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by R. Bieringer (Editor)
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.
