PastoralEpistles.com

PastoralEpistles.com: Major Changes Ahead

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 19:28:18 UTC

Hi folks.

First, a big thanks to all who read or aggregate this blog. Thanks for your support.

PastoralEpistles.com has always been a merging of personal interests of mine: technology/programming and study of the Pastoral Epistles. I actually wrote the code that makes this site work.

However, things are changing. I've always thought it would be good to have multiple contributors, and in the past week someone has approached me about becoming an blogger for the site, and I'm sure he'll make a great addition.

This is good, but it means many changes. First, the way this site works on the back end is a bit byzantine. I wouldn't want to subject anyone to it, and I don't have the time (or desire) to really make it something that people who aren't me could use.

That means the whole site will be changing. I'll be installing new software (dasBlog 1.9) that supports team blogging. It means some of the interconnectedness that the site used to offer (e.g. the indexes in the sidebar) will go away, but it also means that people who aren't me can use the site.

So now it's time to make a call for participants. Are you interested in blogging regularly about the Pastoral Epistles? I'm not concerned about your perspective. I'd love to have contributors/authors here who see the PE as Pauline, and those who see them as pseudepigraphal, and those who see them anywhere in the spectrum. I think the resulting dialogue will be fun and instructive.

Posts can be book reviews, mentions of or interaction with articles or conference papers, pointers to web sites or blog posts that you think are somehow relevant, exegesis of particular passages, articles on larger topics related or ancillary to the PE ... really, as long as you can somehow work it back to the PE, then it can likely be posted.

If you're interested in making regular posts — minimum of one per week, let's say — then please contact me via email. Tell me a bit about yourself, point me to anything you've written (be it on the PE or not).

And keep your eyes on the site. Thanks again for those who regularly read the blog and correspond with me.

Donald Guthrie on the Pastoral Epistles

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 21:35:15 UTC

Rob Bradshaw of BiblicalStudies.org.uk sent me the following note:

Thought that you would like to be the first to know about this article: The Pastoral Epistles and the Mind of Paul by Donald Guthrie.

This is an excellent short monograph from Guthrie that interacts with P.N. Harrison's view of the authorship of the Pastorals. It is hard to find in print (ask me, I know) so do please check it out.

FWIW, I have an entry for the monograph in the Bibliography (Books) section.

Porter on Authorship of the Pastorals

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 22:08:26 UTC

Rob Bradshaw of BiblicalStudies.org.uk has uploaded the first in a trilogy of articles on the Authorship of the Pastorals. Rob writes:

I have just uploaded the following article in PDF: Stanley L. Porter, "Pauline Authorship of the Pastoral Epistles: Implications for Canon," Bulletin for Biblical Research 5 (1995): 105-123. For those interested in this subject my next two articles to be uploaded from the Bulletin for Biblical Research will be Robert Wall's response to Porter, and Stanley Porter's reply to Wall in Volume 6. Hopefully they will be on-line by Wednesday and will be announced here.

Check 'em out.

First Timothy and Ecclesiastes

Thu, 7 Sep 2006 16:14:23 UTC

My lovely wife and I have been reading through Ecclesiastes in our devotional time. Last night we read Ec 5.13-17:

13 There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt, 14 and those riches were lost in a bad venture. And he is father of a son, but he has nothing in his hand. 15 As he came from his motherâ€™s womb he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand. 16 This also is a grievous evil: just as he came, so shall he go, and what gain is there to him who toils for the wind? 17 Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness in much vexation and sickness and anger. (Ec 5.13-17)

This reminded me of 1Ti 6.6-10:

6 Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1Ti 6.6-10)

And, to a degree, 1Ti 6.17-19:

17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. (1Ti 6.17-19)

Rumors of Pseudonymity Greatly Exaggerated

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 06:22:49 UTC

Derek, on the heretofore unknown-to-me blog eucatastrophe, ponders over the authority of the Pastoral Epistles and how they end up as the red-headed stepchild of Pauline studes, and how to bring them back into the fold (despite whatever you may think of their authorship).

That is, it seems there is a tendency among some academic writing to discount the Pastorals because, in the opinion of some, they're not Paul. Therefore, while instructive on some level, they don't rise to the level of apostolic authority so they're not worthy of merit.

I think Derek's perspective has some ground to stand on but I reach the exact opposite conclusion he does. Derek wants to know how to bring the Pastorals back into the discussion even though they're widely regarded as pseudonomous. I say that the rumors of their pseudonomity may be greatly exaggerated.

The arguments against the authorship of the Pastoral Epistles are not as convincing as others might think. The primary grounds for questioning the authorship have to do with vocabulary studies and some sort of feeling that the writing of the Pastorals sounds like Paul, but doesn't really sound like Paul. P.N. Harrison advanced the argument the most with his work examining vocabulary between the Pastorals and the so-called "genuine" Paulines. He said, basically, that the unique vocabulary of the Pastorals was a sure-fire sign that Paul couldn't have written them.

Well ... further research in the area of style and vocabulary from the realm of corpus linguistics has shown that counting unique words between two different texts really isn't an acccurate method for determining likelihood of same or different authorship. In order to do that sort of thing, one needs massive corpora from a known author to compare against. According to O'Donnell's Corpus Linguistics and the Greek New Testament, you need a known, authoritative corpus at least ten times the size of the document you're comparing against for this to start to have an effect. Another guy, Anthony Kenny, did a stylometric study that compared distribution of various morphological criteria and came to a tentative conclusion that 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy had statistically significant positive correllation with the so-called genuine Paulines. That is, similarities in multiple aspects between the so-called genuine Paulines and these books were far more than simple chance would have them be. They're much more alike than they are different.

In short: The grounds that most scholars have used to argue that the Pastorals aren't Paul — hapax legomenon — aren't that great of an indicator in real-world tests. Yet because these conclusions have been perpetuated many scholarly treatments of the Pastorals published in the past 75 years, the idea that Pastorals aren't Paul due to vocabulary differences still persists even though the grounds for its persistence may not be accurate.

So I say instead of resting in psuedonomity we should instead go back to the start. We should term the question on the basis of tradition and internal evidence: What do the documents themselves say about their authorship, and what does tradition say about their authorship? This must be the starting point. Once stated, that should be taken as the position and then arguments against that position should be posited, examined and reviewed. Schleiermacher's premise from way back in 1807 was wrong, so let's rewind and start again.

For instance: I read the beginning of Irenaeus' Against Heresies the other day. He starts out with quotes from 1Ti 1.4 about "myths and endless geneaologies which ... promote speculations rather than the divine training that is in faith". That's from what, late 2nd century? And Irenaeus likely learned at least some from Polycarp (early 2nd century) who also alluded to references in the Pastoral Epistles (cf. Poly 4.1))? So if they were used that early and as if they were authoritative, what can we understand from that regarding the earliest church's perspective towards these books? And how should that weigh in how we approach them and use them?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Money as the Root of all Evil

Thu, 18 May 2006 14:47:12 UTC

Michael Gilleland, at the Laudator Temporis Acti blog, has a post on The Root of All Evil where he quotes Sophocles, Antigone 295-301, in Greek and English.

Here's the English. Be sure to check his site for the Greek.

There is no institution so ruinous for men as money; money sacks cities, money drives men from their homes! Money by its teaching perverts men's good minds so that they take to evil actions! Money has shown men how to practise villainy, and taught them impiousness in every action! (Sophocles, Antigone 295-301)

Heresy and the Pastoral Epistles

Sun, 30 Apr 2006 06:07:34 UTC

Rob Bradshaw, at the ever-helpful BiblicalStudies.org.uk, has uploaded the following article:

Oskar Skarsaune, "Heresy and the Pastoral Epistles," Themelios 20.1 (1994): 9-14.

You really should be a regular reader of Rob's blog as he announces new articles he posts with frequency.

Thanks, Rob!

Sample: 1Ti 5.17-19: Honor Responsible Elders

Sat, 29 Apr 2006 16:12:17 UTC

This sample covers 1Ti 5.17-19.

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, â€œYou shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,â€ and, â€œThe laborer deserves his wages.â€ Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. (1Ti 5.17-19, ESV)

I'm almost hesitant to post this as my thoughts on this section are far from resolved. I'm most confused by the concept of "double honor". Does it involve monetary compenasation?

Also, what really was the structure of the church at this point? How do overseers (ἐπίσκοπος) and elders (πρεσβύτερος) relate to each other? Are all overseers elders, but not all elders overseers?

You'll see that I have many notes to myself in the footnotes, and I discuss sorts of things that I don't typically discuss in these studies. This is just me working through issues on paper, much of it will likely be cut in future revisions that are more "word study" focused.

Please see my overview post for further details on what this is all about.

Comments via email or through the commenting system here are appreciated.

Thanks!

Sample: 1Ti 5.9-10; 11-16: Determining True Widows, Recommendations for Younger Widows

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 06:15:35 UTC

This sample covers 1Ti 5.9-10 and 1Ti 5.11-16:

Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work. But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan. If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are really widows. (1Ti 5.9-16, ESV)

This is actually covered as two parts (vv. 9-10 and vv. 11-16) of a larger section (vv. 3-16).

Please see my overview post for further details on what this is all about.

Comments via email or through the commenting system here are appreciated.

Thanks!

2Ti 2.15 and "Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth"

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 16:38:13 UTC

Suzanne McCarthy has blogged a mighty fine series of bloggin' at the Better Bibles Blog on the Greek word ὀρθοτομέω in 2Ti 2.15. Her posts are rounded up at Orthotomeo: reflections.

This is a tough word because it is an NT hapax legomenon. Most folks know this from the KJV translation:

15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2Ti 2.15, KJV).

Here's how the ESV translatates it:

15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. (2Ti 2.15, ESV)

Suzanne's point is that there is likely something beyond a strictly literal translation going on here. She does a great job examining all sorts of classical Greek literature (using primarily online resources) to examine how ὀρθοτομέω and similar concepts are used. It's worth checking out.

FWIW, here's my translation of 2Ti 2.15:

15 Take pains to present yourself approved of God, an unashamed worker, guiding the word of truth along a straight path.