The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (145 page)

¹⁵⁰
The armor of God” refers to God's armor that he gives to the believer. Gnilka (
Epheserbrief
, 305) is probably correct in identifying “of God” as a genitive of origin.

¹⁵¹
O'Brien,
Ephesians
, 462. The Greek term
panoplia
(“armor”) emphasizes the idea of a complete set of armor so as to highlight the danger of the battle and the need for total dependence on God. See Arnold,
Ephesians: Power and Magic
, 118.

¹⁵²
Reid (“Principalities and Powers,” 751) agreed: “While the terminology of military paraphernalia is taken from the Roman world, the archetype of warfare is clearly Israelite.” O'Brien (
Ephesians
, 472—82) also has a discussion of the OT imagery behind the armor of God.

¹⁵³
Every chapter of Colossians mentions thanksgiving: thanksgiving is the motivation for the life that pleases God (1:9-12); the programmatic statement of the letter stresses that walking in Christ Jesus is prompted by overflowing thanksgiving (2:6—7); Christian thanksgiving motivates all that the believer says and does (3:17); Paul urged the Colossians to make sure that their prayers, like his (1:3—8), were permeated with a spirit of thanksgiving (4:2).

¹⁵⁴
E. T. Mayerhoff asserted in 1838 that Colossians was dependent on Ephesians, reflected a second-century polemic against Gnosticism, and contained some other ideas foreign to Paul. E. T. Mayerhoff,
Der Brief an die Colosser, mit vornehmlicher Berücksichtigung der drei Pastoralbriefe kritischgepruft
, ed. J. L. Mayer (Berlin: Hermann Schultze, 1838). R. Bultmann and his followers subsequently attached the influential label “deutero-Pauline” to Colossians.

¹⁵⁵
R. E. Brown (
An Introduction to the New Testament
[New York: Doubleday, 1997], 600) estimated that about 60 percent of critical scholarship believes the letter is pseudonymous. D. A. deSilva (
An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods, and Ministry Formation
[Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004],
696)
argued that “[s]holarship is fairly evenly divided on this question.” Cf. the useful summary in R. F. Collins,
Letters That Paul Did Not Write: The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Pauline Pseudepigrapha
, Good News Studies 28 (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1988).

¹⁵⁶
See O'Brien,
Colossians and Philemon
, xlii.

¹⁵⁷
E. Percy's stylistic assessment led him to argue for authenticity:
Die Probleme der Kolosser-und Epheserbriefe
(Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1946). However, the stylistic study of
W.
Bujard challenged Percy's analysis and conclusions:
Stilanalytische Untersuchungen zum Kolosserbrief als Beitrag zur Methodik von Sprachvergleichen
, SUNT 11 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973). E. Lohse (
Colossians and Philemon
, ed.
W.
R. Poehlmann and R. J. Karris, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971], 84—91) provided an extensive survey of the language and style of Colossians. Lohse concluded that linguistic and stylistic considerations could not serve as the basis for reaching any final decisions regarding the question of Paul's authorship of Colossians (ibid., 91).

¹⁵⁸
J. D. G. Dunn,
The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon
, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 35.

¹⁵⁹
Some claim that Colossians goes beyond the undisputed Pauline letters in focusing on the cosmic dimensions of Christ. J. D. G. Dunn (
Colossians and Philemon
, 36) offered a similar recent assessment: “The Christology expressed in 1:15—20 and 2:9—10 and 15 looks to be further along the trajectory than that of the undisputed Paulines.” He concluded that the theological content is thus “significantly different from what we are accustomed to in all the undisputed Paulines.”

¹⁶⁰
They detect a realized eschatology instead of the already/not yet eschatology that is characteristic of the undisputed Paulines. E.g., Colossians says the believer is already raised with Christ (2:12; 3:1) and is already in the kingdom of Christ (1:13).

¹⁶¹
Colossians is unique in its imagery of Christ as the head of his body, the church (1:18; 2:17,19; 3:15) when compared with undisputed Paulines (but see Eph 4:15; 5:23). Colossians also focuses more on the “universal” church than the “local” church. Lohse (
Colossians and Philemon
, 177—83) stated that these theological differences are too great to conclude that Paul wrote the letter.

¹⁶²
Carson and Moo,
Introduction to the New Testament
, 520. There are links between Colossians and other Pauline letters. The work of A. R. Bevere highlights one such line in the parallels between Galatians and Colossians:
Sharing the Inheritance: Identity and Moral Life in Colossians
, JSNTSup 226 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003), 59—121.

¹⁶³
J. B. Lightfoot (
Saint Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon
, 9th ed. [London: Macmillan, 1890], 16) commented, “Without doubt Colossae was the least important church to which any epistle of Paul is addressed.”

¹⁶⁴
Even R. Brown (
Introduction
, 613), who cautiously rejected Pauline authorship, conceded that the theological differences are “overstated.” DeSilva (
Introduction to the New Testament
, 698) recognized that these theological differences are “major objections,” but he concluded that they were “explicable in terms of the challenges posed by a philosophy that stresses the authority of powers, angels and principalities over human life.”

¹⁶⁵
See Lohse,
Colossians and Philemon, 77—83.

¹⁶⁶
Dunn,
Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon
, 36

¹⁶⁷
A. Lincoln (
Paradise Now and Not Yet: Studies in the Role of the Heavenly Dimension in Paul's Thought with Special Reference to His Theology
, SNTSMS 43 [Cambridge: University Press, 1981], 122—23) asserted that the believer's present resurrection with Christ in Col 2:12 and the believer's future resurrection with Christ in Rom 6:5 occupy two poles in Paul's eschatological theology of the already and the not yet. He said: “Believers enter this resurrection life when they are joined to Christ,” while the consummation of this reality “still lies in the future.”

¹⁶⁸
P. N. Harrison,
The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles
(London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1921), 20—22.

¹⁶⁹
G. U. Yule,
The Statistical Study of Literary Vocabulary
(Cambridge: University Press, 1944), 281.

¹⁷⁰
D. E. Garland (
Colossians and Philemon
, NIVAC [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998], 19) pointed out the significant fact that “much of the supposedly ‘unpauline’ vocabulary occurs in the section dealing with the ‘philosophy.’” G. E. Cannon
(The Use of Traditional Materials in Colossians
[Macon: Mercer Univ. Press, 1983]), conceded that Colossians contains passages that deviate from Paul's customary vocabulary and style, but he argued for Pauline authorship because the high percentage of pre-Pauline material in Colossians accounts for the divergence. Readers should especially note the summary argument on page 229.

¹⁷¹
Kümmel, Introduction
, 241.

¹⁷²
See Dunn,
Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon
, 44; E. R. Richards,
The Secretary in the Letters of Paul
, WUNT 2/42 (Tübingen; J. C. B. Mohr, 1991); and Garland,
Colossians/Philemon
, 20—21. D. Guthrie (
New Testament Introduction
[Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1970], 554) ably summarized this case as follows: “There is no shred of evidence that the Pauline authorship of the whole or any part of this Epistle was ever disputed until the 19th century. It formed part of the Pauline corpus as far back as can be traced, and evidence of such a character cannot lightly be swept aside. This strong external attestation is further supported by the close link between the Epistle and Philemon, whose authenticity has been challenged only by the most extreme negative critics.”

¹⁷³
Dunn (
Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon
, 37—38) listed some of the similarities between Colossians and Philemon.

¹⁷⁴
Many scholars date the first Roman imprisonment in the early 60s.

¹⁷⁵
This argument is especially emphatic in the case of B. Reicke (
Re-Examining Paul's Letters: The History of the Pauline Correspondence
[Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001], 76): “All attempts to make Colossians a deutero-Pauline composition of the period A.D. 70—100 are rendered null and void by documents that demonstrate that Colossae lost its cultural importance through an earthquake in 61.” The earthquake in Colossae may also pose problems for the date of authorship of Colossians in the conventional dating of the Roman imprisonment.

¹⁷⁶
See the details covered in the discussion of Philippians above.

¹⁷⁷
Dunn (
Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon
, 41) and P. T. O'Brien (
Colossians, Philemon
, WBC 44 [Dallas: Word, 1982], xlix—liv) favored the Roman hypothesis for Colossians.

¹⁷⁸
Guthrie,
New Testament Introduction
, 557.

¹⁷⁹
Dunn,
Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon
, 20.

¹⁸⁰
Lightfoot,
Colossians and Philemon
, 1—72; cf. L. M. McDonald, “Colossae,” in
Dictionary of New Testament Background
, 225—26.

¹⁸¹
Travelers would journey on the main route from Antioch to Tarsus, through the Cilician Gates to Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and then to Colossae and its neighboring towns, Laodicea and Hierapolis. One would then journey about 100 miles to Ephesus and between 1,000 to 1,200 land miles to Rome.

¹⁸²
One branch of the Lycus River also left chalk deposits used in the dyeing of cloth.

¹⁸³
Dunn,
Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon
, 25. Dunn wanted to remain sensitive to two considerations: (1) orthodoxy was not fully developed, and the boundaries were not fully defined; and (2) Paul's tone is much more relaxed in Colossians than in Galatians. Dunn is sympathetic to M. D. Hooker's theory that the Colossians simply faced the danger of conforming to the beliefs around them (ibid., 24—26).

¹⁸⁴
I. K. Smith,
Heavenly Perspective: A Study of Paul's Response to a Jewish Mystical Movement at Colossae
, LNTS 326 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2007), 19.

¹⁸⁵
J. J. Gunther,
St. Paul's Opponents and Their Background
, NovTSup 35 (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 2—4.

¹⁸⁶
M. D. Hooker, “Were There False Teachers in Colossae?” in
Christ and Spirit in the New Testament
, ed. B. Lindars and S. S. Smalley (Cambridge: University Press, 1973), 315—31.

¹⁸⁷
J. Gnilka (
Der Kolosserbrief
, HTKNT 10 [Freiburg: Herder, 1980], 164, n. 4) rejected Hooker's view as an oversimplification because it does not reflect on the connection between the belief in the powers and the ritual prohibitions.

¹⁸⁸
G. Bornkamm, “The Heresy of Colossians,” in
Conflict at Colossae
, 2d ed., ed. F. O. Francis and W. A. Meeks, SBLSBS 4 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975), 123-45.

¹⁸⁹
R. E. DeMaris,
The Colossian Controversy: Wisdom in Dispute at Colossae
, JSNTSup
96
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994).

¹⁹⁰
DeMaris built on the work of E. Schweitzer and his understanding of the “elements of the world.” See E. Schweitzer,
Colossians
(Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1982), 136—38. A. Wedderburn (“The Theology of Colossians,” in
The Theology of the Later Pauline Letters
ed. J. D. G. Dunn [Cambridge: University Press, 1993], 3—12) took a similar approach to the Colossian error and also shared an indebtedness to Schweitzer.

¹⁹¹
T. Martin,
By Philosophy and Empty Deceit: Colossians as a Response to Cynic Critique
, JSNTSup 118 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 15-16.

¹⁹²
C. E. Arnold,
The Lnterface Between Christianity and Folk Belief at Colossae
, WUNT 2/77 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1995).

¹⁹³
C E. Arnold (
The Colossian Syncretism: The Interface Between Christianity and Folk Belief in Colossae
[Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996], 90—194) interpreted “worship of angels” (2:18) as an objective genitive, which refers to the invoking of angels for protection against evil spirits; “claiming access to a visionary realm” (2:18) as a reference to a mystery cult; and “elemental forces of the world” (2:8) as personalized evil spiritual powers related to the stars and fate.

¹⁹⁴
The commentaries of J. D. G. Dunn (
Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon
, 29—33) and N. T. Wright (
Colossians and Philemon
, TNTC [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987], 24—27) also argued for a Jewish source. Cf. T. J. Sappington,
Revelation and Redemption at Colossae
, JSNTSup 53 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), 19—21. Sappington differed from Wright and Dunn in that he believed the threat of false teaching was coming from within the church, not outside from the synagogue (ibid., 15).

¹⁹⁵
Bruce, “The Colossian Heresy,” 202.

¹⁹⁶
J. M. Scott, “Throne-Chariot Mysticism in Qumran and in Paul,” in
Eschatology, Messianism and the Dead Sea Scrolls
, ed. C. A. Evans and P. W. Flint (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 101-19, esp. 103.

¹⁹⁷
Lightfoot (
Colossians and Philemon
, 91—96) himself recognized the latter of these two difficulties and defended the plausibility of his claim that Essene Judaism was known in Asia Minor during the time of Paul.

¹⁹⁸
Smith,
Heavenly Perspective
, 32.

¹⁹⁹
Smith (ibid.) claimed that Arnold did not explain why Colossians did not even mention magic, amulets, spells, and charms. What is more, Arnold's link between wisdom and magic did not fit Colossians, where Paul associated wisdom with behavior (1:9—14; 3:16; 4:5). Smith also found fault with Arnold for being too selective in that he did not deal with 1:15-20; 2:9-15; and 3:1-4.