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  • From: Richard Fellows <rfellows AT shaw.ca>
  • To: M.S.Goodacre AT bham.ac.uk, Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Timothy/Titus and circumcision
  • Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:04:21 -0800

On Jan 8th Mark Goodacre wrote:
<<does this mean that Paul had not been
upfront initially that Titus was uncircumcised?>>

I have just found the following passage from the Babylonian Talmud (b. Yev
45a-b):

And Rav also ruled that the child is fit, for once a man appeared before Rav
and asked him, "What [is the legal position of the child] where an idolator
or a slave cohabited with the daughter of an Israelite?"
"The child is fit," the Master replied. .....
Rav Yehudah also ruled that the child is fit, for when one came before Rav
Yehudah, the latter told him, "Go and conceal your identity or marry one of
your own kind."
When such a man appeared before Rava he told him, "Either go abroad or marry
one of your own kind."

This passage shows that someone of mixed parentage could pass as a Jew when
traveling away from home. It also shows that concealing one's identity was
considered a morally acceptable way for such people to avoid unjustified
prejudice. All this applies to Timothy. Timothy had a Greek father and would
surely not have broadcast the fact when traveling away from his home town.
By keeping quite about his Greek father, Timothy would have become a Jew to
the Jews. It seems that this policy would have worked had it not been for
the 'false brothers' (Gal 2:3-5) who, through spying, discovered that
Timothy had a Greek father, and leaked the information to the Galatian Jews
(Acts 16:3).

<<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.>>

I take your point, but I don't think hELLHN WN is in parenthesis. We get a
very disjointed sentence if we punctuate it thus:

"But even Titus, who was with me, being Greek, was not compelled to be
circumcised."

It is better to connect the hELLHN WN more closely with the hO SUN EMOI, so
that we get:

"But even Titus, who was with me as a Greek, was not compelled to be
circumcised".

Askwith made this point back in 1899, and I think he was right. The sentence
flows more smoothly this way. This way of punctuating the sentence is
important because it shows that Paul does not add 'being Greek' to emphasise
that Titus had the same status as the Galatians. He is not saying here
'Titus was a Greek, just like you, and he was not circumcised, therefore you
should not be circumcised'. The 'being Greek' has a very different function.
Paul is making it clear that Titus was presented as a Greek, and he needs to
do so because the readers knew that Titus-Timothy was able to pass as a Jew.

Richard.







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