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  • From: "David Inglis" <david AT colonialcommerce.com>
  • To: corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: The Destination Of Ephesians
  • Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 13:10:52 -0400


Eric Zuesse wrote:
> Ephesians is generally considered bogus, not by Paul. Your assumption to the
> contrary negates your consequent speculations.

The above statement is, I am sure, incorrect. I find it highly unlikely
that all the people who have an opinion on the matter 'generally' consider
Ephesians to be 'bogus' (whatever that is meant to mean here). However,
as it is certainly true that *some* people do consider Ephesians to be not
by Paul, then it is at least reasonable for me to indicate (briefly) why I
think it *is* by Paul.

First, there is obviously no absolute proof that *any* of the NT was
written by the people traditionally cited as authors. However, my
understanding is that there is *no* external evidence that points to
anyone other than Paul as the author of Ephesians. This letter was
clearly considered Pauline from very early on, being included as such by
Marcion, by the compiler of the Muratorian Canon, and also by the creator
of P46. As I am unaware of any external evidence suggesting authorship by
anyone other than Paul, I would be very interested in hearing from anyone
who has evidence to the contrary.

Such evidence as there is for non-Pauline authorship of Ephesians is
internal. The first point that is usually made is to question how Paul
could write such an impersonal letter to people with whom he had spent 3
years. However, as this is exactly the point of my original post on this
subject, I do not need to repeat myself here. All that needs to be said
is that there is a perfectly straightforward reason for the inclusion of
the words "in Ephesus" in some MSS, and that there is no reason to suggest
authorship by anyone other than Paul to resolve this issue.

Many people have pointed out that the overall 'tone' of Ephesians is very
different to the earlier Pauline letters. In part this is tied up with
the question of the destination. It is perfectly reasonable for Paul to
write in a different 'style' when writing to several different churches
than when writing to deal with a specific issue in one particular church.

We also know from Acts 20:16-38 that Paul had told the Ephesian elders
that he would not see them again. It is therefore reasonable to assume
that Paul believed he would not be in the area again, and therefore to
write a letter such as Ephesians to multiple churches in that area would
be natural. Again, it is simply not necessary to suggest someone else as
the author of Ephesians to resolve issues regarding the content and style.

As to the similarities between Ephesians and Colossians, why do we need to
assume that Paul could not have 're-used' portions of one letter when
writing another? Many, many people today use standard letter templates
that are edited as necessary, and so why should Paul not do the same? In
fact, I would suggest that if Ephesians were 'bogus', then the author
would have taken more trouble to make Ephesians look less like Colossians!
At the very least, the argument here is 'reversible', and can be used to
support Pauline authorship of Ephesians just as much as suggesting
otherwise.

Finally, if Ephesians was written while Paul was in prison (the most usual
suggestion) then it is natural to suppose that Paul may have used a
different amanuensis, thus creating a simple reason for various stylistic
differences.

Put simply, I believe that every piece of internal evidence suggesting
non-Pauline authorship of Ephesians can be refuted very simply on the
basis of the above scenario.

Dave Inglis
david AT colonialcommerce.com
3538 O'Connor Drive
Lafayette, CA, USA




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