Name of the seventeenth book of the New Testament, and the third of the so-called Pastoral Epistles, the other two being First and Second Timothy. It is assumed to be written by Paul of Tarsus and directed to Titus as a private letter.

Titus was an early Christian leader and companion of Paul, whom –although he is mentioned in several of the Pauline epistles– does not occur by name in the Acts of the Apostles. He appears to have been a Gentile, for Paul firmly refused to have him circumcised, as would have been required for converts to Judaism according to Mosaic Law.

In the epistle, Paul gives his final instructions to Titus regarding the organization of the church, before his death, and its composition is dated around 66 or 67 AD, since it was written after Paul's visit to Crete, but not be the one referred to in the Book of Acts, but rather after his release as a prisoner in Rome for two years.

Paul presumably sailed from Rome into Asia, passing Crete by the way and leaving Titus there to set up the early church. Then he would have continued his voyage to Ephesus, where he left Timothy, and then on to Macedonia, where he wrote 1 Timothy. Then, Paul would have continued to Nicopolis, a place on the west coast of Greece, from where he wrote his letter to Titus.

However, a few scholars dispute Pauline authorship of the epistle, claiming it to be written under a false name, a common practice in the culture of antiquity, but usually not in personal letters. Hence their claim is somewhat problematic, especially also since the early church clearly excluded from the apostolic canon any works they thought to be pseudonymous.

Scholars that oppose Pauline authenticity date the letter somewhere between 80 AD and the late 2nd century AD.

Titus Chapter 1; 2; 3.