I received another email from PastoralEpistles.com reader John Kendall pointing me to another article on the book of Titus. Thanks, Mr. Kendall! This one is:

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

The article is available from that page in either HTML or PDF format. I've not yet read it, but after I do I'll post an entry to the Bibliography section.

Mr. Kendall also points me to the published edition of Kidd's dissertation:

Kidd, Reggie M. Wealth and Beneficence in the Pastoral Epistles: A "Bourgeois" Form of Early Christianity?. Scholar's Press, SBL Dissertation Series. 1990.

I'll make the plea once again: If you have links that are directly (or indirectly) related to the study of the Pastoral Epistles, send them my way. Or if you have books to recommend, send the recommendations my way. The address to use is pe | pastoralepistles | com (you know how to munge that into an address, I'd guess).

Thanks!

In the inbox this evening was an email from John Kendall. He pointed me toward a page of dissertations hosted at the Centre for Bible Interpretation and Translation in Africa, which is located at Stellenbosch University in Stellenbosch, South Africa (just north of Cape Town, a wonderful place to visit!).

Mr. Kendall pointed me to a page of dissertations and noted one dissertation in particular:

Kevin G Smith, Bible translation and relevance theory. The translation of Titus. (December, 2000)

I've only perused the first few pages of the PDF file, but it looks to be a good one. I'm looking forward to reading it. After I'm more familiar with it, I'll post a bibliographical entry for the paper.

Of course, if anyone else out there has articles, dissertations or other links dealing directly with the Pastoral Epistles (either individual letters, or the group as a whole) I'm interested in cataloguing them here. Just send the link to me using the site contact email address in the sidebar.

Thanks!

This book is a Festschrift in honor of Bruce. W. Winter. As such, not every essay in the book applies directly to the Pastoral Epistles, but there are a few that do:

• 'For the Husband Is Head of the Wife': Paul's Use of Head and Body Language, by I. Howard Marshall (pp. 165-177).
• A Saviour for the Cities of Crete: The Roman Background to the Epistle of Titus, by David W.J. Gill (pp. 220-230).

The essay by Marshall, while not directly referencing the Pastoral Epistles does touch on a much-debated subject that the Pastoral Epistles do deal with (e.g. 1Ti 2.11-15).

Of course, the Roman background to Titus is directly pertinent to the setting of the epistle, and should be examined. Gill's introductory paragraph is below:

Paul's comission to Titus in Crete was that he 'might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town (κατὰ πόλιν) as I directed you' (Titus 1.5, ESV). The issue is what would these πόλεις on Crete have been like in mid-first century AD. Πόλις is rarely used in the New Testament epistles and would appear to be here identifying the urban, political units of the Roman province of Crete and Cyrenaica, which is how the term was used in the Greek world.

This book is part of SIL's Exegetical Summary series. It works throught the text, phrase by phrase, pointing to different lexicons and translations of the phrase at hand. It also points to the opinion of different commentaries.

The book is extremely helpful for one who is working through the text at the phrase level. It serves as an index to both commentaries and lexicons. In addition, the text asks (and answers) several questions along the way.