Epistle to Titus
Dan Fefferman
- The Pastoral Epistles are often considered together, as each throws light upon the others.
The Epistle to Titus is a book of the canonic New Testament, one of the three so-called "pastoral epistles" (with 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy). It is offered as a letter from Paul to the Apostle Titus.
Authorship and date
Scholars consider the Pastoral epistles to all be written by the same author. Titus has a very close affinity with 1 Timothy, sharing similar phrases and expressions and similar subject matter.[1] While these epistles are traditionally attributed to Paul of Tarsus, most scholars today consider them pseudepigraphical.
Traditional view
The author of Titus identifies himself as "Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ."
Scholars who believe Paul wrote Titus date its composition from the circumstance that it was written after Paul's visit to Crete (Titus 1:5). However, most scholars agree that this visit could not be the one referred to in Acts 27:7, when Paul was on his voyage to Rome as a prisoner, and where he continued a prisoner for two years. Thus traditional exegesis supposes that Paul sailed from Rome into Asia, passing Crete by the way, and that there he left Titus "to set in order the things that were wanting." Thence he would have gone to Ephesus, where he left Timothy, and from Ephesus to Macedonia, where he wrote the First Epistle to Timothy, and from there, according to the superscription of this epistle, to Nicopolis in Epirus, from which place he wrote to Titus, about 66 or 67.
Critical view
Doubt about Paul's authorship of Titus was been expressed by critical scholars since the mid-nineteenth century. According to Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), "Paul's Authorship was undisputed in antiquity, as far as known, but is frequently doubted today. It was probably written about the same time as the First Epistle to Timothy, with which it has many affinities."
All three Pastoral epistles are widely regarded by contemporary scholars as being pseudepigraphical. On the basis of the language and content of the epistles, many scholars believe that they were written after Paul's death by someone who honored his spirit and wished to invoke Paul's name in dealing with problems of a later time. Critics examining the text find its vocabulary and literary style unlike Paul's unquestionably authentic letters, see the life situation of Paul in the epistles as inconsistent with Paul's reconstructed biography, and identify principles of the emerged Christian church after those of the apostolic generation.[2]
In the view of critical scholars, Titus is dated from the 80s up to the end of the 2nd century.[3]
Epimenides
One of the secular peculiarities of the Epistle to Titus is the inclusion of text which has become known as the Epimenides paradox. According to the World English Bible translation, Titus 1:12-13 reads (in part) "One of them, a prophet of their own, said, 'Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and idle gluttons.' This testimony is true." The statement by a member of a group that all members are liars is now a famous logic problem, since the prophet who declared all Cretans liar must therefore have been a liar himself, and therefore not a true prophet.
See also
- Authorship of the Pauline epistles
- 1 Timothy
- 2 Timothy
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
External links
Online translations of the Epistle to Titus:
Exegetical papers on Titus:
| Preceded by: 2 Timothy |
Books of the Bible |
Succeeded by: Philemon |
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