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Krauter, recent publications

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 Pastorals at ETS and SBL 2023

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.”

.

The 2023 SBL Annual Meeting Program lists the following sessions which may be of interest to Pastorals researchers:

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.

New IBR research group on Pastoral Epistles

The Institute for Biblical Research has established a new Research Group on the Pastoral Epistles, with the first meeting slated at the SBL annual meeting in San Antonio.

Led by Osvaldo Padilla and Lyn Kidson, the first session will present research regarding “The Pastoral Epistles and Space.” The scheduled presentations are as follows:

Lyn Kidson, Macquarie University
“Go Home!” Divisions between Private and Public Space in the Pastoral Epistles

Scot McKnight, Northern Seminary
Eusebeia as Social Respectability: The Public Life of the Christian Pastor

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?

Langford, Diagnosing Deviance

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.

Theophilus, “Numismatic Insights into Pauline Ethics”

Though the title may not immediately grab students of the Pastorals, Michael Theophilus’s new article will be of interest:

Michael P. Theophilus, “Numismatic Insights into Pauline Ethics: ΕΥΕΡΓ- on Roman Provincial, Parthian and Seleucid Coinage.” New Testament Studies 69.3 (2023): 313–31. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0028688522000339

Abstract: Numismatic inscriptional evidence consistently employs the ΕΥΕΡΓ- word group in describing a superior providing some material public benefit to an inferior, typically an entire city, nation or kingdom. This is evidenced in the present study’s comprehensive survey of several hundred numismatic types, extant in many thousands of specimens from the second century BCE to the first century CE. Within this context, 1 Timothy 6.2 is discussed, wherein it is noted that the apparent identification of a slave’s labour as ɛὐɛργɛσία not only heightens the significance and value of that service but is a deliberate inversion of expected social and linguistic norms.

The article is open-access, available here.

LaFosse, Honouring Age

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.

From the publisher’s website:

“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.

Robertson, Reading the Letter to Titus in Light of Crete

Monographs on the Pastorals are uncommon enough that I wanted to mention this forthcoming volume even though it won’t be available for half a year:

Michael Robertson, Reading the Letter to Titus in Light of Crete: Dynamics of Early Christian Identity Construction. Critical Approaches to Early Christianity 3. Leiden: Brill, 2024.

Brill provides this summary of the volume: “This volume argues that Titus’s invocation of Crete affected the ways early readers developed their identities. Using archaeological data, classical writings, and early Christian documents, he describes multiple traditions that circulated on Crete and throughout the Roman Empire concerning Cretan Zeus, Cretan social structure, and Cretan Judaism. He then uses these traditions to interpret Titus and explain how the letter would intersect with and affect readers’ identities. Because readers had differing conceptions of Crete based on their location and access to and evaluation of Cretan traditions, readers would have developed their identities in multiple, conflictual, even contradictory ways.”

Robertson’s monograph joins his other publications, past and forthcoming, related to the Pastorals. In chronological order:

“Neophyte Pastors: Can Titus 1 Be Used to Justify Placing New Converts in the Office of Pastor?” Southwestern Theological Journal 57.1 (2014): 77‒86.

“1 and 2 Timothy.” In James Crossley and Alastair Lockhart, eds., Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements. 28 October 2021.

“Letter of Paul to Titus.” In James Crossley and Alastair Lockhart, eds., Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements. 28 October 2021. Retrieved from https://www.cdamm.org/articles/titus.

“Pauline Apocalypticism and the Pastoral Epistles.” In James Crossley and Alastair Lockhart, eds., Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements. 28 October 2021. Retrieved from https://www.cdamm.org/articles/apocalypticism-pastoral-epistles

“Zeus in the Interpretation of the Letter to Titus in the Church Fathers and the Acts of Titus.” Apocrypha 33, forthcoming.

“Anti-Judaism in the Pastoral Epistles.” In Judeophobia in the New Testament: Texts, Contexts, and Pedagogy. Edited by Sarah Rollens, Eric Vanden Eykel, and Meredith Warren. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming.

“Deutero-Pauline Epistles.” In James Crossley and Michelle Fletcher, eds, Introduction to the New Testament. London: SCM Press, forthcoming.

“Eve in the New Testament.” In Katie B. Edwards and Caroline Blyth, eds., Routledge Handbook of Eve. London: Routledge, forthcoming.

“Pauline Pseudepigrapha as Lieux de Mémoire: Using and Applying Pseudepigraphic Texts in the Church.” In Proceedings of the Pastoral Implications of Pseudepigraphy and Anonymity in the New Testament Conference, ed. David Capes. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, forthcoming.

Review of Wright, Integration: A Conversation between Theological Education and the Letters to Timothy and Titus

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 Pastorals in Bibel und Kirche 78.2 (2023)

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

Literatur zum Heftthema, Mitgliederforum

Sanchez, “Making an Example”

A new article situated in 1 Timothy:

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.

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