Provenance
Provenance
Paul writes in the consciousness that his life is nearly over (2 Tim. 4:6). His word for "defense” (απολογια [apologia, G665], 4:16) is often used of a defense in a law court. It seems, then, that we are to think of Paul as in prison faced with the prospect of speedy execution. He says that Onesiphorus searched for him and found him in Rome (1:16
17), which makes it likely that that was the place of his current imprisonment. Paul asks Timothy to come to him and pick up Mark on the way (4:11), so we know that this imprisonment in Rome is not that related in Acts (Timothy was with him when he wrote Colossians, as was Mark [Col. 1:1; 4:10; Phlm. 24; these two letters are generally held to have been written from Rome). Paul appears to have been in Asia Minor not long before he wrote, for he speaks of having left a cloak at Troas (2 Tim. 4:13), of Erastus having stayed in Corinth, and of his having left Trophimus sick in Miletus (4:20). We learn from Acts that Paul had been in prison in Caesarea for two years (Acts 24:27) prior to being sent to Rome and that his journey there was via Crete and Malta. He had thus not been in Asia Minor for quite some time. It is unlikely that he is writing from his imprisonment in Caesarea (which would fit the references to Asia Minor), for Trophimus was with him in Jerusalem when he was arrested (Acts 21:29) and probably Timothy also (Acts 20:4). 45 It seems much more likely that Paul was released from the imprisonment mentioned in Acts and engaged in missionary activities for a period before being imprisoned again. 46 The probabilities are that 2 Timothy was written during this second imprisonment in Rome.