(8 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
Loading...Here is an annotated list of books on Ephesians, most of them relevant to all the Deutero-Pauline epistles (that is, the letters that are assigned a “secondary” standing in the New Testament collection of Paul’s letters because scholars doubt they were actually composed by Paul himself) with a couple of commentaries specifically on Ephesians. One benefit of serious commentaries is that they always begin by discussing major critical issues in understanding a book: authorship, date, historical context, major themes, disputed issues, and so on.
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I own large facsimiles of both the 1560 Geneva and 1611 KJV. Both have a footnote after the last verse in Ephesians that it was written from Rome unto the Ephesians by Tychicus.
So Paul and Tychicus probably wrote it together with Tychicus being the Greek grammar expert between them?
I just noticed that today because depending on which KJV or other versions it is, that footnote will not be in there. The KJV used by the LDS does have the Tychicus footnote in there. I have other KJV(s) here that do not have the Tychicus footnote. Being raised and educated in the Reformed tradition, the Bibles available to me did not have the Tychicus footnote.
Thanks to this Blog, and thanks to you Professor Erhman.
that is an editorial note by the publisher/translator of the version. It’s not in the letter itself. Nothing suggests that Paul used an editor for his grammar in his writings.
Hey Bart I have two questions if you would be so kind.
First: I’ll eventually get there as i’m super fascinated by paul as a representation of how early christians dealt with all this and how it seems like things didn’t go as they planned. I look forward to reading some of these commentaries!
First question: Is the trinity represented anywhere in the authorship of the gospels or the new testament cannon or is that a later innovation of early christianity to harmonize the fact he appears to consider himself distinct from god, not god and yet somehow is also god? I’m trying to understand why the trinity as a concept exists. Christians and some religious study students say the trinity is represented in the gospels but scholars i’ve heard talk of it seem to believe otherwise. Thank you!
The trinity is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in the Bible. It is a later theological view that developed as Christian thinkers tried to understand how three figures were all portrayed as God in the NT but there was only one God. If you do a word search for “trinity” on the blog you’ll find some posts on it.
Second question:
Could you tell me what Jesus was trying to say in matthew 19:12?
Was he actually praising people who would become eunuchs or live as eunuchs rather than be celibate and was he suggesting becoming a eunuch if you think you can’t be celibate? Or is this a metaphorical statement on the virtues of celibacy?
Is it also true that men becoming eunuchs in early christianity because of this a thing that was happening? How did the earliest followers interpret this statement?
Thanks in advance Bart!
It’s much debated. It’s often assumed he is talking about being celibate for thesake of the kingdom.