'overseers', traditionally translated as bishops) and diákonoi (διάκονοι, 'deacons'); and secondly of exhortation to faithfulness in maintaining the truth amid surrounding errors (4:1ff), presented as a prophecy of erring teachers to come.
The epistle's "irregular character, abrupt connexions and loose transitions" (Moffatt 1911),[4] have led critics to discern later interpolations, such as the epistle-concluding 6:20–21,[5] read as a reference to Marcion of Sinope, and lines that appear to be marginal glosses that have been copied into the body of the text.
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 combating 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 living and the dead.
[6] Pao considers Codex Sinaiticus to be “one of the most reliable witnesses for the [Pastoral Epistles], though it contains a series of unintentional omissions (1 Tim 2:6 [τό]; 3:8 [σεμνούς]; 4:8 [πρός]; Titus 1:13 [ἐν]).”[7] The letters are written in Paul's name and have traditionally been accepted as authentic.
[12] As an example of qualitative style arguments, in the First Epistle to Timothy the task of preserving the tradition is entrusted to ordained presbyters; the clear sense of presbýteros (Koinē Greek: πρεσβύτερος, lit.
Presbýteros is sometimes translated as elder; via Ecclesiastical Latin presbyter it is also the Greek root for the English word priest.
The pastoral letters proscribe certain roles for women in a manner that appears to deviate from Paul's more egalitarian teaching that in Christ there is neither male nor female.
[13] Similarly, biblical scholars since Schleiermacher in 1807 have noted that the pastoral epistles seem to argue against a version of Gnosticism that is more developed than would be compatible with Paul's time.
[12] The pastoral epistles are omitted in some early bible manuscripts, including the fourth century Codex Vaticanus (one of the oldest mostly complete bible manuscripts in existence) and the second or third century Chester Beatty Papyrus 46 (the oldest mostly complete copy of the Pauline epistles).
[23][24][25][26] If Marcion is taken to have started his ministry in earnest only after his excommunication from the Roman church in 144 CE,[27] then this would suggest that the pastoral epistles were written after 144.
[28] On the other hand, according to Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament, 1997), the majority of scholars who accept a post-Pauline date of composition for the Pastorals favour the period 80–100.