Background of Titus

According to information within the letter itself, PaulA Christian missionary who once persecuted the church More had been on the island of Crete but left Titus there to be in charge after his departure (1:5). We are not told where Paul is, but he hopes to meet Titus at Nicopolis prior to the next winter to come (3:12). During his time on Crete, Titus is to see that the churches there are staffed in such a way that each has an “elder” (or “presbyter”) to carry on ministry, and he is to instruct people in their duties and roles as Christians. It is more probable, however, that Titus is a deutero-Pauline bookDeutero-Pauline books are New Testament epistles ascribed to the Apostle Paul but were not written by him. Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus claim Pauline authorship and show Paul's influence, but a majority of scholars judge them to have been written... More, written pseudonymously sometime after the death of Paul. Further information from within the book shows that it presupposes a situation within the Pauline field of influence where Jewish regulations are being imposed upon its readers (1:10, 14). If it was actually addressed to a community on the island of Crete, it is rather odd that the writer would include the slander about Cretans and agree that it is true (1:12-13).