136 Biblical Theology Bulletin Volume 52 Number 4 Pages ###-### © The Author(s), 2022. Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: pending Setting the Boundaries: Reading 1 Timothy and Titus as Community Charters Adam White Abstract Those attempting to interpret 1 Timothy and Titus face a myriad of uncertainties. No less amongst these is determining the type of the literature that they are. While they are clearly framed as epistles, they do not resemble anything that is known from the Helle- nistic literary theorists. What is generally agreed, however, is that the purpose of the two letters is community formation. That is, 1 Timothy and Titus were written to instruct the recipients on various matters of community structure and organisation. Building on this assumption, it is my contention that the two letters share many of the same characteristics as community charters found in similar, contemporary groups. In what follows, 1 Timothy and Titus will be compared side by side with formal charters found in associations as well as in the Essene community, noting the many similarities between them. Key words: Paul, Pastoral Epistles, Voluntary Associations, Essenes, Community Charters Adam G. White, PhD (Macquarie University) is a Senior Lecturer at Alphacrucis University College, Sydney. He is the author of Paul, Community, and Discipline: Establish- ing Boundaries and Dealing with the Disorderly (Lexing- ton Books/Fortress Academic, 2021) and Where is the Wise Man? Graeco-Roman Education as a Background to the Di- visions in 1 Corinthians 1–4 (T&T Clark, 2015). He can be reached via email at: adam.white@ac.edu.au. Any investigation of the PE is fraught with difcul- ties. For the purpose of brevity, I will simply state my assumptions with regard to authorship and situation, as they are not critical to the present paper. Preliminary Assumptions I take as my starting point the view of a majority of scholars (e.g., Aageson, 2008, pp. 2–3, 8; Fiore, 2007, pp. 6, 14–20; Goulder, 1996, pp. 242–256; Harding, 2017, p. 348; Kidson, 2017, p. 22; Kümmel, 1973, pp. 385–386; MacDonald, 1988, pp. 204–206; Marshall, 1999, p. 92; Marshall, 2008, pp. 783–785) that 1 Timothy and Titus were written by an unknown author, writing under the name of “Paul”, sometime in the late frst or early second century. I assume also a real, though unknown histori- cal situation between the letter writer and the recipients, who are designated as “Timothy” and “Titus”. These fgures are members of a later Pauline community, for which the historical Paul is the founding father. The let- ters themselves were written primarily to deal with the infuence of certain false teachers. Their exact identity and the content of their teaching is a matter of endless speculation and so must remain uncertain. What is clear from the letters, however, is that they threatened to un- dermine the traditional Pauline identity of the commu-