Timothy

The author of First Timothy has been traditionally identified as Paul the Apostle. He is named as the author of the letter in the text (1:1). Nineteenth and twentieth-century scholarship questioned the authenticity and believe what we have was created from another text some time in the late-first-to-mid-2nd century.

Paul may have written an original and this present day manuscript of Timothy is a product of others producing the same content with another style. The genuineness of Pauline authorship was accepted by Church orthodoxy as early as c. 180 AD, as evidenced by the surviving testimony of Irenaeus and the author of the Muratorian. Possible allusions are found in the letters from Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (c. 95), Ignatius of Antioch to the Ephesians (c. 110) and Polycarp to the Philippians (c. 130).

So the letter was around and was Pastorals in nature. Someone with good intentions may have updated the letter with references to Gnostic approach that was around at Paul's time but had not gained popular presence. Updating terms and style is not anymore an alteration than a translation itself.

A critical examination of the Epistle and its conformity to the Gospel of the kingdom and the Holy Spirit is the final comparison and essential determining factor that should be relied upon.

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Timothy

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