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The Polemic of the Pastorals is unavailable, but you can change that!

Much historical-critical work on the opponents in the Pastoral Epistles has resulted in sweeping generalizations concerning their Jewish and/or Gnostic nature. Literary analyses have been somewhat more promising in focusing on the stereotypical nature of the polemic, but either fail to do justice to the urgency of the language in the Pastorals or do not provide a convincing description of the...

the opponents with those addressed in 1 Corinthians and Colossians. Further evidence, according to Goulder, comes from the insistence of the Pastorals that no one has seen God (1 Tim. 1:17 and particularly 1 Tim. 6:16). Commenting on this verse, Goulder states: ‘What I say three times is true; and what I deny three times is said to be true by someone else (1996: 246). In other words, the strength of the denial that anyone has seen God suggests that the opponents were making this very claim. Goulder
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