Colossians and Philemon

Well, I'm back tonight from a few fun filled days with my wife Angie's family in Colorado. They're a rather fun loving bunch. In typical fashion, Angie volunteered to set up a variety show featuring the great grandkids (funny how the great grandmother continues to be the point of reference over seven years after her death--quite the mater familias I must say).

My son Tommy was one of many boys to sport bulges in their rears to some of the music to the song "I like big... and I cannot lie..." My minor role was as one of many back ups to MC hammer (one of the cousins lip sinking). Don't worry. Nothing I did can even remotely be construed as dancing. Stefanie, Stacy, and Angie clogged... sort of. And Sophie was one of three who dressed up the same to imitate one of the aunts who was high school queen four years running.

They're quite a lively bunch. I suppose my favorite point was when the whole lot of some 74 individuals marched in the Breckenridge July 4th parade.... They actually signed up to march in the parade. What hath Schenck to do with Breckenridge, or the Poppas family to do with July the 4th? Anyway, it was fun being waved at and we threw candy to the little people on the sidelines.

But of course you're mostly wondering what any of that has to do with Colossians and Philemon. Nothing, except I've been thinking a lot about my current novel project. I'll let you try to figure out what it might involve as time goes by.

Just a small piece of my reflection has been the dating and context of Colossians and Philemon. Traditionally, of course, they are dated to the time of Paul's first Roman imprisonment. But Ephesus is also suggested and of course, a sizeable chunk of Pauline scholars don't think that Paul even wrote Colossians.

I currently think that there was only the one Roman imprisonment and that Paul died at the end of Acts. This is not the preferred position of evangelical scholars at present, although in itself my suggestion doesn't break any rules. My reasoning goes like this: 1) I think Acts was written after Paul's death, 2) I think "Luke" knew the outcome of Paul's trial in Rome, and 3) the last third of Acts has a sense of foreboding, as if Paul's doom is on the way.

I am of course open to being convinced otherwise. When I'm in my private study, it's really the truth I am interested in, and I'm willing to say I was ignorantly stupid when I realize it. I've been reading Jerome Murphy-O'Connor's wonderful Paul: A Critical Life and enjoying it immensely. But he disagrees with me on this matter of only one Roman imprisonment. Oh well.

But I agree with him finally that Philemon was probably written from Ephesus. It has to do with the proximity to Colossae and Paul's intention of visiting there when he is freed. M-O (Murphy-O'Connor) thinks Paul actually went to the Lycus Valley where Colossae is after a release from prison in late summer of AD 53. To throw in some of my own, this would imply that 1 Cor. 15:32 refers to an imprisonment in mid-53. I like it. I won't go into the details.

The spark that I may pursue and publish on a scholarly level goes beyond M-O to think of two imprisonments at Ephesus. I want to make it clear that imprisonment was no punishment in Paul's world. A person was imprisoned while information was being gathered for trial. By two imprisonments I simply mean that Paul was put under arrest twice while he was at Ephesus. The first would be before 1 Corinthians and would be the allusion of 1 Cor. 15:32. Perhaps Paul wrote Philemon during this imprisonment. Onesimus seeks out Paul to serve as a go-between to Philemon (on this scenario, he is not a runaway but someone at serious odds with his master because of some significant issue).

A second imprisonment in Ephesus would thus follow the riot of Acts 19 and would be reflected in 2 Cor. 1:8. I think this imprisonment was more serious than the first. The first may simply have been exploratory on the part of the prefect, but the second was in response to public disorder. I think that Paul wrote Philippians on the occasion of this imprisonment. I would place 1 Corinthians and Galatians in between the two arrests (North Galatia primarily, but possibly worded so that it could also be used in South Galatia as well). 2 Corinthians 1-9 were then written from Macedonia after Paul (is kicked out) of Ephesus. 2 Corinthians 10-13 followed on shortly thereafter when Paul received news that the Corinthians had not responded as expected to the visit of Titus and two other brothers. Of course all this may be wrong, but a novel has to start somewhere.

So what of Colossians? I now think it too was written from Ephesus. I think perhaps Timothy had a bigger role in its writing, to explain the differences in style and conceptuality. The fact that Aristarchus is co-prisoner in Colossians while Epaphras is in Philemon is odd. I have read some attempts at explanations. Nevertheless, it would still seem that the two must have been sent together.

Well, sorry if I've bored you... Good night.