Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Titus 1:10-16, The circumcision group, and Cretans always liars
Many rebellious talkers and deceivers, especially of the circumcision group, are upsetting whole households for dishonest gain; Paul quotes a Cretan prophet who called Cretans always liars, and warns against Jewish myths and human commands, for to the pure all things are pure.
Titus 1:10-16, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul warns Titus about many rebellious and deceptive talkers, especially from the circumcision group, who are upsetting whole households for the sake of money. He quotes a Cretan's own saying that Cretans are liars and lazy, and tells Titus to correct them sharply so they turn from Jewish myths and human rules. Paul says that what makes things clean or unclean is the state of the person, and these people claim to know God while their actions deny him. Whether Paul here endorses a stereotype of a whole people, and where the line comes from, are read differently.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/circumcision\/","n":"Circumcision and becoming a Jew","s":"Circumcision was the sign of God's covenant with Abraham and the mark of a Jewish man. A Gentile man who joined Israel was circumcised; the first great quarrel in the church was over whether Gentile believers had to be.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/genealogies\/","n":"Family trees, myths and genealogies","s":"Lists of ancestors that proved who you were: a true Israelite, a priest, an heir of David. Matthew opens with one. Some teachers also spun stories and family trees out of the Bible's lists, which 1 Timothy calls myths and endless genealogies.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sages-and-philosophers\/","n":"Philosophers and their schools","s":"Stoics, Epicureans and other schools taught a whole way of life in lecture halls and marketplaces. A traveling teacher with a message about God would be heard, and judged, as one more philosopher.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/food-laws\/","n":"Clean and unclean food","s":"The law of Moses sorted animals into clean and unclean, and keeping kosher marked Jews off from their neighbors. Strict Jews also avoided Gentile food, Gentile wine and Gentile tables.","r":""}
The circumcision group were Jewish Christians, and the teaching had a strong Jewish element (the ESV Study Bible; Carson, Moo and Morris); Wright thinks "many people in Crete seem to have taken up with some kind of Judaism". A charlatan claiming to be Herod's son Alexander, Josephus writes, "deceived the Jews that were at Crete, and got a great deal of money of them for traveling in splendor". Upsetting households means subverting household order (Keener and his notes), or, for Wright, splitting families between circumcised and uncircumcised believers. The line about Cretans was often attributed to Epimenides (Keener and his notes; the ESV and CSB Study Bibles; the dictionary), though Keener prefers Hesiod by way of Callimachus. Does Paul endorse the stereotype? Keener writes that "Paul is clearly not citing his own view," the ESV Study Bible and Carson, Moo and Morris that Paul agrees, and Wright that he is writing "tongue in cheek". Jewish myths were stories amplifying the Bible's narratives (Keener and his notes), books that Wright says mostly urged the laws separating Jews from Gentiles. To the pure all things are pure applies the food categories to moral purity (Keener and his notes).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to Titus 1:10-16, and on Titus 1:11, 1:12, 1:14 and 1:15
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Titus 1:10, 1:12, 1:14 and 1:15
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Titus 1:10 and 1:12-13
- CSB Study Bible, note on Titus 1:12-13
- Josephus, The Wars of the Jews 2.7.1, trans. William Whiston
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Pastoral Letters, comment on Titus 1:10-16
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 15, The Pastoral Epistles: The False Teachers, and The Contribution of Titus
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry Crete
