Tite)”).
  • E. E. Ellis, “Paul and His Co-Workers,” NTS 17 (1970–71): 437–52.
  • Wolf-Hennig Ollrog, Paulus und seine Mitarbeiter: Untersuchungen zu Theorie und Praxis der paulinischen Mission, WMANT 50 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1979), 20–23.
  • Udo Borse, “Timotheus und Titus, Abgesandte Pauli im dienst des Evangeliums,” in Der Diakon: Wiederentdeckung und Erneuerung seines Dienstes, ed. Josef G. Plöger and Hermann J. Weber (Freiburg: Herder, 1980), 27–43 (although his aim is to show that Timothy and Titus were actually the same person, he provides along the way an excellent summary of the biblical data).
  • F. F. Bruce, The Pauline Circle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 29–34.
  • John Gillman, “Timothy,” ABD 6:558–60 (1992).
  • Margaret M. Mitchell, “New Testament Envoys in the Context of Greco-Roman Diplomatic and Epistolary Conventions: The Example of Timothy and Titus,” JBL 111.4 (1992): 641–62.
  • Christopher R. Hutson, “Was Timothy Timid? On the Rhetoric of Fearlessness (1 Corinthians 16:10–11) and Cowardice (2 Timothy 1:7),” BR 42 (1997): 58–73.
  • Giancarlo Biguzzi, “L’autore delle Lettere Pastorali e Timoteo,” in Il deposito della fede: Timoteo e Tito, ed. Giuseppe de Virgilio, RivBSup 34 (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1998), 81–112.
  • Bruce Malina, Timothy: Paul’s Closest Associate (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2008), though note Mark Batluck, “Paul, Timothy, and Pauline Individualism: A Response to Bruce Malina,” in Paul and His Social Relations, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land, PSt 7 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 35-56.
  • Yann Redalié, “Timothée, le disciple à l’ombre de Paul,” LumVie 59 (2010): 21–31.
  • Hermann von Lips, Timotheus und Titus: Unterwegs für Paulus, 2nd ed., Biblische Gestalten 19 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2010).
  • Bernhard Mutschler, “Silas/Silvanus und Timotheus als Mitarbeiter des Paulus: Eine Spurensuche in der Apostelgeschichte und im 1. Thessalonicherbrief,” Der 1. Thessalonicherbrief und die frühe Völkermission  des Paulus, ed. Ulrich Mell and Michael Tilly, WUNT 479 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 179–227.

I have not yet obtained Majtán’s monograph, but its 361-page length suggests that anyone seeking to produce a serious treatment of Timothy in the future will need to take account of it. Here is the volume’s summary in English translation (original Italian):

  • “Timothy is one of Paul’s most faithful and important collaborators. After being added to the missionary team in Acts 16:1-5, he never ceases to accompany Paul in the important stages of his apostolic work. He is mentioned in later chapters of the Acts of the Apostles as witnessing the entrance of Gentiles into the church. Taking note of the various difficulties in which the Christian communities live, Paul sends him entrusting him with the responsibility of resolving the difficult situation, the problems that arise in the Christian communities or at least to send the Apostle’s recommendations. In the balance of the following years, we can see the growth of his responsibility, so much so that Timothy, day after day, receives authority, prominence and an important role within the communities. Thus, in various moments of his life, Timothy grows in his responsibility and according to the Pastoral Letters he becomes the successor of the Apostle.” [Google Translate]

Following are the contents of the volume. Notice that though the Pastorals are mentioned only briefly in the above summary, two entire chapters consisting of 115 pages discuss Timothy in the context of 1 and 2 Timothy.

Veit-Engelmann, Die Briefe an Timotheus und Titus: Die Pastoralbriefe

A new commentary:

Michaela Veit-Engelmann. Die Briefe an Timotheus und Titus: Die Pastoralbriefe. Die Botschaft des Neuen Testaments. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2022.

Veit-Engelmann has a monograph on the Pastorals to her credit, the published version of her doctoral thesis completed under the guidance of Jens Herzer, which informs her commentary work: Michaela Engelmann, Unzertrennliche Drillinge? Motivsemantische Untersuchungen zum literarischen Verhältnis der Pastoralbriefe. BZNW 192. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012.

Veit-Engelmann’s BNT volume (see publisher’s page, with sample content) proceeds on the understanding that the three Pastoral Epistles are pseudepigraphical letters written independently by three different authors to mediate the Pauline legacy in three distinct situations: “Zielt der Titusbrief nach Kreta in eine Debatte mit jüdischen Gegnern, geriert sich der 2. Timotheusbrief als Dokument eines innerpaulinischen Schuldiskurses im kleinasiatischen Raum. Das jüngste der drei Schreiben ist der 1. Timotheusbrief; er kennt die beiden anderen Texte und spitzt ihre Inhalte für seinen antignostischen Kampf zu.”

The contents are given below. Note at the close of the volume the 25 pages of discussion of thematic emphases in the letters, as well as the various excursuses throughout the commentary.

The Pastorals in New Testament Abstracts 66.3

The following entries in New Testament Abstracts 66.3 may be of interest to students of the Pastorals.

921. Butticaz, Simon. “De la parenté d’auteur(s) à la ‘mémoire générationelle’ (P. Nora): L’œuvre de Luc et les lettres pastorales en relation.” New Testament Studies 68.3 (2022): 274–93. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0028688522000054

1008. Beale, Greg K. “The Background to ‘Fight the Good Fight’ in 1 Timothy 1:18, 6:12, and 2 Timothy 4:7.” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 113.2 (2022): 202–30. https://doi.org/10.1515/znw-2022-0011

1009. Kidson, Lyn M. “Real Widows, Young Widows, and the Limits of Benefaction in 1 Timothy 5:3–16.” Australian Biblical Review 70 (2022): 83–100.

1026. Schmidt, Karl Matthias. “Alter von Schönheit? Anmerkungen zur Datierung des Zweiten Petrusbriefes.” Novum Testamentum 64.4 (2022): 489–510. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685365-bja10026 [engages parallelism between 2 Peter 3:3 and 2 Timothy 3:1]

(p. 432) Porter, Christopher A. “1 Timothy” (pp. 445–60), “2 Timothy” (pp. 461–68), “Titus” (pp. 469–73) in T&T Clark Social Identity Commentary on the New Testament. Edited by J. Brian Tucker and Aaron Kuecker. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2020.

Krauter, “Ein Geist der Besonnenheit?”

Stefan Krauter has produced a new lexical study that will be of interest to students of the Pastorals:

Stefan Krauter, “Ein Geist der Besonnenheit? Σωφρονισμός in 2Tim 1,7.” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 114.1 (2023): 123–36. https://doi.org/10.1515/znw-2023-0007

Abstract: “Almost all current translations of 2Tim 1:7 understand σωφρονισμός in this verse as a synonym of σωφροσύνη. So do authoritative recent commentaries and dictionaries. This paper demonstrates that word formation makes this unlikely and that σωφρονισμός is never used synonymously with σωφροσύνη in ancientGreek literature. It is shown that the usual meaning of “making someone σώφρων” is possible and appropriate for 2Tim 1:7. A survey of ancient translations and interpretations of the verse by ancient Christian writers shows that most of them also consider this meaning possible and obvious.”

Kohl festschrift articles

A recently published festschrift for Manfred Kohl contains two articles on the Pastorals:

Paul Sanders, “Lifelong Learners in the School of Grace: The Pedagogy of Grace.” Pages 411–24 in “Be Focused … Use Common Sense … Overcome Excuses and Stupidity”: Festschrift in Honor of Dr. Manfred Waldemar Kohl on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday; Essays on Holistic Biblical Ministries. Edited by Reuben van Rensburg, Zoltan Erdey, and Thomas Schirrmacher. Bonn: Verlag für Kultur und Wissenschaft, 2022.

Kevin G. Smith, “Faithful Ministry: An Exposition of 2 Timothy.” Pages 279–93 in “Be Focused … Use Common Sense … Overcome Excuses and Stupidity”: Festschrift in Honor of Dr. Manfred Waldemar Kohl on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday; Essays on Holistic Biblical Ministries. Edited by Reuben van Rensburg, Zoltan Erdey, and Thomas Schirrmacher. Bonn: Verlag für Kultur und Wissenschaft, 2022.

A PDF of the entire volume can be found here.

Percival, “The Plan of Salvation in the Letters to Timothy and Titus”

John Percival has finished up his Cambridge PhD thesis on the Pastorals, and researchers in the Pastorals will want to engage his work in their own where they can. Because of the nature of the project, it will be germane to other research done throughout all three letters. This is true not only for the thesis’s main area of investigation, the plan of salvation, but also in the way it examines distinctions among the three letters.

Here’s the abstract:

“The New Testament letters to Timothy and Titus (LTT) are often lumped together as ‘The Pastoral Epistles.’ While there are understandable reasons for this approach, it has meant that the distinctive contribution of each of the three letters has not been sufficiently considered. Furthermore, narrative approaches to the Pauline letters have led to fruitful explorations of their theology, especially from a salvation-historical perspective, but these approaches have not been applied to the LTT, at least in part due to their marginal status in the conversation. Taken together, this has impoverished our understanding of the theology and purpose of the LTT.
“Therefore, this thesis employs a narrative approach to examine the salvation-historical outlook of each of the LTT. This is accomplished by adopting minimal assumptions about authorship and reviewing each letter in turn, describing the components of a narrative ‘plan of salvation.’ The relationship between the elements of the plan is examined so as to shed light on the narrative world, theology and, especially, the rhetorical purpose of the letter. For such short letters, there is a wealth of data and clear differences between the three. Thus we are able to identify areas where the letters have been misrepresented or misunderstood in scholarly literature, offering a fresh and creative contribution to scholarship on the LTT. The outcome is a clearer understanding of the distinctive contribution of each letter, particularly in terms of the plan of salvation as conceived from a narrative perspective.”

For more information, see this Cambridge repository page.

The Pastorals at SBL 2022

The 2022 SBL/AAR Annual Meeting program lists the following sessions which may be of interest to Pastorals researchers:

Margaret MacDonald, “Flexible Arrangements: Uncovering the Relationship between Space and Education in the Pastoral Epistles”

Victoria Perez Rivera, “Scripturalizing the Pastorals: Exegesis and Power”

Marion Ann Taylor, “Should Women Speak/Preach? Marie Dentière, Calvin, and Farel”

Anna C. Miller and Katherine A. Shaner, “Ensouled Tools and Social Death: Resisting Re-inscription of Aristotelian Natural Slavery in 1 Timothy”

Oluwarotimi Paul Adebayo, “A Socio-rhetorical Understanding of θεόπνευστος in 2 Timothy 3:16–17 in Its Contribution to Scripture Authority”

Judy Kim, “Who is the “Heretic” (Αἱρετικός) to be Shunned?: Origen’s Understanding of the Apostolic Injunction in Titus 3:10–11”

The Pastorals at ETS 2022

In the ETS Annual Meeting program, the Pastoral Epistles study group is absent for the first time in 11 years. However, several sessions at the annual meeting engage the Pastorals:

Courtney Veasey, “The Function of Καταστολή in 1 Tim 2:9 in the Identification of the Church as a Holy Community.”

David H. Warren, “Negation and Ellipsis in the Pastorals”

Hershel Wayne House, “Why Did Paul Forbid Women to Teach Men in the Church? (1 Timothy 2:11–15)”

Quesnel, “Identifier les parties pauliniennes de la 2ème lettre à Timothee”

A new article on 2 Timothy has been published in Revue Biblique:

Michel Quesnel, “Identifier les parties pauliniennes de la 2ème lettre à Timothee,” Revue Biblique 129.2 (2022): 199–212.

The article is in French, but an English-language abstract is provided: “While the 1st letter to Timothy and the letter to Titus are pseudepigrapha, the 2nd epistle to Timothy is not entirely so. A precise analysis of the vocabulary used and the relationship of the authors to time enables us to distinguish parts of which Paul is certainly the author (2 Tm 1:1–2:13 and 4:6–22) from an addition composed by an editor at the end of the 1st century, giving instructions regarding behaviour to leaders of local churches (2 Tm 2:14–3:9). With less certainty we must probably also attribute to Paul 2 Tm 3:10–4:5.”

Annual Bibliographies on the Pastorals

For some few years now, we have been producing annual bibliographies for researchers in the Letters to Timothy and Titus. These bibliographies are meant to help students of these letters keep up with the secondary literature, and give some idea of research trends. We compile this list each year by contacting academic publishers and Pastorals scholars who have published previously on the letters. Our thanks to all who contributed!

Our annual bibliography of recent publications on the Letters to Timothy and Titus covers contributions from all of 2021 and early 2022. Over 170 items long and international in scope, the list contains monographs, journal articles, and commentaries, as well as lists of conference presentations and dissertations on the letters. It is available for viewing and downloading here.

Our annual bibliography of forthcoming publications on the Letters to Timothy and Titus is wide-ranging and academically oriented, containing over 60 forthcoming works on the Pastoral Epistles, including essays, monographs, and commentaries. In some cases, authors have provided a brief synopsis of their work. This bibliography is available for viewing and downloading here.

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