Second Epistle to Timothy
canonic New Testament, one of the three so-called "pastoral epistles" (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and the Epistle to Titus). It is offered as a letter from Paul
to Timothy.
Authorship and date
Traditional view
The traditional view accepts Paul as the author. According to Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), "It was probably written a year or so after the first, and from Rome, where Paul was for a second time a prisoner, and was sent to Timothy by the hands of Tychicus."
Critical view
Since none of the pastoral epistles were included in Marcion's canon of ten epistles, which was assembled ca 140 CE, and since there is no certain quotation of any of these epistles before Irenaeus, ca 170 CE, the critical view is that they were written about the middle of the 2nd century CE. Critics examining the text fail to find its vocabulary and literary style similar to Paul's unquestionably authentic letters, fail to fit the situation of Paul in the epistle into Paul's reconstructed biography, and identify principles of the emerged Christian church rather than those of the apostolic generation.
Characteristics
In this epistle Paul entreats Timothy to come to him before winter, and to bring Mark with him (compare Phil. 2:22). He was anticipating that "the time of his departure was at hand" (4:6), and he exhorts his "son Timothy" to all diligence and steadfastness in the face of false teachings, with advice about combatting them with reference to the teachings of the past, and to patience under persecution (1:6-15), and to a faithful discharge of all the duties of his office (4:1-5), with all the solemnity of one who was about to appear before the Judge of the quick and the dead.
