I am asking for evidence that Timothy (1 & 2) was written: "by someone who had never met Paul, let alone Jesus".
Welllllll..
How familiar with Paul and his style of writing?
Do you agree that there is only 7 letters that are universally agreed as being written by Paul?
All the rest are forgeries claiming to be by Pauls' hand. The Tims being classed as forgeries.
I mean to be fair - 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus are certainly speaking about certain situations, and they contain many specifics.
Unfortunately for "apologetics", the problem is that some of the details do not match up well with what we know of Paul from his universal accepted authentic letters.
What has been noticed about these texts is they do seem to match the context of Christian communities that existed sixty-plus years after Paul’s death.
For example, the writer of the Pastorals presupposes the existence of church offices, such as bishop, elder, and deacon, in which lay authority to rule over the community.
This sort of structural authority appears in the writings of proto-orthodox figures of the second century, such as Ignatius of Antioch.
In 1 Timothy and Titus, the author writes to a person who has been ordained (i.e., Timothy or Titus) and to whom the authority to appoint others to church offices has been given.
Paul wrote to communities at large when he wanted to instruct people on how to resolve their conflicts, not to specially designated persons.
While writings that come from the second century also reflect the existence of ecclesiastical offices, Paul’s letters indicate that he had no interest in establishing the institutionalised authority of this sort. Instead, Paul stressed that people had different gifts and talents, and thus he recognised that people could be assigned different roles and responsibilities in the church.
Paul did not, however, establish a hierarchy nor did he ordain people to preestablished offices; rather he allowed people to evolve organically into certain roles.
Which makes it dubious that Paul wrote the Tims and was more likely constructed decades after his death.
