Loading...In this series providing summaries of each book of the New Testament “in a nutshell” I have dealt with three of the letters that claim to be written by Paul but probably were not: Colossians, Ephesians, and 2 Thessalonians. We now come to the three letters that are grouped together and called the “Pastoral Epistles,” 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus.
For reasons we will see, there is a wide scholarly consensus that these books were not actually written by Paul. Before addressing the issue of authorship, I’d like to note the ostensible distinctive themes and emphases of these books, both as a group (since most scholars are reasonably certain that they all came from the same pen) and individually.
The three letters are grouped together as Pastoral epistles because each claims to be written by Paul to a person he has appointed to lead one of his churches: Timothy, his young companion left to minister among the Christians in Ephesus, and Titus, his companion left on the island of Crete. Moreover, these epistles contain pastoral advice, that is, advice from the apostle to his appointed representatives concerning how they should tend their Christian flocks.
Each of the books presupposes a slightly different situation, but the overarching issues are the same. The problems involve (a) false teachers who are creating problems for the congregations and (b) the internal organization of the communities and their leaders. “Paul” urges his representatives to take charge, to run a tight ship, to keep everyone in line, and above all to silence those who promote ideas that conflict with the teachings that he himself has endorsed.
In this post I deal with 1 Timothy. I begin by giving a one-sentence fifty-word description.
Get access to Dr. Ehrman's library of 4,000+ articles plus five new articles per week about the New Testament and early Christianity. It costs as little as $2.99/mth and every cent goes to charity!
Unlock 4,000+ Articles Like This!
Forgive me if you have addressed this in a previous post. But did the addressees of these Pauline letters that were forgeries, know they weren’t from Paul? In other words, were they fooled? Or did they know someone else had written the letter. If the addressees knew they were forgeries, why did they accept them?
A couple of points to stress: it is never necessarily the case that those who are *said* to be the addressees were actdually the ones who recieved the letters, but on the contrary almost certainly were not. That’s part of the fiction. You forge a letter to the Laodiceans but show it first to someone who lives in Athens. They’d have no way of knowing it wasn’t originally sent to Laodicea. So yes, most people reading these letters thought they were by Paul and sent to the alleged addressees.
Dear Dr Ehrman-May I ask if you would recommend any calm, academically literate books or essays regarding the Johannine concept of the Holy Spirit/Paraclete ? As you may know, the Spirit-Paraclete of John is often the topic of inter-religious polemic, yet would I be correct that, in your academic opinion, you view it as being clearly the Holy Spirit ?
Hi Toby:
Check out Father Raymond Brown’s books, especially his writings on John.
Does the author of 1 Timothy appear to be familiar with the Gospel of Luke, based on the quotation of “scripture” in 1 Timothy 5:18?
Concerning the “myths and endless genealogies” warned against in 1 Timothy 1:4, I had read that some think it could refer to the developing virgin birth stories and accompanying genealogies, which the author is warning against as speculations and distractions. Do you think that’s possible?
No, don’t think so. Human genealogies were never presented as a problem in early Christianity or Judaism. And there’s no opposition to the virgin birth anywhere we look in proto-orthodox Xty.
Is there any way to examine whether the people spreading the doctrines the letter author opposes were women? Perhaps the themes are unified, and demoting women in the church was partly motivated by the things certain women were teaching? This is not necessarily in conflict with the idea of church growth leading to a more public presence and thus moving from the “women’s sphere” of the home to the “men’s sphere” of public life, as it may be one of the doctrinal disagreements used to justify the transition.
He doesn’t make the connectoin himself and since he likes to find all sorts of things to blame women for, most scholars don’t think he’s probalby talking about women as the propunders of these false doctrines. But maybe!