I am diving into some long-neglected textual studies, and the book I selected to serve as my first effort is George W. Knight’s The Pastoral Epistles in the New International Greek Testament Commentary series (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992.) This is not a full book review, as I have only really moved beyond the introductory material, but I had to share this information with anyone who is interested.
In the discussions (wars?) between those who agitate for equality for women in the leadership roles of the church and those who posit a more conservative (complementarian) view, one argument that is presented prominently by the egalitarians is that the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus) were not written by Paul (as they clearly claim to be). The “evidence” provided is that the letters demonstrate a development of congregational leadership that did not occur until the early 2nd century, and that the language, style, and even the content of the letters is vastly different than the “acknowledged” letters of Paul. The purpose of this argumentation is transparent – if Paul did not write the Pastoral Epistles, and they can be demonstrated to be from a much later time period, then the instructions regarding male leadership can be dismissed because they are “sub-apostolic” or “post-apostolic.”
What I want to share is that Knight provides probably the best, most complete, and forceful refutation of those arguments I have ever read. The material from pages 21-52 should be mandatory reading for any student of the Bible – if for no other reason than Knight works methodically through the arguments against Pauline authorship, and demonstrates that each and every one is either demonstrably false, or at the very least, has equal basis for Pauline authorship.
I have only briefly skimmed Knight’s material on the qualifications for the eldership, but his treatment of 1 Tim. 2:8-15 is equally forceful in refuting the arguments of the egalitarians. (Knight does not personally wade into the “gender wars.” He simply explicates the text, allowing the clear meaning of the text to come through.) Those who oppose Knight must come to the discussion with far more “ammunition” than what I have seen presented. The text of Timothy (and I would argue the rest of the New Testament as well) simply does not support their contentions.
To summarize this brief glimpse, the introductory material in this commentary demonstrates how wrong various scholars are when they attempt to date the Pastoral Epistles past the time of Paul, and therefore the attempt to dismiss Paul’s teaching on male spiritual leadership is equally wrong. Knight refutes each argument (elegantly and powerfully), concluding that Paul was indeed the author and therefore the teachings in the book are fully apostolic and trustworthy.
One brief additional note: the commentary is indeed based on the Greek text, so a reader who has no background in NT Greek will be handicapped once the textual commentary begins, but the contents of the commentary would still be valuable to an “English only” reader. It would just take a little more effort to understand completely what is being presented.
