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  • From: Richard Fellows <rfellows AT shaw.ca>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Timothy/Titus and circumcision
  • Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 13:26:41 -0800

Mark Goodacre wrote:
> 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.

Mark, thanks for taking an interest.

> 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?

Acts tells us that the Jews in Galatia "all knew that his father was a
Greek". We can be confident that the Christians in Galatia would have known
Timothy's parentage. There is no necessity for Paul to allude to
Titus-Timothy's parentage in Gal 2, because they already knew. However, it
is possible that there are allusions to Titus's mixed race status in Gal
2:3. We read 'OUDE TITOS' 'not even Titus'. Is Paul saying here "Not even
Titus, who, as you know was very Jewish and could pass as a Jew, but was
with me as a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised"? Is the OUDE an
allusion to Titus's Jewishness?

> 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?

In Gal 2:3 Paul is not presenting Titus as a precedent for the Galatians to
follow. His purpose is rather to show that the Jerusalem pillars did not
oppose his gospel, and we see this in 2:6b-10. Paul emphasizes that the
apostles added nothing to his message: in fact they did not even compel even
Titus to be circumcised. Whether Titus was or was not subsequently
circumcised in Galatia has no bearing on the point that Paul is making in
2:3. His purpose is to describe the stance that the apostles took. While the
'false brothers' had thought that Titus should be circumcised, the apostles
did not take their view. That is the point that Paul is making in 2:3.

> Would not the first readers / hearers have said, "But Titus is now
> circumcised, and that's what we are being persuaded to do too"?

Putting the question another way: Why does Paul not explain why the
Galatians should not follow the example of Timothy or Titus-Timothy? The
same problem must be addressed by those who believe that Titus was not
Timothy, as well as by those to accept that T-T was one person.

The uncircumcised Timothy was unacceptable to the Jews 'in those places'
(Acts 16:3), which included Galatia. This gives us evidence about where they
drew the line in Galatia. While Antioch (where Timothy came from) was
probably more lax, we can be confident that anyone as Jewish as Timothy
would be required to be circumcised in Galatia. Therefore the Galatian
church probably contained no uncircumcised individuals who straddled the
ethnic boundary like Timothy did. Timothy had a Jewish mother and could pass
as a Jew, but was uncircumcised. He was in a clearly different situation
from any of the uncircumcised Galatian Christians. The uncircumcised
Galatians would not have been able to appealed to Timothy's circumcision as
an example to be followed, because they were not in his class. Does this
make sense?

> 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?

They all knew that T-T's circumstances were very different from those of the
Galatians, and Paul did not need to stress what they already knew.

>Why would Paul draw attention specifically to
> Titus as a Greek ("though he was Greek")?

Probably Titus was able to pass as a Jew. Paul needed to make it clear that
he was known to be a Greek at the meeting, so he added the words 'being
Greek'.

Does all this answer your question, Mark, or do you see unresolved problems?
Your other points are also interesting, and will try to address them in
another email.

Regards,

Richard Fellows.







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