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  • From: "Mark Goodacre" <M.S.Goodacre AT bham.ac.uk>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Timothy/Titus and circumcision
  • Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 11:13:55 -0000

Thanks for an interesting post, Richard. I am intrigued by the
Timothy-Titus theory and think it may have something going for it,
but one question relating to this post. If the Galatians knew Titus
well, knew that he had ultimately been circumcised and knew that he
had a Jewish mother, would it not have helped Paul's case for him to
have alluded to Titus' parentage? Doesn't Paul's drawing attention
to Titus in Galatians 2 rather diminish the rhetorical force of this
narration if Titus is now circumcised? In other words, how powerful
would Galatians 2.3 be -- "But not even Titus, who was with me,
though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised" -- if the
Galatians knew that in fact Paul had subsequently circumcised Titus?
Would not the first readers / hearers have said, "But Titus is now
circumcised, and that's what we are being persuaded to do too"?
Under such circumstances, would not Paul have stressed that Titus's
circumstances were different from those of the Galatians in that he
had a Jewish mother? Why would Paul draw attention specifically to
Titus as a Greek ("though he was Greek")?

Richard wrote:

> Paul then
> wrote Galatians and told them that the apostles had not demanded that
> Titus be circumcised, though he was with him and was a Greek at that
> time. Paul did not deny that T-T's father was a Greek, but he made it
> clear that the way that the 'false brothers' had found out was
> thoroughly unscrupulous: they had sneaked in and spied.

It's a minor point, and I realise that you are painting a picture
here and reading between the lines, but Paul does not specifically
say "and was a Greek at that time", does he? It's simply hELLHN WN
in parenthesis.

A couple of more general questions about this passage in Galatians:
what is Paul talking about when he refers to spying? First, without
wanting to be too graphic, is the implication that someone peeped
under the bedsheets or stood too close when Titus went to the toilet
(cf. East is East)? If so, does this mean that Paul had not been
upfront initially that Titus was uncircumcised? Second, is there any
significance in the fact that Paul and Barnabas *and not Titus*
receive the right hand of fellowship in Gal. 2.9? i.e. does Paul
leave Jerusalem with the cloud of the Titus incident hanging over
him?

Mark
-----------------------------
Dr Mark Goodacre mailto:M.S.Goodacre AT bham.ac.uk
Graduate Institute for Theology & Religion
Dept of Theology
University of Birmingham
Elmfield House, Bristol Road tel.+44 121 414 7512
Birmingham B29 6LQ UK fax: +44 121 415 8376

http://www.theology.bham.ac.uk/goodacre
http://NTGateway.com





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