Loading...We continue in this series that explains each book of the New Testament “in a nutshell” by turning to the letter to the Colossians. This is a book that claims to be written by Paul, but as we will see in the next post, there are very good reasons for thinking Paul himself did not write it, but that it was written in his name by a later follower claiming to be Paul.
For now, we are interested in the letter itself, it’s major themes and emphases.
I begin by trying to explain the book in 50 words.
The letter to the Colossians, allegedly written by Paul from prison, praises the Christians in Colossae and warns them against false teachers who urge them to follow the Jewish law, live strictly ascetic lives, and worship angels; for this author, Christ alone represents the godhead and deserves to be worshiped.
Here now is a fuller account of the main features of the book.
******************************
“Paul” is in prison for preaching the gospel (Col 4:3). While there, he has heard news of the church in Colossae (Col 1:3), a small town in western Asia Minor not far from the larger cities of Hierapolis and Laodicea. The letter indicates that “Paul” did not establish this church, but his co-worker and companion Epaphras, a citizen of the place, did (Col 1:7–8; Col 4:12). The news that “Paul” has learned about the Colossians is mixed. On one hand, he is excited and pleased to learn that they have converted to faith in Christ and have committed themselves to his gospel through the work of Epaphras (Col 1:7–8). On the other hand, he has learned that there are false teachers among them who are trying to lead them into a different kind of religious experience (Col 2:4). He is writing to address the situation.
Get access to Dr. Ehrman's library of 4,000+ articles plus five new articles per week about the New Testament and early Christianity. It costs as little as $2.99/mth and every cent goes to charity!
Unlock 4,000+ Articles Like This!
“…promoting some kind of Jewish mysticism, comparable to that known from other ancient texts in which people were encouraged to experience ecstatic visions of heaven and thereby be transported to the divine realm…”
Interestingly, this sounds like Paul’s experiences; his vision with Christ, his travel to the third heaven. Plus Paul thought that Christ was an angel.
“The author of the letter alludes to his opponents’ notions but does not give a detailed description of them—on the assumption,
we might suppose, that his readers already knew full well what he was talking about.”
Wait, if the letter was a forgery “by a later follower claiming to be Paul”,
there would be no real readers who “knew full well what he was talking about.”
The readers of the letter would not be the church in Colossae (because the letter would be entirely made up),
but rather the community targeted by the forger.
Therefore, the forger would have needed to provide ” a detailed description..of his opponents’ notions” for his readers to understand.
This could be an argument against the letter being a forgery—unless the letter was indeed sent to a church in Colossae by a follower of Paul,
pretending to be Paul, while Paul was still alive.
The Pastoral Epistles are 2nd-century forgeries, written long after Paul’s death.
Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon may have been forged during Paul’s lifetime by a group of his followers
who started their own work founding churches in the Lycus Valley (Colossae, Laodicea, Hierapolis, etc.)
while Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus (Phil 1:15-16).
Thank you. Very interesting exposition.
Thank you Dr Ehrman. But how would a forgery like Colossians actually work? For instance, it addresses a specific problem (Jewish mysticism) which, let’s say, was affecting the Church at Colossae in 95 AD. Wouldn’t the Colossians know that Paul was dead by then and realise it was a forgery?
The forger doesn’t send it to Colossae. He puts it in circulation — e.g. he could say that he was visiting the church in this or that place, and they had this letter of Paul that he copied. That kind of thing happened a lot in antiquity, not just in Christianity.
Dr. Ehrman—–what are your thoughts on the shroud of Turin?
Medieval fabrication.