The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (136 page)

Once again, however, despite strong evidence for authenticity, the authorship of the letter is heavily debated. Objections did not begin until the nineteenth century,
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but
they steadily increased in the twentieth century.
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Today, three recurring factors dominate the case for inauthenticity: (1) language and literary style, (2) theology, and (3) the close relationship of Colossians to Ephesians.

Colossians contains 34
hapax legomena
, words that do not appear elsewhere in the NT. The letter also contains 28 words that do not appear in Paul's other letters.
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Some scholars argue that this fact favors non-Pauline authorship. W. Bujard examined the use of connectives and the structure of sentences in Colossians and concluded that the style of this letter was too different for Paul to have been the author.
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J. D. G. Dunn approached the question of authorship from a literary standpoint and claimed that the flow and rhetorical features of the letter “confirm the strong likelihood that the letter comes from a hand other than Paul's.”
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In terms of theology, some scholars object to additions to and departures from the undisputed letters in the areas of Christology,
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eschatology,
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and ecclesiology.
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Others focus not only on departures and additions but also on the absence of key Pauline theological terms such as law, justification, salvation, and others. Concerning the close relationship between Colossians and Ephesians, some scholars assert that one writer would never produce two such similar letters.

Scholars who favor Pauline authorship typically reply with four points. First, some arguments against authenticity reflect a strong bias against the authenticity of the letter and are better viewed as positive evidence for Paul's authorship of Colossians. For example,
the close relationship of Colossians and Ephesians does not logically lead to the denial of Paul's authorship of Colossians. Carson and Moo questioned the logic behind such an argument when they quipped: “It is a curious argument that we should reject a writing as Pauline because of its resemblances to another writing in the Pauline corpus.”
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Especially if Ephesians was a circular letter addressed to churches in Asia Minor in the vicinity of Colossae and written in the same place and at approximately the same time as Colossians, the similarities between the two documents are not surprising.

Second, those who reject Paul's authorship are hard pressed to provide a rationale for the personal references in the letter and the choice of this particular church. Why would an imitator go to such great lengths to fake personal references and write to a city as unimportant as Colossae?
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Third, the theological differences between Colossians and the undisputed Pauline letters have been exaggerated.
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For example, several influential scholars such as E. Lohse have argued that the Christology of Colossians is too high for Paul to have written the letter. Such arguments assume that the high Christology of Colossians that identifies Jesus as the incarnation of deity and the agent and sustainer of creation evolved from a significantly lower Christology in the undisputed Pauline letters.
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However, the Christology of the undisputed Pauline letters is much higher than some scholars acknowledge. Romans 10:6—13 not only identifies Jesus as the Lord Yahweh but also insists that the confession of Jesus’ deity is necessary for salvation. If the great Christological hymn of Phil 2:6—11 is pre-Pauline, this high Christology was shared by others in the church very early in Christian history and had become an established element of the church's worship in the mid-first century. Christ's identity as the agent and sustainer of creation is a very natural conclusion required by his identity as Yahweh. In 1 Cor 8:4—6 Paul had already laid the foundation for these assertions by identifying Jesus as the one Lord of the Shema (Deut 6:4—5) and by insisting that Jesus was the one through whom all things came into existence, including humanity itself. The incarnational theology of Col 1:19; 2:9 is not, as Dunn claimed, “a step beyond any of those passages,”
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but is wholly consistent with them. Colossians uses new expressions to articulate this high Christology, but the Christology is not significantly more developed.

The claims that the ecclesiology of the letter is too highly developed to allow for Paul's authorship also falter. Although Paul did not elsewhere in his undisputed letters refer to Jesus as the “head of the body which is the church” (Col 1:18), this is easily explained as a natural development of Paul's imagery of the church as a body in which individual believers constitute its members (Rom 12:4—8; 1 Cor 6:15; 12:12—21) and his insistence that Jesus is Messiah, the divinely appointed ruler of God's people (Rom 1:1—4) and the new master of believers (1 Cor 7:22). Regarding eschatology, no one doubts that Paul stressed the “already” aspect of eschatology more than the “not yet” aspect in Colossians, but both are found in this letter and his undisputed letters.
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Fourth, the arguments from language and style are unpersuasive. P. N. Harrison, who used word statistics to refute Paul's authorship of the Pastorals, found that Colossians falls within the normal range of
hapax legomena
in comparison with Paul's other letters.
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Moreover, G. U. Yule argued that samples of at least 10,000 words similar in length and subject matter are necessary to determine authorship based on vocabulary.
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Colossians is simply too short for word statistics to determine the identity of the author with any degree of confidence. Many of the words in Colossians that appear nowhere else in Paul's undisputed letters do appear either in the LXX or in other NT books, showing that the vocabulary would have been known to a Greek speaker in the first century who was familiar with the LXX and widely used Christian vocabulary. Most of the vocabulary that is unusual for Paul appears either in the hymn in Col 1:15—20, which is possibly pre-Pauline, or in his treatment of the Colossian heresy, which is exactly what one would expect.
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Many of the unusual words may be accounted for by the occasion of the letter. Paul probably used some of the distinct vocabulary of the Colossian heretics in his effort to combat this heresy.

One of the weaknesses of rejections of Paul's authorship based on vocabulary and style is that such dismissals tend to examine only the differences between Colossians and other Pauline letters and ignore the significant number of similarities between these documents. On the other hand, W. G. Kümmel found several features of the style of Colossians that appear only in Paul's letters in the NT.
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Finally, such dismissals often fail to consider the degree of influence that a coauthor like Timothy might have on the vocabulary and style
of the letter.
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Thus the vocabulary and style of Colossians are not valid grounds for the rejection of Paul's authorship.

Conclusion
The case for authenticity is customarily crafted as a response to the rejection of Paul's authorship. While these responses are important points to make, one must not adopt a merely defensive approach without advancing the case in positive terms. Paul's authorship primarily rests on the strength of four pillars: (1) the letter's own claim to authenticity; (2) the unbroken tradition throughout church history; (3) the close connections between Colossians and Philemon, a letter which almost all accept as authentic;
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and (4) the questions surrounding the practice and acceptance of pseudonymity.

Date

The date for Colossians is difficult to determine with precision, especially because it depends on the letter's authorship and provenance. If written by Paul from Caesarea or Ephesus, then the letter has a date sometime in the 50s. If written by Paul from Rome, then one must place the composition of the letter at around 58—60 according to the chronology of Paul suggested in this text.
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If one rejects the authenticity of Colossians, then the book should be dated about 70—100. However, this late date is problematic because of the earthquake that presumably destroyed Colossae in 60—61.
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Provenance

Many difficulties surround the provenance of the letter as well.
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Debate about the provenance of the letter clearly began in ancient times. Although subscriptions in many manuscripts, including Alexandrinus (fifth century) and the first corrector of Vaticanus, assign the letter to Rome, and no subscriptions suggest any other provenance, the Marcionite Prologue (c. 160—180) stated that the letter was written from Ephesus.

The presence of Luke, Aristarchus, Timothy, and other coworkers with Paul at the time of writing are important clues for the provenance of Colossians.
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The presence of Luke
appears to support a Roman hypothesis because Acts places Luke with Paul in Rome, while Paul's Ephesian ministry is not one of the “we” passages in Acts.
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Acts 27:2 also indicates that Aristarchus accompanied Paul to Italy and most likely all the way to Rome. Although Acts does not mention the presence of Timothy in Rome, the Acts narrative closes without identifying by name any persons who visited Paul in Rome during his house arrest. In light of the close relationship shared by Paul and Timothy, one would expect Timothy to visit Paul sometime during the two-year Roman imprisonment. Although good arguments can be made for Ephesus, the balance of the evidence favors a Roman provenance.

Destination

The destination is not in question J. D. G. Dunn could say that there is “no dispute regarding where and to whom the letter was addressed: 'to the saints in Colossae.’”
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J. B. Lightfoot provided a wealth of information about Colossae.
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The city was a mixed population of Phrygians, Romans involved in political affairs, and Jews of the Diaspora. Though no one knows when the city was established, Herodotus called Colossae a “great city of Phrygia” as early as 480 BC. The greatness of the city was due to its location in the Lycus valley (modern-day Turkey) on the main east-west road from Ephesus to the east.
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The lush Lycus valley provided plenty of food for grazing sheep, and the wool from the sheep supported a large clothing industry.
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Two neighboring towns, Laodicea and Hierapolis, eclipsed Colossae in importance by the time of Paul. The Romans made Laodicea the
conventus
(capital in a district of 25 towns) and changed the road system so that Laodicea was located on the junction between four other roads and the east-west highway. While Laodicea prospered as a commercial center, Hierapolis increased as a place of luxury and pleasure because of its mineral baths. Strabo, writing about 20 years before Paul, testified to the diminished importance of Colossae when he described it as a “small town.” As mentioned above, the demise of all three cities came in the form of a mighty earthquake in 60—61 (though Laodicea was rebuilt; see Rev 3:14-22).

Occasion

The occasion of the letter is the most complex introductory issue. Paul addressed a false teaching some have called the “Colossian heresy.” J. D. G. Dunn objected to this nomenclature and suggested that it may amount “to little more than cheap and unworthy
name calling.”
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I. K. Smith rightly responded that Dunn's approach to this question is out of step with the world that Paul occupied, where teaching was dubbed as either truth or error.
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An even more debated issue than nomenclature is the identity of the teachers and their teachings. Scholars have noted some of the distinguishing marks of the teaching through a “mirror reading” of Colossians. At the formal level, it is identified as a “philosophy” that has a longstanding pedigree of support in “human tradition” (2:8). It is more difficult to detect certain catchwords of this philosophy in Colossians, but a few phrases stand out: “the entire fullness” (2:9); “insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels” (2:18); “claiming access to a visionary realm” (2:18); “don't handle, don't taste, don't touch” (2:21); and “ascetic practices, humility, and severe treatment of the body” (2:23). There also seems to be an emphasis on circumcision, food laws, Sabbaths, and purity regulations (2:11,13,16,20-21).

Scholars have studied these strands and attempted to locate a group or movement in the first century that matches all the criteria. Paul's opponents were notoriously difficult to identify with precision, so the sheer multitude of scholarly proposals should not surprise the reader. In 1973 J. J. Gunther catalogued
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different reconstructions of the Colossian heresy, and dozens of new reconstructions have been proposed since Gunther's work.
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M. D. Hooker called this whole enterprise into question at the outset by denying the existence of attacks from false teachers. She suggested that the problem came from within the congregation as the Colossians were in danger of conforming to the beliefs and practices of their pagan and Jewish neighbors.
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This proposal has not been well received because it ignores key pronouns (2:8,16,18), fails to explain Paul's use of the term “philosophy” (2:8), and minimizes some clear catchwords of the philosophy.
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The most up-to-date work offering an overview of scholarship is that by I. K. Smith. Smith surveyed four main proposals: (1) Essene Judaism and Gnosticism, (2) Hellenism, (3) paganism, and (4) Judaism. This arrangement is pedagogically instructive, but the categories are not watertight since many reconstructions blend themes from two or more of the categories.

J. B. Lightfoot is an advocate of the first proposal. He argued for a line of development from Judaism to second-century Gnosticism and located the Colossian philosophy within
that stream. Lightfoot saw the Colossian emphasis on mysticism and rigid asceticism as stemming from Essene Judaism, while Gnosticism contributed to the Colossians’ focus on wisdom, intermediate beings, and cosmological speculation. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls led more scholars to conclude that the Colossian philosophy shared links with Essene Judaism.