11 . Scott, p. 6.
1. For full arguments on either side of this question, see (against Paul) W. G. Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 367–87, or A. T. Hanson, pp. 2–47; (for Paul) D. Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, pp. 584–624, or J. N. D. Kelly, pp. 3–36.
2. On Timothy’s circumcision, see M. Hengel, Acts and the History of Earliest Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), p. 64, who notes that because Timothy had a Jewish mother, he would have been considered a Jew. Failure to have had him circumcised would have been tantamount to supporting apostasy and thus would have effectively cut off Paul’s mission as being to the “Jew first.” For Paul’s own statements on missionary policy, see 1 Cor. 9:19–23.
3. The refusal to have the Gentile Titus circumcised is equally in keeping with 1 Cor. 9:19–23 (see note ). In this case the gospel as freedom for Gentiles is at stake. In Paul’s Christian world view, circumcision of a Jew for ministry among Jews (Timothy) and circumcision of a Gentile in order to have standing with God as a believer (Titus) would be two radically different things.
4. This date is in keeping with the view that sees Gal. 2:1–10 as a Pauline expression of the same event as that recorded in Acts 15 (as Kümmel, Introduction, pp. 295–304, against Guthrie, Introduction, pp. 450–65, who would date it about two years earlier). In either case, Titus became Paul’s traveling companion earlier than Timothy.
5. It is particularly difficult to imagine why a pseudepigrapher would have chosen Titus as the recipient of one of these letters, all the more so when one considers the evidence of Acts. This is especially true for those who argue that the author knew Acts and was dependent on it for many of his data and is likewise so for those who think the author of Luke–Acts also wrote the PE (see, e.g., S. G. Wilson, Luke and the Pastoral Epistles).
6. For a typical expression of this difficulty see Kümmel, Introduction, pp. 375–78, or E. F. Scott, pp. xvii–xx. On this matter J. A. T. Robinson (Redating the New Testament) rightly contends: “The very difficulty of squaring them with any itinerary deducible from Acts or the other Pauline epistles is a strong argument for their authenticity” (p. 72). At least, the matter is stalemated here, and finally depends on how one evaluates the other data.
It should be noted that Robinson’s own attempt to place them at three different times in the earlier life of Paul (1 Timothy between 1 and 2 Corinthians, Titus after Romans, and 2 Timothy after Colossians-Ephesians-Philemon) founders on the fact of their homogeneity with one another and their dishomogeneity with the other letters. See note 35.
7. For a presentation of the data for and against the traditional view of the provenance of these letters, see Guthrie, Introduction, pp. 472–78. This is still the majority view, although Kümmel argues for the Caesarean imprisonment of Acts 23:23–26:32 (Introduction, pp. 346–48), and some hold to an otherwise unknown Ephesian imprisonment (most recently H. Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982], vol. 2, pp. 130–35, for Philippians and Philemon; Koester rejects Colossians and Ephesians as having been written by Paul).
8. It is of some interest that many who argue for a Roman imprisonment as the place of writing for Philippians and Philemon also argue against a second Roman imprisonment for 2 Timothy. This seems curious in light of the clear implications in both Philippians and Philemon that Paul expected to be released. See, e.g., E. F. Scott, The Literature of the New Testament (New York: Columbia University, 1932), pp. 170–72; cf. C. M. Connick, The New Testament: An Introduction to Its History, Literature, and Thought (Encino, Calif.: Dickenson, 1972), pp. 302–4 and 322–23.
9. This very point has been argued recently by two who hold to pseudepigraphy: Hanson, pp. 14–23 (on the mission to Crete, see esp. pp. 22–23), and J. D. Quinn, “Paul’s Last Captivity.”
10. One of the curiosities of some who advocate pseudepigraphy is their willingness to argue that since the author probably wrote all three letters at the same time, it is “difficult to see any particular reason why one letter should be put either before or after another” (Hanson, p. 27; cf. R. J. Karris, p. 3). But such a position seems to abuse the internal evidence rather severely. It is difficult to imagine the psychology of an author who would give so many internal clues as to the order in which the letters were to be read and then not care at all that they be read in that order. This is especially true of 1 and 2 Timothy. If, for example, the pseudonymous author intended them to be read in the order 2 Timothy-1 Timothy, why were they not numbered that way? In this case the internal evidence is decisive. By the very clues put in the letters, the author at least intended them to be read in their present order.
11. Scott, p. 6.
12. For example, 1 and 2 Timothy simply cannot be squared with what is otherwise known about the church in Ephesus around the end of the first century A.D. If, as most believe, the Revelation comes from this period, then this church is “orthodox” whatever else (Rev. 2:1–7)—precisely 180 degrees from the picture that emerges in the PE. A similar picture of impeccable orthodoxy appears in Ignatius’ letter to this church (ca. A.D. 110–115). Given these data, it can hardly have been the church in Ephesus that was capitulating in the time of our alleged author. Why, then, one wonders, these fictions about this church? and for whom specifically? But such questions are simply avoided by the proponents of pseudepigraphy.
13. See Hanson, pp. 28–31, 42–47: cf. D-C and esp. Gealy, who takes this position to its most radical stance.
14. The avoidance of this crucial question is one of the puzzles of scholarship on the PE. The closest thing to an answer is offered by R. J. Karris (pp. 3–6, 45–47), who tries to resolve this under the rubric of an author’s “fictionalizing” his or her audience in order to communicate with them. That may help to explain how 1 and 2 Timothy can differ so much from one another, but it scarcely answers the real question, Why three letters? Furthermore, an author “fictionalizes” the audience only when he or she is writing more generally (such as in the case of this commentary); it is not the stuff of letters, which are ad hoc and intended to address specific, identifiable situations.
Hanson seems to offer that the reason for three letters has to do with the nature and amount of material the author had in hand and wanted to include. But this founders, as Hanson himself is forced to admit, with the existence of Titus: “one is led to suspect that Titus was written last of all and that the author was beginning to run short of material” (p. 47). This very acknowledgement demonstrates the difficulty—which is never adequately addressed.
15. For such a view from the perspective of authenticity, see Guthrie, pp. 52–53, or Kelly, pp. 59–60 and throughout. How deeply entrenched this point of view is came home forcefully to me when a student who had sat through my course began his term paper with this sentence: “The Pastoral Epistles are not private letters but rather are for the regulation of ecclesiastical discipline”!
16. Interestingly, this datum is almost totally disregarded by scholarship—on both sides of the question of authorship. It seems to have been overlooked by conservative scholars because of their view of the purpose of these letters—to establish church order—and this passage in Acts did not seem to fit that view. Others have disregarded it because they consider the speech to be unhistorical, created by the author of Acts himself (see, e.g., E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971], pp. 595–98). But that scarcely resolves anything. Even if the author created the speech, its very creation “after the fact” argues strongly for the fact itself. Hence whether actual prophecy or “prophecy from hindsight,” the data of this speech strongly support the position taken in this commentary.
17. By and large scholarship has subsumed the question of who the heretics were under that of what the heresy was, and it is generally assumed, if not always articulated, that the opponents were outsiders. An exception may be found in E. E. Ellis, “Paul and His Opponents,” p. 114: “Unlike the earlier letters, the opponents appear to include a considerable number of former co-workers whose apostasy creates an especially bitter situation.”
18. For a recent and very helpful discussion, see P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, WBC 44 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1982), pp. xxvii–xli.
19. See, e.g., G. D. Fee, JETS 23 (1980), pp. 307–14; cf. W. E. Phipps, “Is Paul’s Attitude towards Sexual Relations Contained in 1 Cor. 7.1?” NTS 28 (1982), pp. 125–32.
20. For an overview of this perspective, see P. T. O’Brien (note 18), pp. xxxvi–xxxviii, and the literature there cited.
21. This view of the opposition is similar to that presented by E. E. Ellis, “Paul and His Opponents,” pp. 101–15, esp. 112–15. The ties of this heresy to that found earlier in Colossae were first spelled out in some detail (although I differ some in emphasis) by J. B. Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, pp. 411–18.
22. This is one of the features of the PE that is commonly pointed out as being non-Pauline. Note, e.g., how this becomes crucial for the argument in R. J. Karris, “The Background and Significance of the Polemic of the Pastoral Epistles.”
23. One of the less convincing perspectives on the PE advocated by some suggests that “one of [their] most remarkable features … is their single-minded emphasis on Paul’s apostolic authority” (Hanson, p. 24; cf. R. F. Collins, “The Image of Paul in the Pastorals,” LTP 31 [1975], pp. 147–73). But one wonders how this could have been seen at all apart from a prior commitment to non-Pauline authorship. In comparison with Galatians or 2 Corinthians, for example, the emphasis on Paul’s own authority in the PE is rather mild.
24. For a fuller development of this position, see Kümmel, Introduction, pp. 382–84, or any of the commentaries that hold to non-Pauline authorship (e.g., D-C, Easton, Hanson, Scott).
25. One can be sure, for example, that if we did not have 1 Corinthians, one of the “assured results” of NT scholarship would be that Paul and his churches knew nothing of the Eucharist. Indeed, but for the abuses in the church in Corinth, one can only imagine what other assured results based on silence there might be.
26. J. Denney, cited by A. M. Hunter, Introducing the New Testament, 2d ed. (London: SCM, 1957), p. 155.
27. D-C, p. 8.
28. See, e.g., Hanson, pp. 31–38.
29. See esp. Bernard, pp. lvi–lxxv.
30. Against Marcion 5.21.
31. For a full display of this evidence, see Bernard, pp. xiii–xxi.
32. See esp. the useful summary in Barrett, p. 6.
33. See, e.g., the assessment by N. Turner, Style, vol. 4 of J. H. Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1976), p. 105: “We cannot say that the Greek style is the most elegant in the PE, but it is the least Semitic, most secular, and least exciting. It is commonplace.”
34. This is especially true of P. N. Harrison’s classic study, The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles. See the literature cited by Guthrie, Introduction, p. 607, notes 1 and 2.
35. P. 24.
36. As, e.g., E. F. Scott.
37. This was the position espoused by Harrison in The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles. It especially had a period of long favor with British scholars. For a critique, see Kelly, pp. 28–30.
38. Hanson, pp. 14–23, 28–31, 42–47.
39. There is evidence from Cicero that he used two different amanuenses, with two considerably different styles of dictation, when his purposes for writing differed (Letter to Atticus, 13.25.3; see G. J. Bahr, “Paul and Letter Writing in the First Century,” CBQ 28 [1966], pp. 465–77). In the case of the PE one would have to allow for more than simple dictation; the amanuensis seems also to have become partly writer. Why Paul would have changed his compositional style at this point in his life has not been adequately explained.
40. See esp. C. F. D. Moule (“The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles: A Reappraisal”), who sees them as written by Luke for Paul during Paul’s lifetime. For the view that Luke is their author, but as a pseudepigrapher after Paul’s death, see S. G. Wilson, Luke and the Pastoral Epistles, and J. D. Quinn, “The Last Volume of Luke: The Relation of Luke–Acts to the Pastoral Epistles:”