Tag: Epistle to Titus (Page 3 of 5)

Annual Bibliographies on the Pastorals

April 12, 2022 /

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.

Stevens, “Paul as the Originator of Women Teachers within Religious Circles”

April 7, 2022 /

An essay focusing on Titus 2:3–5 has recently been published:

Chris S. Stevens, “Paul as the Originator of Women Teachers within Religious Circles.” Pages 149–64 in Gods, Spirits, and Worship in the Greco-Roman World and Early Christianity. Edited by Craig A. Evans and Adam Z. Wright. Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity 23. London: T&T Clark, 2022.

A preview is available on Academia. The first paragraph of the essay provides an overview: “Contemporary debates concerning the roles of males and females within the local church have diverted from the positive elements concerning corporate roles for all members within the Christian community. Taking a step back and addressing this important issue is important for contemporary theological debates, especially concerning the position of women within the local church. The focus of this chapter is to help situate female involvement within the Christian community with principal attention given to the largely ignored text of Tit. 2:3–5.”

The preface to the volume also summarizes the essay: “Chris Stevens explores in what ways Paul promoted (or held back?) women in teaching roles. He examines Tit. 2:3–5, which he regards as understudied, and reviews some of the cults centered on female deities or cults, whose memberships were mostly female, such as that associated with Dionysus, as well as interesting figures such as Hypatia. He also reviews the limited roles of women in Second Temple Judaism. In light of this backdrop, Stevens concludes that far from holding women back, which was all too common in late antique societies, Paul was a ‘radical originator of women teaching within the religious community.’”

Genade, “Life in the Pastoral Epistles”

March 5, 2022 /

Aldred A. Genade, “Life in the Pauline Letters (3): Life in the Pastoral Epistles.” Pages 109–27 in Biblical Theology of Life in the New Testament. Edited by Francois P. Viljoen and Albert J. Coetsee. Reformed Theology in Africa Series 6. Cape Town: AOSIS, 2021.

Aldred Genade has contributed a chapter on the Pastorals to a volume presenting a NT theology of life. The volume is open-source and is available in full here.

Genade’s other contributions to Pastorals literature include:

Aldred A. Genade. “The Letter to Titus in Recent Scholarship: A Critical Overview.” Currents in Biblical Research 9.1 (2010): 48–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476993X09360726

________. Persuading the Cretans: A Text-Generated Persuasion Analysis of the Letter to Titus. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011.

________. “Titus 3:3 as selfvilifikasie: ‘n Retoriese opsie [Titus 3:3 as Self-vilification: A Rhetorical Option].” Verbum et Ecclesia 31 (2010), article 346. https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v31i1.346

Porter, Pastoral Epistles, forthcoming 2022

February 13, 2022 /

I’ve known of Stan Porter’s forthcoming commentary on the Pastorals, but noticed it “officially” in Baker’s academic catalog today. Here’s the webpage. Per Baker, hardcover will be available in August 2022, e-book in November. Amazon, though, says Kindle version will be available 8/16/22 and hardcover 11/15/22.

Publisher’s blurb:

“New Testament scholar Stanley Porter offers a comprehensive commentary on the Pastoral Epistles that features rigorous biblical scholarship and emphasizes Greek language and linguistics.

“This book breaks new ground in its interpretation of the Pastoral Epistles by focusing on the Greek text and utilizing a linguistically informed exegetical method that draws on various elements in contemporary language study. Porter pays attention to the overall argument of each book while also delving into the semantics and lexicogrammar to tease out the textual meaning. Attentive to the history of scholarship on these three controversial works, the commentary addresses the major exegetical issues that arise in numerous highly disputed passages and offers innovative answers to traditional exegetical problems. Professors, students, and scholars of the New Testament will value this substantive work.”

Cook, “Titus 1,12: Epimenides, Ancient Christian Scholars, Zeus’s Death, and the Cretan Paradox”

December 21, 2021 /

Titus 1:12 has received disproportionate scholarly attention in the letter to Titus, both because of its citation of a pagan writer and its early example of what is often called the “liar paradox.” John Granger Cook has contributed a new treatment of the verse to the literature:

John Granger Cook, “Titus 1,12: Epimenides, Ancient Christian Scholars, Zeus’s Death, and the Cretan Paradox.” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum / Journal of Ancient Christianity 25.3 (2021): 367–94. https://doi.org/10.1515/zac-2021-0032

Abstract: “Many logicians and exegetes have read Titus 1,12 as an example of the Liar’s Paradox without paying sufficient attention to the nature of ancient oracular utterance. Instead of reading the verse as a logical puzzle, it should be read from its ancient context in the history of religions—a context of which ancient Christian scholars were aware. The Syriac scholars preserved a shocking Cretan tradition about Zeus’s death that probably goes back to Theodore of Mopsuestia. The god responsible for Epimenides’ oracle presumably rejected the Cretan tradition of Zeus’s death and tomb. The truth value of 1,12 consequently depends on the oracle and not the human being (i. e., Epimenides) who delivers the oracle. A reading sensitive to the history of religions preserves the Pauline author’s perspective in Titus 1,13: ἡ μαρτυρία αὕτη ἐστὶν ἀληθής. There is, consequently, a strong analogy between Caiaphas’s words in John 11:49–50 and those of Epimenides in Titus 1,12.”

_____________

As an aside, other literature focusing on this verse includes (chronologically) the following:

Lemme, Ludwig. “Über Tit 1,12.” Theologische Studien und Kritiken 55 (1882): 133–44.

Harris, J. Rendel, “The Cretans Always Liars.” The Expositor, 7th series, 2.4 (1906): 305–17; “A Further Note on the Cretans.” The Expositor, 7th series, 3 (1907): 332–37; “St. Paul and Epimenides.” The Expositor, 8th series, 4 (1912): 348–53; “Once More the Cretans.” The Expositor 8.9 (1915): 29–35.

Anderson, Alan Ross, “St. Paul’s Epistle to Titus.” Pages 1–11 in The Paradox of the Liar. Edited by Robert L. Martin. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970.

Renehan, R. “Classical Greek Quotations in the New Testament.” Pages 17–46 in The Heritage of the Early Church: Essays in Honor of the Very Reverend Georges Vasilievich Florovsky. Edited by D. Neiman and M. Schatkin. OCA 195. Rome: Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1973.

Folliet, G. “Les citations de Actes 17,28 et Tite 1,12 chez Augustin.” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 11 (1965): 293–95.

Lee, G. M. “Epimenides in the Epistle to Titus (1:12).” Novum Testamentum 22 (1980): 96.

Appel, Włodzimierz. “Epimenides [Tt 1,12].” Filomata (Kraków) 362 (1984): 221-30.

Zimmer, Christoph. “Die Lügner-Antinonie in Titus 1,12.” Linguistica Biblica (Bonn) 59 (1987): 77–99.

Stegemann, Wolfgang. “Anti-Semitic and Racist Prejudices in Titus 1:10–16.” Pages 271–294 in Ethnicity and the Bible. Edited by Mark G. Brett. Biblical Interpretation Series 19. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Translation of “Antisemitische und rassistische Vorurteile in Titus 1,10–16.” Kirche und Israel 11 (1996): 46‒61.

Kidd, Reggie M. “Titus as Apologia: Grace for Liars, Beasts, and Bellies.” Horizons in Biblical Theology 21.2 (1999): 185–209.

Faber, Riemer. “‘Evil Beasts, Lazy Gluttons’: A Neglected Theme in the Epistle to Titus.” Westminster Theological Journal 67 (2005): 135–45.

Thiselton, Anthony C. “The Logical Role of the Liar Paradox in Titus 1:12, 13: A Dissent from the Commentaries in the Light of Philosophical and Logical Analysis.” Biblical Intepretation 2 (1994): 207–23. Reprinted as “Does the Bible Call All Cretans Liars? ‘The Logical Role of the Liar Paradox in Titus 1:12, 13: A Dissent from the Commentaries in the Light of Philosophical and Logical Analysis.’” Pages 217–28 in Thiselton on Hermeneutics: Collected Works with New Essays. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.

Gray, Patrick. “The Liar Paradox and the Letter to Titus.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 69.2 (2007): 302–14.

Vogel, Manuel. “Die Kreterpolemik des Titusbriefes und die antike Ethnographie.” Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 101 (2010): 252–66.

Koskenniemi, Erkki. “The Famous Liar and the Apostolic Truth.” Filologia Neotestamentaria 24.44 (2011): 59–69.

Wittkowsky, Vadim. “‘Pagane’ Zitate im Neuen Testament.” Novum Testamentum 51 (2009): 107–26; Warum zitieren frühchristliche Autoren pagane Texte? Zur Entstehung und Ausformung einer literarischen Tradition. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 218. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015.

Szabó, Attila. “Páli paradoxonok avagy ‘szolgálati’ paradoxonok.” Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai. Theologia reformata Transylvaniensis 60.1 (2015): 84–122.

Harrill, J. Albert. “‘Without Lies or Deception’: Oracular Claims to Truth in the Epistle to Titus.” New Testament Studies 63.3 (2017): 451–72.

Allen, Isaiah Luke. “Paul the Bigot? Reading the Cretan Quotation of Titus 1:12 in Light of Relevance Theory.” PhD thesis, Middlesex University / London School of Theology, 2019.

Hoklotubbe, T. Christopher. “Civilized Christ-Followers among Barbaric Cretans and Superstitious Judeans: Negotiating Ethnic Hierarchies in Titus 1:10-14.” Journal of Biblical Literature 140.2 (2021): 369–90.

The Pastorals in Interpretation 75.4

November 24, 2021 /

Every so often, a scholarly journal will devote an entire issue to the Pastorals. The current issue of Interpretation does so (TOC), and contains the following articles:

MacDonald, Margaret Y. “Education and the Household in the Pastoral Epistles.” Interpretation 75.4 (2021): 283–93. (https://doi.org/10.1177/00209643211027768) Abstract: “The article examines the convergence of studies on the Pastoral Epistles, with greater attention to the theme of education as a key to the purpose of the documents. The close association between the household and education is considered in an effort to shed light on the presentations of Timothy and Titus, emerging leadership roles, intergenerational instruction, and constructions of gender.”

Huizenga, Annette. “Idealized Motherhood: Examples of the Gendered Worldview of the Pastoral Letters.” Interpretation 75.4 (2021): 294–304. (https://doi.org/10.1177%2F00209643211027765) Abstract: “In the Pastoral Letters, the roles and practices of mothering in a domestic household serve as benchmarks for the general instructions on how ‘one ought to behave in the household of God’ (1 Tim 3:15). This article examines several passages in 1–2 Timothy and Titus in which the author employs an idealized and stereotypical view of motherhood in order to persuade female believers to fulfill this socially-appropriate condition and to restrict them from leadership positions in the community.”

Kartzow, Marianne Bjelland. “The ‘Believing Woman’ and Her ekklēsia: Rethinking Intersectional Households and Manuscript Variations in the Widows’ Tale (1 Tim 5:3–16).” Interpretation 75.4 (2021): 305–16. (https://doi.org/10.1177/00209643211027767) Abstract: “The widows of the Pastoral Epistles (1 Tim 5:3–16) have been a puzzle for interpreters for generations. In the ‘Widows’ Tale’ different categories of women are given a whole set of instructions, including how they shall be organized and with whom to live. In this article, I will highlight the interpretative potential of the very last verse of the paragraph, where ‘a believing woman who has widows’ is mentioned. In some important manuscripts, scribes have added ‘believing man’ in v. 16, while others have left out the woman altogether. What can these disagreements and changes tell? I will argue that not enough scholarly attention has been directed to this verse. There is huge potential for a new understanding of the whole paragraph hidden here. Attention to alternative housing arrangements and manuscript variations will be employed as interpretative tools. I will use the disagreement among scribes to rethink variety and difference, and to reimagine ekklēsia within intersectional early Christian households.”

Fortune, Marie M. “Is Nothing Sacred? I Timothy and Clergy Sexual Abuse.” Interpretation 75.4 (2021): 317–27. (https://doi.org/10.1177/00209643211027764) Abstract: “1 Timothy and the Pastoral Letters appear to be efforts to codify structure and roles in the early church. These efforts largely reflected the patriarchal social structures of the time and as such are not relevant to the twenty-first-century church. But some of the concerns identified herein, for example expectations of church leaders, are useful for a current discussion. What is missing is any acknowledgement of the potential for identified church leaders to take advantage of vulnerable congregants, particularly women and children. How might the writer of 1 Timothy have addressed this serious problem in the churches?”

White, “Establishing Traditions: Discipline and Expulsion in the Pastoral Epistles”

November 16, 2021 /

In a new monograph on Paul and what is often referred to as church discipline, Adam White includes a chapter on the Pastorals:

Adam G. White. Paul, Community, and Discipline: Establishing Boundaries and Dealing with the Disorderly. Paul in Critical Context. Minneapolis: Lexington/Fortress Academic, 2021. [note the chapter “Establishing Traditions: Discipline and Expulsion in the Pastoral Epistles,” pp. 217–32]

The volume introduction notes that “the PE reveals something of a later formalisation of the practices revealed in the undisputed letters.” White reads the Pastorals as pseudonymous, approaching them as three letters by a single author. Naturally, given the topic, he focuses on 1 Timothy and Titus. Section headings include “Dealing with Unruly Widows,” “Dealing with Unruly Elders,” and “Dealing with False Teachers in Crete.”

Moo on the Pastorals in A Theology of Paul and His Letters

November 6, 2021 /

Doug Moo has now published his important volume on Pauline theology in the Biblical Theology of the New Testament series:

Douglas J. Moo. A Theology of Paul and His Letters: The Gift of the New Realm in Christ. Biblical Theology of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2021.

After two introductory chapters, Moo examines the theology of Paul’s letters one by one before addressing Paul’s theology from a biblical theological standpoint. Each of the Pastorals receives its own individual treatment (1 Timothy, 316–34; Titus, 335–39; 2 Timothy, 340–44). As well, since Moo accepts the Pastorals as authentically Pauline, he incorporates them into his larger Pauline theology.

Manomi, Virtue Ethics in Titus

November 4, 2021 /

The first of two WUNT volumes on ethics in Titus expected this year and next is now available. Both are part of WUNT’s Context and Norms of New Testament Ethics series. The volume of the proceedings of the 2019 “Ethics in Titus” conference held at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, is still forthcoming. Just published, however, is a recent dissertation by Dogara Manomi. The two volumes are not formally related — they are not a two-part publication — but Manomi is integrally involved in both.

Dogara Ishaya Manomi. Virtue Ethics in the Letter to Titus: An Interdisciplinary Study. Kontexte und Normen neutestamentlicher Ethik / Contexts and Norms of New Testament Ethics 12. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2/560. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021. [Mohr Siebeck’s German title is more descriptive: Tugendethik im Brief an Titus: Eine interdisziplinäre Interaktion von biblischer Ethik und Tugendethik mit hermeneutischen Reflexionen aus der Perspektive der afrikanischen Ethik]

Manomi is currently a full-time lecturer at the Theological College of Northern Nigeria located in Jos, Plateau state, Nigeria, an Affliated Researcher of the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium, and a Research Associate of the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

I had not known much about virtue ethics before I read Manomi’s monograph, but his helpful survey of the topic (before bringing it to bear upon the Epistle to Titus) brought me up to speed. I provide here the publisher summary of the volume and major headings:

“Dogara Ishaya Manomi analyzes and identifes the characteristics of (neo-)Aristotelian virtue ethics that are implicitly and explicitly embedded in the linguistic elements, theological motifs, and ethical norms in the letter to Titus. He argues that (neo-)Aristotelian virtue ethics and the ethical perspectives of Titus share the following features: a sense of a moral telos that leads to human flourishing; emphasis on character, habits, and inner dispositions; focus on the morality of persons more than the morality of actions; commitment to moral perfectionism; particularity of moral agents; the concept of moral exemplar; a concern for character development through training or moral education; and a consideration of the moral significance of community. The author concludes, therefore, that there is a significant correlation between (neo-)Aristotelian
virtues ethics and the ethical perspectives of the letter to Titus, to the extent that the letter to Titus can be described as a virtue-ethical text. Moreover, his research concludes that the virtue-ethical perspectives of Titus, in comparison with African
ethics, have foundational and narrative differences, yet they share some important similarities. However, through progressive hermeneutical negotiations, concessions, appropriations, and application between the two virtue-ethical perspectives, there emerges a new virtue-ethical horizon described as ‘African Biblical Virtue Ethics,’ which is, as accountable as possible, faithful to the virtue-ethical perspectives of Titus and ‘at home’ to African Christian ethics.
This study was awarded the prestigious Johannes Gutenberg Dissertation Prize.”

I. Description of Contents and Methodology
II. History of Interpretation of the Selected Virtues in Titus
III. A Virtue-Ethical Reading of the Letter to Titus
IV. Appropriating the Virtue-Ethical Perspective of Titus
into African Ethics: Hermeneutical, Contextual, and Ethnological
Reflections
V. Summary and Conclusion

Hoklotubbe, “Civilized Christ-Followers among Barbaric Cretans and Superstitious Judeans: Negotiating Ethnic Hierarchies in Titus 1:10–14”

July 3, 2021 /

Chris Hoklotubbe has recently added to the literature on the Pastorals with a contribution to JBL:

Hoklotubbe, T. Christopher. “Civilized Christ-Followers among Barbaric Cretans and Superstitious Judeans: Negotiating Ethnic Hierarchies in Titus 1:10–14.” Journal of Biblical Literature 140.2 (2021): 369–90.

Abstract: In Titus 1:10–14, “Paul” describes his opponents as belonging to the notorious circumcision faction, infatuated with “Judean myths,” and as embodying the worst qualities of Cretans. Such invective, which would be considered racist according to modern sensibilities, is made more intelligible when contextualized among ancient ethnographic discourses. In this study, I interpret Titus 1:10–14 in conversation with sociologists and postcolonial theorists who have detailed how subjugated groups both are shaped by and (re)shape an implicit ethnic hierarchy established by the dominant society. For example, accounts like Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks introduce us to how ethnic minorities appropriate and denigrate the characteristics and practices of other ethnic groups in order to represent themselves as “civilized” before the colonial “gaze”—often at the expense of other ethnic groups with whom they are in competition for limited recognition and power. I also situate “Paul’s” attempt to represent Christ-followers as civilized possessors of paideia (in contrast to barbaric Cretans and superstitious Judeans) within the competitive cultural domain of the so-called Second Sophistic and imperial Roman representations of Christ-followers as barbaric, superstitious, and potentially seditious.

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