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Did the author of Titus consider Cretans to be liars, brutes, and gluttons, or was he confronting bigotry head-on? Isaiah Allen revisits long-held, conventional interpretations of Titus 1:12 that maintain that the author, using Paul’s name, considered Cretans to be crude, vicious, and worthy of rebuke. Based on insights from the cognitive linguistics approach of relevance theory, Allen contends that the way Titus’s original first-century audience would have engaged the text is quite different from how many modern interpreters read it. Additionally, Allen proposes that the letter’s context corresponds more closely to the situation of the early church during the lifetime of Paul than many conventional interpretations suggest. Allen concludes that Paul was not participating in bigotry but instead exposed and rebuked it in his letter to Titus. Allen examines linguistic evidence that reveals an ancient biblical antibigotry message that presages modern sensibilities about ethnic prejudice and racism.

Isaiah Allen is Assistant Professor of Religion at Booth University College in Winnipeg, Canada. He is the coauthor of In Their Own Words: The Greek New Testament for Students and Pastors (2015).