Colossians: An Introduction and Study Guide

Authorship, Rhetoric, and Code

Janice Capel Anderson

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780567674647
• eBook ISBN:
  9780567674654
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

This guide introduces readers to key issues in the interpretation and reception of Colossians. Anderson first explores the issue of Pauline authorship. She challenges readers to reflect on why the question of authorship has dominated scholarship as well as why and how interpreters create "stories" about the letter. Second, Anderson
examines rhetoric and context. She asks readers to consider how the letter constructs and seeks to persuade its addressees past and present. She surveys several pictures of the first audience and "opponents." Finally, Anderson delves into the functions of the Colossian household code, its reception, and the ethics of interpretation.

1

Stories of Colossians and Authorship

Chapter Outline

Thought Experiment One—Harry Potter, the Third Generation

Thought Experiment Two—Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys

Stories of Colossians

Why so many stories?

The authorship debate: Historical background

Modern views on the authorship of Colossians

Nature of authorship

Arguments against and for Paul’s authorship of Colossians

Why and for what purposes does it make a difference whether Paul wrote Colossians: Reconstructing the historical Paul, his reception, and early church history

Beyond a singular Paul and homes for Colossian stories

Thought Experiment One—Harry Potter, the Third Generation

Imagine that five years after J. K. Rowling’s death, someone discovers a computer printout of a chapter describing Harry Potter’s granddaughter’s first day at Hogwarts. In it, the Sorting Hat determines the granddaughter to be a Slytherin. The chapter gives J. K. Rowling as the author. There are some differences in vocabulary and style from Rowling’s earlier Potter books. It seems odd that the granddaughter wears a “sweater” rather than a “jumper.” That the granddaughter is a Slytherin also seems odd to devotees of the eight Potter books ending with The Deathly Hallows. It does not seem out of the realm of possibility, however. In the play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, written by Jack Thorne (2016), based on a story by Thorne, Rowling, and John Tiffany, Albus Severus Potter, Harry’s son, is a Slytherin. The chapter is engaging and makes the reader want to read more. It takes the characters from the earlier books in new, but recognizable directions. The printout comes from a printer that was in use while Rowling was still alive, but many people still use the same printer. To complicate matters, Rowling (let us imagine) was known to create working outlines for her books and to dictate her work to an American secretary as her eyes failed with age.

What are some ways that scholars might try to determine whether Rowling herself, a close friend, a collaborator, or someone unknown to her produced the chapter? For what purposes and in what respects would it make a difference in your view?

For an exercise that raises issues about existing Harry Potter works and the concept of a canon, see Dalton (2017).

Thought Experiment Two—Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys

The popular Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew book series introduce many children to the joy of reading mysteries. You may be surprised to learn that authors Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene are pseudonyms for a series of ghostwriters. Does the fact that a single person did not write all the books make a difference? Would you as a reader care if you knew that the earliest Nancy Drew books were written by Mildred Wirt Benson and the later ones by another author? Would you care if you learned that plot outlines for the early books were provided to the ghostwriters? Would you view or read each of the mysteries differently?

For still controversial discussion about the authorship of the Nancy Drew books, see Keleny (2014), Rehak (2005), and Johnson (1993).

Stories of Colossians

There are several accounts or stories that one might tell about Colossians as a letter from its sender to its first recipients. In one story, Paul dictates a letter to the Colossians. His secretary may have been his coworker Timothy, mentioned as a co-sender in the letter’s greeting. Paul is a prisoner. He has heard about those who follow Christ in the Lycus River Valley of Roman Asia Minor (Turkey), including the cities of Colossae, Hierapolis, and Laodicea. Paul has learned about the community in Colossae from Epaphras, a member of the community and a fellow slave of Christ now with him. Writing from prison, Paul wants to encourage the Colossians and to counteract what he sees as false teaching and practices among them. Whether the source of the teaching and practices is internal to the community or external is not clear. The alternative “philosophy” involves visions, the worship of or with angels, ascetic restrictions on eating and drinking, and “observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths” (Col 2:8, 16, New Revised Standard Version [NRSV]). Even though Paul himself did not found the church and cannot be present with them, his spirit is with them. He wants them to know how much he struggles and suffers for them. He wants them to understand the mystery of Christ and how to live on that basis. Paul assumes that they know about him and are in touch with a network of the faithful that is part of the Pauline mission. He sends the letter with Tychicus and Onesimus (also, one of them), who will report to them orally. He ends the letter with greetings from members of his network. He also asks that they extend his greetings to the Christ followers in Laodicea including “Nympha and the assembly in her house” (4:15). The Colossians are to have their letter read to the Laodiceans and they are to read a letter Paul sent to the Laodiceans. Paul closes the letter to the Colossians with a greeting in his own handwriting and asks them to “Remember my chains” (4:18, NRSV).

A second story about the letter to the Colossians involves a fictive author. That is, someone else—whether an individual or a group—composes Colossians as if the author is Paul. The recipients may or may not be residents of Colossae. A particularly poignant form of this story told in slightly different versions by Angela Standhartinger (2004) and Hans Dieter Betz (1995) is that Paul has been martyred. Close companions write a letter that transmits an image of Paul reflecting the presence of Paul and his teaching that they knew when he was alive and may still experience in memory or in prayer. Through the letter read in worship, Paul can speak from heaven. This heavenly letter provides the living presence of Paul for its recipients. Though Paul is absent in the flesh, he is present in the spirit. This function is similar to other letters of Paul, which substitute for the physical presence of Paul and his companions when they are absent. “Paul” writes to encourage the faithful to stand fast in the face of his suffering and death, to remember his chains.

There are, of course, further modifications of these two stories that scholars and others tell. Some hold that Paul and Timothy coauthored the letter. Others that Timothy or Epaphras named in Col 1:7–8 and 4:12–13 wrote to the Colossians on Paul’s behalf shortly before or after Paul’s death. If before, Paul may have given a general idea of what he wanted to say and signed off in his own handwriting. Still others tell a story of a fictional author or a pseudepigrapher (literally, a false writer) claiming to be the historical Paul with an intent either to deceive or to control how Pauline tradition was to be interpreted and put into practice. This author borrowed Paul’s authority to support his or her own views. The references to Paul’s chains, specific coworkers, Nympha’s house church, and the claim to write the closing in Paul’s own hand are touches designed to persuade audiences that the letter is genuine. They are not marks of authenticity as other interpreters maintain. For those who tell a story of fictive authorship—whether of close companions extending Paul’s message into the future or of deceit—there are also multiple accounts of how the letter was composed. The author(s) may have used written copies of other Pauline letters, may have heard Pauline letters and borrowed from them, or been steeped in oral traditions about Paul and reflected that influence. The form of the letter with its greeting, thanksgiving, body, ethical exhortation, and closing matches other Pauline letters, whether because this is Paul’s own format or due to imitation.

Why so many stories?

These stories of Colossians are fascinating. But why are so many told? One reason is that in all of the New Testament letters attributed to Paul, we never grasp the living flesh of the “real” Paul, a man of the first century, or the real addressees in their complex interactions with Paul, his associates, and one another. As individual readers or as communities of interpreters, we always reconstruct the implied sender(s) and the implied addressees, not living and breathing persons. The ancient commonplace was that a letter substitutes for the presence of its author in his or her absence. Paul’s letters often have an impact precisely because their rhetoric gives us a sense of that “presence.” If we let that rhetoric impact us, we may find the letter addresses us as much as its original addressees—whether we wish to assent, to resist, or both. It helps to remember that even when we write a letter ourselves, we project a version of ourselves in writing. We imagine our addressees and how they may respond to our words. In Colossians, we find the Paul (and perhaps the Timothy) the letter and its readers construct engaged with implied addressees, also constructed by the letter and its readers. It is not that there was not a “real” author or authors and a “real” original audience or audiences. But, as with all past events, we must reconstruct them and this leads to differing reconstructions and differing stories of Colossians. Among biblical scholars the debate over who authored Colossians and the original addressees and their situation—which story of the letter should be told—has been central to the interpretation of the letter. It has encompassed and in some cases eclipsed discussion of the contents of the letter. In this chapter, we discuss first why some scholars question and yet others affirm that the historical Paul wrote Colossians. Then we turn to ask, for what purposes does nailing down authorship make a difference? Finally, we ask why there is such a passionate commitment to asking and answering the question of authorship.

The authorship debate: Historical background

In Western scholarly circles, a debate about who authored Colossians has taken place at least since the 1838 publication of E. T. Mayerhoff’s Der Brief an die Colosser: Mit vornehmlicher Berücksichtigung der 3 Pastoralbriefe kritisch geprüft. Mayerhoff thought that Paul did not author Colossians because the letter derived from Ephesians (which he viewed as authentic), it addressed a heresy that did not exist in Paul’s lifetime, and there were differences in style, vocabulary, and the meaning of terms from letters Paul actually wrote. The debate over the authorship of Colossians was part of a larger debate about the authorship of letters attributed to Paul. The larger debate gained prominence with F. C. Baur’s influential division of the Pauline letters in the New Testament into three categories: undisputed, disputed, and spurious ([1845] 1876, 1:246–47). In effect, Baur, an important German Protestant scholar, set out a Pauline canon within the canon literally echoing the fourth-century early church historian Eusebius’s categories for early Christian writings more generally ([1845] 1876, 1:246–47). According to Baur, only Romans, Galatians, and 1 and 2 Corinthians, the so-called principle letters (Hauptbriefe), were surely written by Paul. Baur placed Colossians among the disputed letters. He ultimately argued that Colossians and Ephesians, which he treated as very closely related, did not stem from the historical Paul. His main criteria were theological and contextual. He argued that these letters had a late, high Christology (view or doctrine of Christ) unifying opposites such as heaven and earth and embracing the entire universe ([1845] 1875, 2:35–36). They assumed Christ’s preexistence. They were also conversant with gnostic ideas and terminology, including, in Baur’s view, myths involving reunion with the divine not present during the life of Paul ([1845] 1875, 2:7–21). Further, Colossians addressed Ebionitism (a type of Jewish Christianity that kept some of the law), which he saw as a Jewish Christian heresy present across Asia Minor rather than a local group of oppo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Text and Translation
• List of Abbreviations
• A Word to the Reader
• 1 Stories of Colossians and Authorship
• 2 Rhetoric and Opposition
• 3 The Household Code, Ethics, and Interpretation
• Epilogue
• References
• Author Index
• Scripture Index
• Subject Index
• Copyright Page