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resurrected God. Sorting through the tangle of intellectual positions and counter-positions is a challenging
task taking one back into early church history and continuing scholarly treatises in the present era.
Deciding one's personal position is ultimately a matter, not so much of intellect although its rigor is
needed, of responding in faith to a critical commitment: the relationship of the divine and human and
bridging the divide between the two so often created by systems of logic.
This approach to Ephesians is largely one of reading what the epistle in six chapters has to say and
responding to what the text in its current form seems to mean. Beneath such an approach are obviously
complicated issues of authorship, manuscript and language in which originally transmitted, a history of
the first century of emerging Christianity, and generally understood themes complicated by who the writer
is and what the purpose for writing was as well as what has resulted from years of interpretation and
application.
The reader will find links to other resources designed to encourage on-going study and enquiry.
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Authorship
The debate continues whether Paul is the author of Ephesians. The Oxford Companion to the Bible quotes
1.1, 3.1-13:4.1, and 6. 19-22 as indicating this letter was written while the author was in prison. It goes on
to say some postscripts in ancient manuscripts also indicate that the epistle is written in Rome. The
conclusion, then, is that the letter was written about 61-63. Based on Acts 23-26 and the Caesarean
imprisonment of Paul, some have suggested the letter could have been written as early as the mid 50's
(Bruce Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, Oxford 1993, 186). Oxford Companion summarizes other
scholarship questioning Paul's authorship:
In 1792 the English divine Edward Evanson first questioned Pauline authorship. During the
nineteenth century, German scholars gathered arguments in favor of pseudonymous origin,
and today most researchers treat the letter as non-Pauline, dating it between 70 and 100 CE.
Some think the author was Onesimus, the runaway slave mentioned in Paul's letter to
Philemon, who is then further identified with the Bishop of Ephesus bearing the name
Onesimus (mentioned in Ignatius's letter to the Ephesians 1.3, 2.1, 6.2). 186
The Oxford Companion then summarizes arguments against Pauline authorship:
Style: long sentences, new vocabulary (compared to uncontested Pauline
letters), well-known words with new meanings, missing Pauline terms and
phrases. Oxford Companion concludes, though, after comparing diction to
Pauline prayers in other letters as well as citations referred to, that "it is not
astonishing that its style and vocabulary differ from Pauline prose
usage" (186).
http://crain.english.mwsc.edu/ephesians/ (2 of 13)6/17/2003 8:01:10 AM