Corpus-Paul

[Richard Fellows <rfellows AT intergate.ca>]

Timothy had a Jewish mother and a Greek father (Acts 16:1-3). He was in
Lystra when Paul arrived there, and it is usually assumed that Lystra was
his home town. However, it was common for Paul to send Timothy to visit
churches that he had founded (e.g. Corinth, Thessalonica, Philippi), and it
is therefore possible that Timothy was on a mission to the cities of
southern Galatia. Was Timothy a resident of Lystra, or had he been sent to
the region as an envoy?

I think it is likely that Timothy was a resident of (Syrian) Antioch. This
makes good sense if, as I believe, he is to be equated with Titus. But
there are other reasons why Antioch is to be preferred over Lystra:

Relations between Jews and Greeks in Antioch seem to have been good, and
proselytes to Judaism were especially abundant in this city (Josephus, War
7.45; cf Acts 6:5). Therefore we should expect there to have been many
mixed unions between Jewish women and Greek men. This consideration, and
the fact that Antioch was a very large city (500,000 people) with a large
established Jewish population, make it likely that Timothy was from there.

Lystra, on the other hand was rather small (some 5000 people), and we have
no evidence of a Jewish community there. It could hardly have been a centre
of Jewish learning, and would surely not have given Timothy the
qualifications that he needed to be an effective missionary.

Now, there is one problem with the Antioch theory: how did the Jews in the
Iconium region know that Timothy's father had been a Greek, if he came from
Antioch? I suggest that Timothy's parentage was revealed to them by the
infiltrating false brothers of Gal 2:4-5. They probably passed through
Antioch (see Gal 2:11-12) and probably learned there that Titus-Timothy's
father had been Greek, and they used this fact against him when they
arrived in southern Galatia. Their discovery of Timothy's Greek background
is the object of the spying referred to in Gal 2:4-5. Gal 2:4 contains an
ellipsis. The words that Paul cannot bring himself to say are surely "He
was circumcised".

So, what do you feel about the frequency of mixed marriages in Antioch,
compared to other cities? What clues do we have? How likely is it that
Timothy would wish to keep quiet about his Greek father?

Happy Christmas!

Richard Fellows