PastoralEpistles.com

The manuscript for my commentary, Reading Paul's Letters to Individuals: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Letters to Philemon, Titus, and Timothy, is officially in the mail to Smyth and Helwys.

S&H expects the commentary to be available in October, just in time for SBL. Maybe I'll need to go to Boston after all.

This is the commentary that Glenn Hinson was supposed to write, then Marty Soards. Both ended up not filling the contract. Then Hulitt Gloer wrote a manuscript, but was not able to finish it for health reasons.

So in January--you may recall--the editor of the series, Charles Talbert (who was my doctorfather at Baylor) asked if I could finish Gloer's manuscript.  And I've spent the last few months doing so.

I'd originally hoped to have 300 - 325 double spaced pages, and ended up with 425: OUCH! Did I type all that stuff?

What's innovative or fresh about the commentary? Two things, off the top of my head:

First, it is a scholarly commentary, interacting extensively with primary sources (Philo and Josephus, especially) and cutting-edge secondary sources (e.g., Bruce Winter's work on the new Roman woman), BUT the exposition is aimed at preachers and teachers. This would be the first commentary I would recommend for people who want to preach these letters.

Second, this is the first commentary on the Pastorals to take into account the role that succession plays in these letters.

Posted by Perry L. Stepp

We've been on Winter Break (Thursday and Friday off, no school), so I've been able to do some writing. 

When I started on the project in January, I tried to work my way through Philemon.  I thought I could get that letter finished and then move on to the PE.  I rewrote / restructured / supplemented all the materials on slavery in the NT world, but got really bogged down when I reached the materials dealing with classical rhetoric--NOT my area.

So I've set Philemon aside, and now I'm writing the introduction to the PE.  Yesterday, I outlined about 35 pages (double-spaced) of material.  About 40% of that material needs to be written from scratch.  Well, I got TEN PAGES of the "from scratch" part written today.  I'm feeling pretty good about the project right now.

Of course, there are midterms and pregistration and prof reviews and taxes to do and a fuel filter to change and . . .

Posted by Perry L. Stepp

After some time away, I'm working in the Pastorals again.  Here's a rather disjointed series of thoughts on what I'm doing.

The time away: last spring, I was named the Dean of the Sack School of Bible and Ministry at Kentucky Christian University, the school where I've taught for five years.  Administration has left me with almost no time to write, especially since our Youth and Family Ministries professor left without warning in June.

Writing again: my doktorvater, Charles Talbert, has invited me to finish the commentary on the Pastorals and Philemon in the Smyth and Helwys Reading the New Testament series.  This particular volume, which will be published under the title Reading Paul's Letters to Individuals, has a checkered past.  Several NT scholars have had the contract at one time or another.  I'll be completing work that Hulit Gloer was not able to finish due to health reasons.

My deadline: 4 July, which is growing nearer every day.

How it's going: I made the mistake, when I first started writing, of trying to tackle Philemon first.  But I don't know Philemon as well as I know the PE, so I've gotten a bit bogged down.  So I've started writing on the PE again.

Little projects that make up the big project:

• In April, I'll be presenting a paper at the Stone Campbell Journal conference, at Cincinnati Christian University.  The paper will deal with 1 Timothy 2.
• The commentary will build on the reading of the PE from my monograph, Leadership Succession, and on the papers that I've read at SBL in Philadelphia (a narrative reading of the PE, using Aristotle's Poetics as my primary lens) and Washington.
• In the commentary, I will treat the letters in the order Titus - 1 Timothy - 2 Timothy - Philemon.
  

Posted by Perry L. Stepp

[an aside: I sometimes wonder if, when mentioning a scholar or work on the PE, we shouldn't immediately tag the author with a short, 3-5 word description of his/her view of authorship]

In his new commentary (NICNT), Philip Towner (authorship: Pauline via a free amanuensis) introduces what is (at least to me) a new argument regarding the context of Titus.  He points to local Cretan mythology regarding Zeus as a deified / ascended Cretan king (thus born on the island, NOT on Olympus), etc., and how Cretan portrayals of Zeus are of a long-haired young man, with all the impulsiveness and lusts of youth.

These myths, Towner argues, provide the backdrop for reading Titus.  And the first interpretive key to the letter is 1.2b, hO APSEDHS QEOS.  From there, Towner reads the letter as polemically engaging the Cretan views of Zeus AND empire and emperor ("appearing," descriptions of God's character, etc.)

Has anyone other than Towner read Titus on this basis?  Has anyone critiqued this reading, beyond a brusque and reactionary "the PE are pseudonymous, Towner thinks they're Pauline"?

PLStepp

Posted by Perry L. Stepp

To quote the great theologian Dr. Seuss:

Thing 1: have we adequately thought through the fact that, even under the current consensus (deceptive pseudonymity a generation or more after Paul's death), the PE were received by the original audience as genuinely Pauline? 

Whatever the case with authorship--and I don't buy the standard arguments--when we posit some kind of deceptive pseudonymity, we are a. acting as resistant readers, and b. marginalizing or ignoring the way the letters were heard by the original audience(s).

Thing 2: when the PE mention houses or families (e.g., OIKOS in Titus 1.11, "misleading whole families", what is the possibility that this is a reference to HOUSE CHURCHES (a home-based congregation within the network of house churches) rather than a nuclear or extended family, whatever constituted such in that day and culture?

Posted by Perry L. Stepp

Amanuensis.  Paratheke.

I really need to stop trying to type while I'm asleep.

Posted by Perry L. Stepp

Of the papers from Washington, Wayne Brindle's and Jens Herzer's have given me the most food for thought. 

FIRST, Herzer's work (along with Trobisch's) has pushed me further along toward abandoning the term "pseudonymity" in regard to the PE.  If the letters were deceptively written in Paul's name, then call the darn things FORGERIES.  No other term fits the bill.  Ultimately, "pseudonymity" is a euphemism, a "weasel-word."

SECOND, Brindle (page 6), when summarizing Marshall's work on authorship, briefly describes three mediating positions between direct Pauline authorship and out and out forgery.  They are:

1. a free amenuensis;
   
2. "someone may have edited and published several of Paul's writings after his death" (emphasis added)
3. Marshall's allonymity, where "someone close to [Paul] may have continued to write as he would have done, perhaps completing some works that Paul had begun."

Brindle's paper is an argument against #3 in favor of #1. 

My own position is a modified version of #2.  The PE are the published editions of Paul's teachings (tradition, i.e., both oral and written material), posthumously published.  The member of Paul's circle most likely to edit and publish these materials in this way is Timothy himself.  He is acting as Paul's tradent, the keeper of Paul's diatheke, in much the same way as Plato served as Socrates's tradent.

Posted by Perry L. Stepp

In the previous post, I wrote that last Spring semester, I required my undergrad Pastoral Epistles class to purchase and write book reports on my book, Leadership Succession in the World of the Pauline Circle.  I want to unpack my comment.

I came to KCU in fall 2003.  I have taught the Pastoral Epistles to undergrads (300-level) every spring since then.  I have also taught these letters in an online graduate seminar.

The graduate seminar students had few problems with my book.  They understood it, were able to summarize the contents, and even offered a few helpful criticisms. 

The Spring 2006 class: half the class was completely lost.  One of the problems was that I had several second-semester Freshmen in the class.  Freshmen should not take 300- or 400-level Bible classes.  (Of course, ONE of the Freshmen actually did handle the book pretty well.)

I did not require the book in Spring 2004 or 2005, because it had not been released yet.  But my impression of my students in those semesters was that they would have been able to handle the book, and would have benefitted from it even as they struggled with it. 

My observations:

1. The quality of students in a given class can fluctuate wildly from semester to semester.  This is frustrating for those of us professors who really want our students to understand and benefit from the material we try to teach them.
2. This is also one of the attendant joys of trying to teach serious Biblical studies classes in a Liberal Arts setting.  In some of my Bible classes, I'll have 30-40% of the students who are ministry majors.  I may teach the same class the next year, but have only 10% of the students majoring in Bible or ministry.
   
3. I tried to aim the book so that educated ministers, church leaders, etc., could benefit from it.  It was not just written for eggheads like me.  Most semesters, my Pastoral Epistles classes would have gotten it.
   
4. I should quit beating myself up for requiring the book, and just chalk it up to experience. 
   
5. Will I require future undergraduate classes to purchase and use my book?  Yes, but I'll check the majors of preregistered students, etc., to determine ahead of time if they can handle the book. 
   

Posted by Perry L. Stepp

So what am I doing over my Christmas break?

BIG TASK #1: generating syllabi for not one but TWO Pastoral Epistles-related classes for the spring. 

1. FIRST is a 300-level class in the Pastorals.  I've taught this class every spring since I've been at KCU and have NOT been happy with it, ever.  Previously, I've taught it where the students had to write several small research papers on issues like authorship, women in the PE, etc.  I've also done it with other types of projects and papers.  THIS SEMESTER, I'm going to have students make group presentation on the hot topics (women in the church, church discipline, etc.)
2. SECOND is a class in expository preaching, which I'm teaching because our preaching professor left and hasn't been replaced.  I'm going to focus on exegesis and sermon development, and the Pastorals will be our primary text.

What books are we using?  Towner's new commentary; Luke Johnson's offering from the Knox Preaching Guides, which I've had reprinted; Mark Harding's What Are They Saying about the Pastoral Epistles?; I think that's it.

Last spring, I required students in the undergrad class to purchase and write a book report on my book, Leadership Succession in the World of the Pauline Circle.  It was a disaster.  I felt guilty about requiring my students to spend $85 on my book, and it was WAY too far over their heads.

So now I only require it for my graduate seminar in the Pastorals. 

Other things I'm doing, non-Pastorals related:

• BIG TASK #2: Installing Pergo on the top floor of our house.  It's a Christmas present for both me and my wife.  Honestly, it's more a present for my wife, but I've always wanted it too!
• Doing all kinds of church and ministry related stuff;
• Doing all kinds of family stuff--Christmas concerts, basketball practice, daddy's taxi service, shopping and cleaning up;
  
• Teaching an online class (200-level Gospel of Luke) from 15 December through the end of January.  I've got a ton of emails and online discussion posts to read every day.  (We're using SAKAI, btw, and it ain't great.)
• And (of course) watching football and eating way too much.
  

Posted by Perry L. Stepp

• I'd like for us to continue to be a clearing house / repository for PE info, and to provide bibliographical "heads-up!" for those studying the PE;
• I'd like for the blogs to become a coffee-table conversation between scholars / pastors / scholar-pastors who are studying, preaching, and writing on the PE.

• I don't want this site to become a one-trick site, dominated by discussions over authorship that generate lots of heat and smoke but little light.  If there's something new to say, fine.  If it's just polemics and insults, I hope it will be left unsaid.
• I know how busy I am, and guess that other scholar-pastors have similar schedules and demands on their time.  I want this website and the various resources here to be helpful and rewarding enough to deserve a slice of time from these busy, overworked people (including myself.)
• At least in my mind, this thing is still kind of amorphous, an exercize in open-source scholarship.  How are we (how is Rick?) going to organize the information, blogs, etc., to make everything accessible and usable without becoming so flat as to have no value for the researcher?  How will we (how is Rick?) going to control what is / isn't posted here, etc., to maintain order (a good, Clementine value!) without being restrictive?  There is no virtue in anarchy, IMHO.

Anyway.  Glad to be here, hoping to have many fruitful discussions in the near future.

Posted by Perry L. Stepp