Justitia....Good observations. Ephesus was home to a female emancipation movement via the cult of Artemis and the author of the Pastorals is greatly concerned about the role of women and especially traditional roles of marriage. We also know that in the late first century it was the home of Cerinthus, an early proto-gnostic teacher, who was opposed by John of Ephesus (cf. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 3.3.4, see the discussion in this thread), whose writings have a strong polemical character against those who deny that Jesus "came in the flesh" (1 John 4:2-3, 2 John 7). One may also compare the letter to Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-7 which alludes to some past difficulty with the "Nicolaitans" and false "apostles" (v. 2, 7), and the Nicolaitans are described as still active in Pergamum (v. 15) and the reference to the learning of the "deep things of Satan" in v. 24 has some kinship with the concept of gnosis. The wide diversity of different early "gnostic" groups likely has much to do with the fact that there were a wide variety of pre-existing mystery cults and syncretism varied locally. We have already seen how Valentinus drew on the local Egyptian cult of Hermes Trimegistus. An argument can be made that Cerinthus drew on Phyrgian chiliasm, which in turn derives from Parthian eschatology. It is only natural that Gentile Christians brought their own beliefs and practices into the movement and that Jewish beliefs were reinterpreted and recast in new form. Paul had a hard enough time explaining the concept of resurrection to the Gentiles of Corinth in 1 Corinthians and Clement of Rome tried his hand at the same task in his own letter to the Corinthians. I don't think however that influence was necessarily in the direction of Gentiles to Jewish Christians. The Jews of the diaspora were already highly Hellenized and I find it quite likely that Jewish teachers had some prestige in the churches of Asia Minor and Paul certainly had Torah-observant competitors as Galatians makes plain. The early chapters of 1 Corinthians are notable for having a unique proto-gnostic character and it is commonly thought that here Paul is adopting the teaching of Apollos (who was a native of Alexandria according to Acts 18:24-28, where Platonic ideas were very prominent) in order to emphasize his unity with Apollos and the unity of the church as a whole. I would guess that the overall situation was quite complex and fluid. But anyway I digress....
I think I should reiterate a few points in case they were not clear. The contextual evidence best supports imho haggadaic storytelling that interprets the stories and genealogies of the Torah. Novelistic stories like those of Judith and Esther were not examples of midrash afaik. Rather, stories like those in 1 Enoch, Jubilees, Pseudo-Philo, the Genesis Apocryphon, the Life of Adam and Eve, Joseph and Asenath, etc. etc. best fit the criteria. These were the popular literature of the time and they directly engaged with the biblical text, offering new understandings and details about the heroes and characters of the Torah. That the author of the Pastorals was concerned with midrashic storytelling seems abundantly clear from the text. Those who have turned to the telling of muthois kai genealogiais (v. 4) "wish to be teachers of the Law" (thelontes einai nomodidaskaloi) (v. 7). The term nomodidaskalos clearly implies rabbinical or popular interpretations of the Torah and the term elsewhere occurs as a term for Pharisees and others who interpret the Torah (Pharisiaoi kai nomodidaskaloi in Luke 5:17, Pharisaios onomati Gamaliél nomodidaskalos in Acts 5:34). The combination of nomodidaskaloi with muthois kai genealogiais in 1 Timothy 1:4-7 immediately brings to mind the genre of haggadah in rabbinical interpretation. Futhermore, the author then goes into a lengthy discussion of the Torah in v. 8-11. Since midrash involves a direct engagement with the biblical text, it is quite appropriate for the author of 1 Timothy to refer to the myths and genealogies as ekzétéseis or things that are sought out (i.e. "researches"). This is a hapax legomenon in the NT that well describes the process of midrash which represents a searching of deeper meanings in a text. The verbal form is used precisely in this sense in Sirach 39:1-3: "How different the man who devotes himself to the study of the Law of the Most High (dianooumenou en nomó hupistou)! He searches out (ekzétései) the wisdom of the men of old and occupies himself with the prophecies; he treasures the discourses of famous men, and goes to the heart of involved sayings; he studies obscure parables and searches out the hidden meanings (apokrupha paroimión ekzétései) of the sages". So the use of ekzétéseis in 1 Timothy 1:4 is decidedly evidence for a midrashic understanding of muthois kai genealogiais, not against it. The other references to myths and genealogies in the Pastorals further support this. The word genealogias is paired in Titus 3:9 with zétéseis "seekings" and makhus nomikas "fights over the Law". The latter refers to either disputes over the way the Law is to be interpreted (such as disagreements over halakha) or over the role of the Torah in Christian life (i.e. the dispute between antinomians and the Torah-observant). Ekzétéseis, the term that signalled the deep study of the Law that the "teachers of the Law" (nomodidaskaloi) performed in 1 Timothy, is a more intensive form of the zétéseis that occurs in Titus 3:9. So genealogies are here lumped together with strivings after the meaning of the Law and disputes over the Law. Finally, Ioudaikois muthois "Jewish myths" are mentioned in Titus 1:14 alongside entolais anthrópón "commandments of men", a term that evokes the entalmata anthrópón of Isaiah 29:13 LXX that is quoted in Mark 7:7 and alluded to in Colossians 2:22 in controversies over halakhic interpretations of the Law on the matter of clean and unclean food and ceremonial washings. So each reference to mythois and genealogiais in the Pastorals is associated in some way with the Torah and its study. So the context supports rather well the kind of explanation that I offered -- not that it is necessarily a fact, but that it explains the evidence better than any other explanation I have seen. These are myths and genealogies that have more to do with the Torah than, say, the "historical" books of the Hagiographa, and the meaning of the term "genealogy" in the literature of the time also supports this. The English term "genealogy" is here a little misleading. Philo used it to refer to the family stories of the patriarchs in Genesis. Plato similarly referred to the Spartans' enjoyment of "the genealogies of heroes and men and the founding of cities in ancient times and antiquity in general", i.e. lumping "genealogies" together with the distant age of heroes and the beginnings of things, not relatively recent history. And Polybius specifically used "genealogies" to refer to a genre of storytelling of the mythic age that distinguished itself from what he considered to be real "history". The Jewish equivalent would be legendary tales about Adam and Eve, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, etc. And indeed, there was a HUGE body of haggadaic legend in the first century AD on just these things (which, in fact, is even referenced in 2 Timothy 3:8). There was also pious fiction set in more recent times, such as Esther, Judith, 3 Maccabees, etc. but afaik these did not constitute midrash on the books of the Torah. They are rather "historical romance," quite like the fiction of Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, and Heliodorus.
The other point is that gnostic mythologies are in part dependent on Jewish midrash, particularly in the case of Sethian forms of gnosticism (= the Ophites). This is particularly the case with the Adam/Eve narrative in Genesis 2-4 which formed a significant basis of Sethian theology. So it is quite possible to argue that there may have been a time (such as when the author of the Pastorals wrote) when there were "Jewish myths" that had a proto-gnostic character. It has been noticed by some that the argument in 1 Timothy 2:12-15 can be read as subtly responding to the Sethian/Ophite legend about Adam and Eve as well as the sexual aceticism of 4:3. Moreover the "myths and genealogies" of 1:4 are attributed to those who are "teaching differently" (heterodidaskalein) in the preceding verse, which suggests a relationship with those pursuing "falsely-called knowledge" (pseudónumou gnóseós) in 6:20. So I am raising the possibility that the "heresy" attacked in the Pastorals (but cf. the possibility of multiple "heresies") represents an early stage in the development of gnosticism in which interpretation of the Torah still played a major role. Such a stage certainly existed at some point in this history of Sethian gnosticism, which developed allegorical interpretations (compare Philo) of the biblical text in imitation of Plato's allegorical myth of creation in Timaeus. I have already mentioned the interesting case of the Revelation of Adam which recasts the primeval story of Genesis 2-10 into a gnostic demiurgical myth, incorporating a genealogical interest in the "seed" of Seth, the "seed" of Noah, and the descendents of the Hamaids and Japhethids as opposed to the Sethids. The Gospel of Judas has another interesting mid-second century AD reading of the story of Adam and Eve and the "generations" of both the rulers/angels and humankind, forming different races. Note also that the generation of the heavenly beings are not really distinguished from biblical characters, as Adamas, Eve, and Seth are originally heavenly beings (and there is a heavenly posterity of Seth), and Nebro (= Greek Nebrod, i.e. Nimrod, the "rebel") appears also as an archon. Finally, it is certainly not the case that "Christians" were not interested in gnostic ideas. If that were the case, the orthodox would have not needed to invest the tremendous effort in protecting their flocks from heterodox teachings. One needs only to look at the influence and popularity of teachers like Valentinius, Basilides, Ptolemy, etc. in the second century, or the warnings of "heresy" within the churches themselves in such sources as Revelation and Ignatius.
