I AND II TIMOTHY AND TITUS
in New International Biblical Commentary,
Gordon D. Fee,
Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts
Paternoster Press, Carlisle 1988,
332 pp. $10.17; £11.95
ISBN 0-85364-667-8
The New International Biblical Commentary is based on the text of the NIV and is written from the perspective of what is ‘Evangelical’ in modern scholarship, although not all the authors in the series would conform to the meaning of that word as historically understood in English usage.
One who does so is Gordon Fee of Regent College, an internationally recognized New Testament scholar who has written several books including other, more technical commentaries. Here Fee’s volume on the Pastoral Epistles conforms to the aim of the series:
[T]o provide for the benefit of every Bible reader reliable guides to the books of the Bible.-representing the best of contemporary scholarship presented in a form that does not require formal theological education to understand. (p. vii)
In this he succeeds admirably. This edition is revised to conform to the text of the NIV, the original (1984) being written with the GNB as the main text. However the format conforms to that of the rest of the series.
The abbreviations pages show the usual journals and commentaries to be sighted with a slight preponderance of Evangelical publications, as is to be expected of both the author and the series. However this is by no means the whole story and standard liberal, Catholic and even Jewish sources are also listed.
An Introduction deals with the recipients, the historical situation of Paul, and the occasion and purpose of each letter as well as the theology and authorship of each. This latter is already assumed to be Pauline as the previous section on the historical situation of Paul implies. Nevertheless Fee does examine the main arguments against his position and answers them fairly.
The section on theology deals with the Gospel, Ethics, Eschatology and Church Order. Here he recognizes the problems of modern scholarship with what is seen as the non-Pauline content of this theology, which at first sight appears to deal with ‘the more developed concerns of a latter time’ (p. 14). Bearing in mind the occasional and non- systematic writings of Paul, Fee does not see this as a major problem, as he goes on to show in the various sections outlined above.
The epistles are then taken in turn, with each being divided into sections corresponding to paragraphs in the text. If one takes each section as a paragraph then one also has a good guide as to the length of each unit for preaching these books or studying them in small groups or privately. Biblical text where cited is in bold type and technical details are left to endnotes on each section. Greek is also transliterated, which is a great help to the majority of readers who do not have the biblical languages at their fingertips.
Fee interacts with other scholars of the period when his commentary was written and does not ignore the scholarly issues, but comes down firmly in favour of Pauline authorship for each of the epistles. This he does on the basis of their style, which is more Pauline than not, their historical settings, and the purpose for which they were written. He also takes seriously the issue of false teachers which Paul addresses in I Timothy, seeing 1:3 as the key to understanding that epistle. This avoids taking the book as a ‘church manual’, as so many have seen it and puts the emphasis correctly on confronting the false teachers in Ephesus.
On specific passages Fee is not afraid to indicate his personal views, though he does so in an irenic way. Regarding women teaching (I Tim 2) he holds that what was at stake was the fact that in Ephesus the women were being influenced by the false teachers and so should be limited to learning ‘in a quiet demeanor’. In other churches, such as Corinth they did teach.
Whilst Fee holds to a high view of inspiration, he rightly sees II Tim 3:16 as alluding to the normal Jewish belief of the day and not defining the doctrine of Scripture, but rather emphasizing its function in the teaching task of Timothy and the church in general. This is not to say that this text does not have a legitimate application to the debate on scriptural inspiration, but merely to indicate that the primary concern of Paul is its use, a high view of inspiration being assumed in both Jewish and Christian circles in the first century.
Here again we see a concern to deal with the issues which Paul was addressing and not to tackle later doctrinal developments and controversies for which the text has been used. This conforms to his stated purpose in the preface: ‘… there has been every attempt to remove dogmatic or partisan applications. Hence the reader for the most part has been left on her or his own to “make the applications”’ (p. xiii).
The note on the chiastic nature of much of Titus (1:10-3:11), coming as it does on page 210 in the section dealing with 3:9-11 might have been better placed at 1:10 where it could have helped in the understanding of the whole argument as it was taking place and not at 3:9-11 (the end of the chiasmus) where it only serves to make one want to re-read the previous sections to see exactly how this is worked out.
On a slightly facetious note, one wonders what was going on in Fee’s mind when he wrote the second paragraph of his note on Titus 1:1a (p. 170) where he assures us ‘The word order “Jesus Christ” occurs in the PE only here and at 2Tim. 2:8, except for four occasions where it occurs in conjunction with another title (1 Tim 6:3, 14; Titus 2:13[?]; 3:6).’ In other words it occurs six times in all.
A general introduction takes 31 pages and then 132 are given to I Timothy, which is divided into 19 sections, 52 to Titus, which has eight sections, and 87 to II Timothy, which has 15 sections. These proportions seem about right to cover the material in each of the epistles. A nine page bibliography seems fairly up to date at the time of publication, sections being devoted to commentaries, authorship, background and theology, exegetical studies, and ‘Other Useful Books’. These are followed by a ten page subject index and an eight page Scripture index.
These are all very useful, and the bibliography shows a wide range of reading both in terms of history and variety of theological perspective. One has the clear impression that one is in the hands of a scholar who has done considerable research.
Nevertheless, Fee does not forget that he is writing for those who do not necessarily have any theological training and in dealing with the text he is in no way pretentious nor does he flaunt his scholarship.
The current price of the book is probably about a third of the price of the usual academic commentaries. It is not highly academic, but nor is it either devotionally simplistic or dogmatic in a rigid and closed sense. It is a substantial work in its field and yet fully accessible to the non-specialist. It is to be highly recommended as having fulfilled the task it set out to achieve.
Footnotes
1 Prices taken from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk 18/01/10
2 See his Additional Note referencing Warfield on p.282
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