The Second Epistle to Timothy is one of the three pastoral epistles traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle. Addressed to Timothy, a fellow missionary, it is traditionally considered to be the last epistle he wrote before his death. Although the pastorals are written under Paul's name, they are different from his other epistles, and since the early 19th century, scholars have increasingly seen them as the work of an unknown student of Paul's doctrine. They do not address Paul's common themes, such as the believers' unity with Christ, and they reflect a church hierarchy that is more organized and defined than the church was in Paul's time. Nonetheless, a number of major scholars have defended the traditional authorship of 2 Timothy. Authorship Some modern critical scholars argue that 2 Timothy, as well as the other two so-called 'pastoral letters' (1 Timothy and Titus), were not written by Paul but by an anonymous author, sometime between 90 and 140 AD. Some scholars refer to the assumedly pseudonymous author as "the Pastor". The language and ideas of 2 Timothy are notably different from the other two pastoral epistles yet similar to the later Pauline epistles, especially the ones he wrote in captivity. This has led some scholars to conclude that the author of 2 Timothy is a different person from that of 1 Timothy and Titus. Raymond E. Brown proposed that this letter was written by a follower of Paul who had knowledge of Paul's last days. Most scholars, both those arguing for and against its authenticity, are of the opinion that 2 Timothy belongs to a pseudepigraphic genre known as the testamentary genre or farewell discourse, the 'testament' genre contains two main elements: ethical warnings to be followed after the death of the writer and revelations of the future. The significant fact about the 'testament' genre was not in its markers but in its nature; it is argued that a piece of 'testament' literature is meant to "be a completely transparent fiction". Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, however, argued that 2 Timothy was written by Paul and that the other two pastoral epistles were written by someone else using it as a model. Content According to the letter, Paul urges Timothy not to have a "spirit of timidity" and not to "be ashamed to testify about our Lord" (1:7–8). He also entreats Timothy to come to him before winter, and to bring Mark with