2 Timothy and Titus Reconsidered

After discussing 1 Timothy in the 19th Colloquium Oecumenicum
Paulinum in 2006 (published as COP 18), the 21st Colloquium
devoted itself to 2 Timothy and Titus. About 30 international Pauline
scholars gathered in the Abbey of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome
between 14 and 18 September 2010 for scholarly exchanges and discussion
of seven scholarly papers on the chapters of 2 Timothy and Titus. In
this volume (COP 20) these papers written in French, English and German
by famous scholars from Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic traditions are
edited and made available to the larger scholarly community. After a
synthesis of the discussion presented in the book (Bieringer), four
scholars each focus on one chapter of 2 Timothy (2 Tim 1: Wolter; 2 Tim
2: Gourgues; 2 Tim 3: Karakolis and 2 Tim 4: MacDonald). The Letter to
Titus is divided into two parts which are each treated in one study (Tit
1-2: Flichy and Tit 3: Herzer). The book concludes with a thematic study
on God's philanthropy and human works touching on both letters (Penna).
In this way the seven studies of this book treat 2 Timothy and Titus
from beginning to end similar to a commentary. It is, however, a
commentary that displays great diversity of approaches, methods,
presuppositions. In the process of commenting on the texts, they also
make a contribution to the highly significant recent discussion on the
corpus theory and the question of authenticity.