Paul and The Pauline Letters: Titus

The Letter to Titus, one of the three "Pastoral Epistles" of the New Testament, has over the last twenty years become the ground of intense controversy-theologically, sociologically, even politically. For this letter (like its companions, I and II Timothy) dates to a time when the Apostles are gone and a new church leadership is evolving. In Titus we read instruction that is of continuing importance to the Christian faithful, touching on issues that are with us yet--leadership in the Church and qualifications for authority; propriety of worship; the roles of women; the demands of the Christian ethic upon individuals; the relationship of the new followers of Christ with their Jewish contemporaries. Monsignor Quinn guides us ably through the shoals of contemporary controversy among scholars, dealing definitively with issues of authorship, place of origin, original audience, and the purpose of the Pastorals. More than this, he sets before us his integrated vision of these letters as the earliest anthology on the subject of pastoral leadership. The crowning achievement of a lifetime of admirable work in biblical studies, these translations and commentaries will stand as Quinn's monument for generations to come.

In this commentary on I & II Timothy and Titus, Raymond Collins furnishes a fresh translation, a bibliography and an introduction to the historical background and literary architecture before providing an exposition of the biblical text.

These four letters,too often neglected ,possess an interest that is quite unique to church people today.I AND II Timothy and Titus,known as the Pastoral Epistles,deal with exremely practical matters of church management and personal conduct.The little letter to Philemon is the only private letter of Paul that we possess.It tells the romantic story of the runaway slave Onesimus, who,as Dr.Barclay shows ,may have become, some fifty years later,the great bishop of Ephesus.

The present edition of this commentary has been totally reset and rewritten to comment on the text of the New International Version (NIV). Nonetheless, it is still substantially the same as the original Good News Commentary, first published in 1984. These three letters (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus), called the Pastoral Epistles (PE) since the eighteenth century, purport to be letters from the Apostle Paul to two of his younger co-workers, whom he has left in charge of the churches in Ephesus and Crete, respectively. Since the early nineteenth century, however, when doubt was first expressed by F. Schleiermacher, a large array of arguments has been forthcoming that have called their authenticity into question, so that at present the large majority of NT (New Testament) scholars worldwide consider them not authored by Paul but by a pseudepigrapher (although a disciple of Paul), around the turn of the first century A.D. The present commentary has been written from the perspective of Pauline authorship, fully aware of the many difficulties that entails but convinced that theories of pseudepigraphy have even greater historical difficulties.

Chapter 4: Commentary on Titus

In this addition to the NTC series, Luke Timothy Johnson calls attention to the fact that the three letters of Paul to his delegates Timothy and Titus do not make easy reading. Why? Because they are written in a context completely different from our own, forcing us to struggle with foreign words, symbols, and concepts. Nevertheless “the biggest gift these ancient writings make to present-day readers is their otherness, their refusal to say what we might like them to say.” Those who are willing to struggle with these writings “will find themselves richly rewarded, for beneath what is repelling in them is also something deeply appealing and profoundly pertinent to our won age.”As in all of the NTC commentaries, a new translation of the texts is provided. The translation is divided into specific units for discussion, each consisting of (1) “Notes on Translation” –an analysis of technical matters such as the state of the Greek text, diction, and style (2) “literary Observations”- an examination of a variety of issues pertinent to the literary context of the writing; and (3) “Comment” – a consideration of the historical realities and religious ideas revealed by the passage.Luke Timothy Johnson is Woodruff Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Emory University and author of The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels and The Epistle of James in the Anchor Bible Series.

UBS handbook series.; Helps for translators

Author Mark Harding gives an overview of recent trends in scholarship as he surveys research on the authenticity and pseudonymity of the letters, studies that have sought to understand them as actualizations of the Pauline heritage and contributions of recent scholars toward the discovery of how these culturally conditioned New Testament documents might be relevant to modern believers.