The Babylonian Talmud reads: ‘And Rav also ruled that the child is fit, for once a man

appeared before Rav and asked him, "What [is the legal position of the child] where an

idolator or a slave cohabited with the daughter of an Israelite?" "The child is fit," the

Master replied. ..... Rav Yehudah also ruled that the child is fit, for when one came

before Rav Yehudah, the latter told him, "Go and conceal your identity or marry one of

your own kind." When such a man appeared before Rava he told him, "Either go

abroad or marry one of your own kind."’ (b. Yev 45a-b)

This passage concerns advice for men who, like Timothy, are born to a Jewish

mother, and a gentile father. Yehudah suggests that they conceal their half-gentile

parentage. Rava gives essentially the same advice, suggesting that they go abroad

(where their gentile fathers will not be known).

Did Timothy, then, pre-empt the advice of the Talmud, and keep quiet about his gentile

father when moving in Jewish circles away from his home town? Did he follow his

Jewish customs and allow others to make the (mistaken) assumption that he was of

purely Jewish parentage? There are hints in Acts that he did indeed intend to pass as

a Jew.

Acts 16:3 says that Timothy was circumcised ‘because of the Jews in those places’.

It then adds, ‘for they all knew that his father was a Greek’. Luke seems to be saying

that if the Jews had not known that Timothy’s father was a Greek, they would have

taken him to be a Jew, and he would not have needed to be circumcised. There is an

implication here that Timothy had intended to keep quiet about his Greek father, at

least for a time. In Acts 15 Luke recounts how Paul secured the ruling that Gentile

believers did not need to be circumcised. The circumcision of Timothy by Paul in Acts

16:3 therefore suggests that Luke is not presenting him as a Gentile, but as someone

who wished to pass as a Jew.(1) There are theological, evangelistic, and personal

reasons why Timothy may have wished to keep quiet about his father.

Paul writes, ‘if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring’ (Gal. 3:29), and

‘In Christ Jesus neither circumcision or uncircumcision counts for anything’ (Gal. 5:6)

and ‘a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly’, but ‘a person is a Jew who is one

inwardly’ (Rom. 2:28-29). Therefore, Timothy’s presentation of himself as a Jew would

be a practical demonstration of the gospel that he had received. Indeed, to consider

himself anything less than a child of Abraham would be a denial of the gospel.

For evangelistic reasons it was important that Timothy be acceptable to the Jews with

whom he interacted. Like Paul, he would need to be a ‘Jew to the Jews’ to bring them

to the faith. The fact that Paul eventually took the extreme measure of circumcising

Timothy shows how important it was that Timothy be accepted in Jewish circles.

Timothy’s silence about his father would therefore make sense. It would make him

acceptable to all Jews. He would gain the practical benefits of circumcision without

actually having to be circumcised.

Finally, intermarriage was stigmatized in Jewish traditions (Exod. 34:15-16; Deut. 7:3;

Josh. 23:12-13; Neh. 13:23-27; Ezra 9:1-10; Jub. 30:7-17) so Timothy may also have

had a personal motive to be reticent about his Greek father.

There are two indications in Acts that Paul’s uncircumcised converts were sometimes

taken to be Jews. Firstly, Acts 21:28-29 tells that a suspicion arose that Paul had

taken a Greek into the temple. The rumor must have appeared credible both to the

Jews from Asia, and to the crowd. This suggests that Paul’s uncircumcised

companions may indeed, on occasions, have passed themselves off as Jews. The

spread of the rumor about Trophimus entering the temple can be explained if it was

well known that Paul’s companions had done similar, though lesser, things in the

past.

Secondly, Acts 21:21 says that many Christ-believing Jews had heard an (incorrect)

report that Paul taught Jews not to circumcise their sons. Like the Trophimus

incident, this confusion is explicable if one or more gentile converts of Paul had been

taken to be Jews and had sons who were known to be uncircumcised.

Therefore, Timothy could well have intended to keep quiet about his Greek father, and

this is the implication of Acts 16:3.

The phrase hELLHN WN (being Greek) in Gal. 2:3 is odd if Titus was 100% Gentile by

parentage and never circumcised and always upfront about his Gentile status. Firstly,

it seems redundant. From Gal. 2:1 it is likely that Titus was known to the Galatians,

so they would probably have known already that he was a Greek. Also, the context

makes it obvious that Titus was uncircumcised. Secondly, the hELLHN WN makes

the sentence rather disjointed. However, if Titus had passed as a Jew on some other

occasion, this would explain why Paul had to include the "being Greek" to make it

clear that Titus was known to be a Greek by those in the meeting. The hELLHN WN

would then be connected closely with the SUN EMOI (with me), and we could then

translate, "Not even Timothy, who was accompanying me as a Greek, was compelled

to be circumcised".(2) This makes for a less disjointed reading.

In Gal. 2:1-10 Paul is trying to persuade the Galatians that the Jerusalem apostles

were comfortable with his gospel. If Titus was Timothy, Paul makes a very powerful

argument in Gal. 2:3: not even Timothy, the most Jewish of Greeks, was compelled to

be circumcised by the apostles. If, on the other hand, Titus was an ordinary Gentile,

Paul’s point would be weak. There would be nothing in Gal. 2:3 to contradict the view

that the apostles preferred that ordinary Greek Christians be circumcised. If Titus was

an ordinary Greek, the Galatians could have assumed that the apostles requested

Titus’s circumcision, though they did not successfully compel it. Gal. 2:3 therefore

works best if it refers to Timothy, who could pass as a Jew.

(1) It is very unlikely that Luke could have considered that Timothy was legally a Jew.

See D. Daube, Ancient Jewish Law (Leiden: Brill, 1981), pp. 22-32. Also S.J.D.

Cohen, ‘Was Timothy Jewish (Acts 16:1-3)? Patristic Exegesis, Rabbinic Law, and

Matrilineal Descent’, JBL 105/2 (1986), pp. 251-68.

(2) This way of punctuating the text is that of E.H. Askwith, The Epistle to the

Galatians: An Essay on it Destination and Date (London: Macmillan, 1899) 117.

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