P. Derek Overfield PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

argument is the Targum to 1 Kings 8:27 which asks
"Has it'really pleased the Lord to cause his shekinah
to dwell among men who live on the earth?"
But this
statement does little else than emphasise the transcendence
of God, a theme which is hardly emphasised as the
only description applicable to the Godhead in either
of the Colossian statements.
It must be said ag~inst
the argument that 7t}.npwj.lQ, even in Colossians has
affini ties with the 11] -. ") yj
.,..
concept of Rabbinic
Judaism that "both formally and materially the
statements in Col. go much further than the Jewish
statements " 131 But even if this were not the
case Aalen's argument would still fail to convince
because
he attempts to prove the case for Colossians
and then assumes without further evidence that the
same must apply for Ephesians, an assumption which,
as we have already shown, is no longer tenable.
3.2 Gnostic Sources
We have already discussed the
7t}.npWj.la
concept in Valentinianism at some length and in so
doing have rejected the possibility that the concept
as it appears in this developed form of Gnosticism has
anything to do with the term as it appears in Ephesians.
Our concern now at this point is threefold.
We shall
firstly examine the 7t}.npWj.lO; concept in documents and
sources which, although not representative of Gnosticism
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