The "Opponents" in the Pastorals
From an early draft of my commentary The Pastoral Epistles. This discussion is best at the verse level, so this is but a sketch to get the conversation started.
The Opponents in the Pastoral Epistles
Opposition to the Pauline mission and the gospel lurks in every chapter and comes to the fore often enough for readers to be unable to avoid pondering who they were and what they taught.[1] So, notice the following: 1 Timothy 1:3-7, 18-20; 4:1-10; 6:2-10, 20-21; and 2 Timothy 2:14-26; 3:1-9; 4:1-5; and Titus 1:9-16; 3:9-11. These descriptions by Paul, whom we designate often in the Commentaries below as the Apostle, were not objective descriptions but often polemical denunciations or pastoral disappointments, and the language Paul uses for these opponents typical enough that precise identification becomes fraught with weaknesses.[2] We delineate the concerns of the Apostle in eight basic categories though there is no solid reason to think there is one and only group about whom Paul speaks, and neither can we assume the opponents of 1-2 Timothy are the same as those in Titus for what happens in Ephesus is not the same as what happens on Crete, though similarities ought not to be pushed aside.
First, there is a solid Jewish/Judean[3] core to some of the opposition, especially in 1 Timothy, which pertains directly to Ephesus.[4] They are (mis)teaching the Torah (1 Tim 1:7, 8-11; Titus 1:10, 14; 3:9). Second, status and wealth drive some of the opponents, and a desire for wealth may well delineate their motive (1 Tim 2:9-15; 6:3-10; Titus 1:11).[5] Third, at work in these false teachings also are features often connected to moral rigors and scrupulosities like celibacy and abstention from food (1 Tim 4:3-5), which could be connected to Jewish food laws (4:7b-8, 10a). Turning now to the Apostle’s evaluations of the opponents, fourth, he describes his opponents as moral failures who have rejected their conscience (1 Tim 1:19; 4:1-2; Titus 1:15), which leads to a variant in faith failure (1 Tim 1:3; 4:1-2). This sounds like they were former insiders in the church of Ephesus.[6] As well, fifth, Paul criticizes their blasphemy and false teachings, using terms like myths and speculations, and their denial of the resurrection (1 Tim 1:4, 6-7, 20; 4:7; 6:4-5, 20-21; 2 Tim 2:14, 16, 18, 23; 4:3-4; Titus 3:9-11). Finally, the impact of the opponents is to lead believers astray (1 Tim 3:6) as a sign of the last times (1 Tim 3:1-5; 4:3-4). Paul has a basket filled with labels for these opponents.[7] Three of the opponents are named: Hymenaeus, Alexander (1 Tim 1:20), and Philetus (2 Tim 2:17), and this indicates most likely that they were formerly connected to the Pauline house churches in Ephesus.
Perceptions of Judaism and Hellenism have often been contained in reified categories but since the 1970s especially these categories have collapsed in favor of nuanced, diverse and mixed groupings.[8] At one time the quest was to label everything as Gnostic or proto-gnostic and then there was a push to press all oppositions into syncretistic forms of Judaism. There has also been a tendency, now mostly shaken loose, to think of Judaism in rabbinic categories but Judaism’s ideas were noticeably diverse in the 1st Century diaspora. The upshot is that we can’t identify these opponents with any specific group but we should instead recognize the diversity of religions in Ephesus, Crete, and admit diverse expressions in each location of both Judaism and nascent Christianity.
Towner again is the benchmark for this discussion, who examines Gnostic and Jewish features of these opponents and their teachings as well as a mixture of those two features along with ascetic elements. But he adds as well the cultural factor of women who are described as disruptive (1 Tim 2:9-10, 15; 5:3-16; Titus 2:1-8) and he then explores “lateral” relationships to Corinth and other Pauline churches.[9] The opponents, at least those mentioned in 1 Timothy, have a Jewish connection, have some kind of sub-Pauline eschatology that denies resurrection and that extended into asceticism, and it seems entirely reasonable that some of the opponents, at least, were formerly connected to the Christian community. Knowing some names strongly indicates their former connection to the churches.
[1] For a recent sketch, see Dillon T. Thornton, Hostility in the House of God: An Investigation of the Opponents in 1 and 2 Timothy, BBRSuppl 15 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2016). For his brief summary of the opponents, pp. 264-265.
[2] Robert J. Karris, “The Background and Significance of the Polemic in the Pastoral Epistles,” JBL 92 (1973): 549–64.
[3] On which now see the paradigm-shifting study by Jason A. Staples, The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism: A New Theory of People, Exile, and Israelite Identity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
[4] On Ephesus, see now esp. Paul Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007).
[5] Gary G. Hoag, Wealth in Ancient Ephesus and the First Letter to Timothy: Fresh Insights from Ephesiaca by Xenophon of Ephesus (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2015).
[6] Thornton, Hostility in the House of God.
[7] Listed at Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 372 n. 32.
[8] I only mention two paradigmatic scholars: Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine in the Early Hellenistic Period, trans. John Bowden, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974); E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017); E.P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE - 66 CE (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016). Studies since have exploded with nuance.
[9] Towner, Timothy and Titus, 41–50. The recent study by Dillon Thornton of the opponents in the PEs concludes that the opponents of the Pauline mission arose in the Ephesian churches who had been infected by a greed-based teaching role coming to expression in an exaggerated eschatology that led to their celibacy and disbelief in a future resurrection. See Thornton, Hostility in the House of God.
Thank you Scott