The First and Second Letters to Timothy: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. By Luke Timothy Johnson. AB 35A. New York: Doubleday, 2001, xiv + 494 pp., $40.00.

With the death of Jerome Quinn (The Letter to Titus, AB 35 [New York: Doubleday, 1990]) in the fall of 1988, the Anchor Bible series on the Pastoral Epistles remained incomplete. We applaud the choice of Luke Timothy Johnson, who maintained Quinn's tradition for erudite scholarship although not remaining in Quinn's theological tradition. Anyone familiar with Johnson's previous work on the Pastorals, seen first in his general NT introduction (The Writings of the New Testament [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986]) and later in his shorter commentary (256 pp.) on the Pastorals (Letters to Paul's Delegates [Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1996]), is well aware of Johnson's sometimes impatient critique of scholars who have rejected Pauline authorship of the Pastorals, a position he now terms somewhat negatively as "conventional wisdom."

Johnson begins by acknowledging the current state of modern scholarship on the authorship of the Pastorals: "Prospects for scholarly unanimity are slender. The clear majority of scholars today considers the Pastorals as a whole to be pseudonymous. Yet a small but stubborn minority holds-in various ways and with varying degrees of enthusiasm-to the more traditional position that the letters are authentic. There is little communication between the positions. Few converts are won from one side to the other" (p. 14). Johnson then presents (pp. 55-90) what may be the best concise defense of Pauline authorship yet available-allowing for his "pit-bull" style.