252 - The Pastoral Epistles

The Pastoral Epistles
By Donald Guthrie
228 pp. Grand Rapids, Michigan, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1957. $3.00.

The Tyndale series of New Testament commentaries are intended to provide popular exegetical helps based upon the King James Version but dealing fully with textual and critical questions and referring frequently to the Greek text. Donald Guthrie, the author of this volume, is tutor in New Testament language and literature in London Bible College.

The volume has many merits. It is compact and comparatively inexpensive, yet contains much valuable material based on a detailed knowledge of the Greek text of the Pastoral Epistles and a wide acquaintance with previous commentaries. It is simple and straightforward in lan-

253 - The Pastoral Epistles

guage, making it useful to the interested layman as well as the specialist in New Testament studies. It enters sympathetically into the message of the letters, developing it in a practical and pastoral way, and relating it to the total message of the New Testament.

The author treats the critical questions of the letters in the Introduction and has in addition an appendix dealing in detail with Harrison's linguistic arguments against Pauline authorship, demanding that they furnish an adequate answer to all the questions raised in recent study of the letters. But he follows a much easier course himself. In dealing with the evidence assembled by those who question or deny Pauline authorship he has a more or less persuasive answer for each critical question in turn, but does not appear to be aware of the cumulative force of the arguments. He gives the impression that he has come to the study with his mind made up, and consequently does not deal objectively with the evidence.

More serious is the fact that he virtually ignores the critical questions in his exposition of the letters, treating them as though they were written in the same time and circumstances as the letters to the Galatians or Romans. But the pastoral letters do differ from the other Pauline correspondence in vocabulary, style, and theological content. Whether we regard them as the work of Paul or of one of his disciples we have nevertheless the task of reconstructing the historical situation from which the letters emerged. This task Mr. Guthrie has evaded, and has thus neglected one of the exegete's primary duties. The result is a work which has its merits as a series of meditations on Paul's general theological thought, but is seriously deficient as a critical interpretation of the Pastoral Epistles.

Warren A. Quanbeck
Luther Theological Seminary
St. Paul 8, Minnesota