Defeating the Critics
This is a very important and superb commentary on the Letters to Timothy because Luke
Timothy Johnson is refuting in a very skilled and well-founded manner the academic consensus that argues for the inauthenticity of these letters. Formerly, Johnson had been an adherent to this majority position, but in the course of his teaching as professor
he has begun the process of reexamination which ended up in his devotion to the contrary position, i.e. Pauline authorship of these letters. His own approach may be sketched as follows: The Letters to Timothy are real rather than fictional letters, they are
to be understood within the framework of Paul´s ministry (he proposes Acts 20,1-3 as a
possible setting) and the socio-historical realities of the first century. Each letter addresses a particular situation and must therefore be considered individually rather than as part of a larger group. They have to be compared within the Pauline corpus, e.g.
1Tim with 1Cor. Concerning the lack of any literal coherence of 1Tim - the strange combination of personal paraenesis and the instructions about the community´s life -
Johnson draws a comparison with the royal correspondence (mandata principis) of the
Roman emperors, and shows that 1Tim belongs to a well-established epistolary form.
On 2Tim Johnson accentuates the character and qualities as a teacher for the church
which his delegate Timothy has to evolve.
Furthermore, I have highly appreciated Johnson´s outlines of the "real-life occasions"
and the setting of the letters and his amount of source material, especially from hellenistic moral discourse. In my view this commentary is very recommendable!
