Introduction to Colossians: Authorship, Date, Audience - Crain Home

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the mystery cults which professed new thought with a
world view that "sought to explain everything on the
assumption that matter was essentially evil and that the
good God could only touch evil matter by means of a
series of aeons or emanations so far removed from him
as to prevent contamination by God and yet with
enough power to create evil matter." These Gnostics
(hoi gnostikoi, the knowing ones) with their
philosophic speculations applied their theory of the
universe to the Person of Christ. Many today are
content to deny sin, disease, death and evil in spite of
the evidence to the contrary. The issue was so grave
that Epaphras journeyed all the way to Rome to seek
Paul’s wisdom and help
http://www.abideinchrist.com/messages/colintro.html
8. J. Hampton Keathley III, Th.M.
1998
http://crain.english.mwsc.edu/colossians/index.htm (9 of 38)6/17/2003 8:16:07 AM
Author and Title:
Because of the greetings in 1:2, Colossians became
known as Pros Kolossaeis, “To the Colossians.” As
with the other epistles of Paul surveyed thus far, both
the external and internal evidence strongly support
Paul’s authorship. But the authorship of this epistle
has been doubted by some on the grounds of the
vocabulary and the nature of the heresy refuted in this
epistle. Expositor’s Bible Commentary has an
excellent summary of the key issues involving the
authorship and date of Colossians.
That Colossians is a genuine letter of Paul is not
usually disputed. In the early church, all who speak on
the subject of authorship ascribe it to Paul. In the 19th
century, however, some thought that the heresy refuted
in ch. 2 was second-century Gnosticism. But a careful
analysis of ch. 2 shows that the heresy there referred to
is noticeably less developed than the Gnosticism of
leading Gnostic teachers of the second and third
centuries. Also, the seeds of what later became the fullblown
Gnosticism of the second century were present