The Pastoral Epistles

Dibelius and Conzelmann is not the most suitable choice as a primary contemporary commentary, but it is one of the most historically influential works on the Pastoral Epistles. Its interpretation of the letters through Hellenistic moral exhortation, household ethics, church order, eusebeia, “sound” teaching, Savior and epiphany language, and especially the ideal of “good Christian citizenship” established categories with which generations of subsequent commentators have had to interact. Its treatment of Titus is particularly important in showing how conventional Greco-Roman ethical material is taken up and explicitly Christianized by salvation-historical theology. The commentary’s weaknesses are substantial: differences from the undisputed Pauline letters are sometimes converted too readily into evidence of non-Pauline authorship, and its narrative of waning eschatology and increasing accommodation to the surrounding world is frequently too schematic. Later scholarship has corrected many particulars. Yet originality matters in evaluating a commentary, and very few works on the Pastorals have generated as many durable questions or shaped the subsequent discussion so profoundly. It remains a commentary one should consult not because its reconstruction should be accepted wholesale, but because understanding the modern interpretation of the Pastorals is difficult without engaging it.

I can’t help thinking of these as the bad guys, but that doesn’t make the commentary worthless. For one thing, how clarifyingly forthright Dibelius was! (Conzelmann updated and revised the work after Dibelius’ death; I think of Dibelius (1883-1947) as the main author but am not sure how to apportion the credit). Here is the classic statement of the view that whoever wrote these documents and put Paul’s name on them was not only bad at imitating his writing style, but even worse at reproducing his theology. Instead of the revolutionary and apocalyptic theology of Paul, the pastorals represent bürgerlichen Christentum, bourgeois Christianity. The dead giveaway is the moralizing Hellenistic vocabulary, the dreaded household codes with their hierarchical order, the Frühkatholizismus (early or incipient Catholicism) that sets in after “eschatological expectation has diminished” and apostolic ministry is reduced to giving advice about how to fit in to Roman society and culture without making waves. Sigh. It is good to have it all laid out here in cold print. Anybody at risk of catching a mild case of the anti-pastorals virus can see a full-blown case of it here and guess at the prognosis. But Dibelius/Conzelmann has another, more straightforward virtue: the copious parallels from Greco-Roman literature are well chosen and conveniently displayed. Ganz wissenschaftlich, y’all! Very high quality work, well worth consulting. [Full Review]