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  • From: Richard Fellows <rfellows AT intergate.bc.ca>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: The identity of Titus
  • Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 19:28:06 -0700


Fellow listers,

I have made a fist attempt at trying to quantify the probability that Titus
and Timothy were two individuals (just for fun). While the exercise is, or
course, subjective, it is nevertheless informative. It is clear that there
is much agreement in the data that we have concerning 'Titus' and
'Timothy'. The task, then, is to calculate the probability that such a
level of agreement would occur by chance if Titus and Timothy were
different individuals. How does one go about such a task?

My method is to take the evidence for the Titus-Timothy hypothesis and
divide it into self-contained, statistically independent, arguments. I
identified 23 such arguments, each of which consisted of an agreement in
the data concerning Titus and Timothy. For each of these arguments we can
then estimate (guess) the probability that this agreement would occur by
chance.

For example, one of the arguments is that the name 'Titus' never appears in
Acts. This fact is not at all remarkable if Titus was Timothy, but is
rather surprising if he was not, since Acts mentions all of Paul's other
close colleagues (Timothy, Silvanus, Apollos, Prisca, Aquila, Mark,
Barnabas, etc.). In my judgement this argument favours the Titus-Timothy
hypothesis by a factor of 3:1, all else being equal.

Now, the weights that I have ascribed to the other 22 arguments are mostly
2:1, sometimes 3:1. Multiplying all the weightings gives a figure of
50,000,000! We must then divide this figure by some factor to allow for
any counter-arguments. In my judgement we are left with at least 1,000
,000. So, the odds against Titus and Timothy being different people is a
million to one!

My purpose is not to argue for any exact number, or even to count the
zeros. But I think the arithmetic is informative because it illustrates
how a series of relatively minor 'coincidences' in the data can combine to
make a compelling case.

Incidentally, according to my subjective judgements, 60% of the evidence
for the Titus-Timothy hypothesis comes from 2 Cor 1-9 (and 1 Cor), 25%
comes from 2 Cor 10-13, and the remaining 15% comes from Acts and Galatians.

Richard Fellows
Vancouver
rfellows AT intergate.bc.ca





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