Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (8)

Inner leaf of my copy
of Colossians/Philemon

I have not focused much on Dunn's commentaries so far. I find his books and articles much more stimulating. However, today I do want to single out his 1996 commentary The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon.

Thus far in this series:
1. The Evidence for Jesus (1985)
2. Baptism in the Holy Spirit (1970)
3. Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (1977)
4. Christology in the Making (1980)
5. "Once more, ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ" (1991)
6. The New Perspective on Paul (2005)
7. The Partings of the Ways (1991)

I have also slipped in Jesus and the Spirit (1975), Romans 1 and 2 (1988), Jesus, Paul, and the Law (1990), Jews and Christians (1992), Galatians (1993), Paul and the Mosaic Law (1996), and Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels (2011).

1. When I was a doctoral student in Durham, we had a weekly New Testament Seminar on Monday afternoons at 4pm. It was a highlight of each week. What was particularly exciting about these seminars was the chance to walk through some writing project that Jimmy was working on. During my time at Durham, Dunn wrote commentaries on 1 Corinthians (1995), Colossians/Philemon (1996), and Acts (1996).

For the first two, the seminar enjoyed the treat of engaging these biblical texts not only with the collective knowledge and insight of Jimmy himself but the whole department and the cadre of doctoral students in residence. Indeed, I would take from that experience a wealth of insights that I tried to bring to bear on a commentary of 1 Corinthians of my own. My take-aways on Colossians also made their way into other of my books, such as this one.

2. The most striking aspect of Colossians was the question of whether the "philosophy" of Colossians 2 was syncretistic or mystical. The standard interpretation was that this group about which Paul warns was a Jewish group that worshiped angels. Such a notion seemed strange unless it was hyperbole.

Enter the Dead Sea Scrolls. One of the newly published texts was "The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice." This text exposed a mystical aspect to the Qumran sect (presumably), who must have seen their worship on the Sabbath as a kind of participation in the worship of heaven. In his commentary, Dunn would take the position that this group thought they were worshiping with angels.

It was more of a treat than I realized then to be at Durham in the time just after the Dead Sea Scrolls were fully published. We spent a semester in the seminar going through Florentino Martinez's freshly published, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated. They were also a major focus of Loren Stuckenbruck's expertise.

3. When Dunn's commentary finally came out, I was struck with a couple aspects of the introduction. First, although he had clearly worked with Colossians since time immemoral, it seemed clear that he had really approached this commentary with an open mind. He did not write the introduction until after he had written the verse by verse commentary. This method has stuck with me--how can you really introduce something you haven't written yet? You don't yet know what your introducing!

Second, I was impressed with how he handled the question of pseudonymity, whether he was right or wrong. Colossians is one of those writings in the middle of the authorship question. In the scholarly world, there is a strong tendency to consider the Pastoral Epistles as "pseudonymous," written after Paul's death in order to bring his authority to bear on a later context. On the other end of the spectrum are the writings like Romans and 1 Corinthians that no one questions were written by Paul himself.

Colossians is somewhere in the middle. Raymond Brown once suggested that perhaps 40% of NT scholars think Colossians was pseudonymous. Dunn, after finishing his commentary, concludes that Colossians just doesn't quite feel like Paul directly. His suggestion is quite clever. He suggests that Timothy was the principal writer, with Paul's approval.

Very clever. On the one hand, Timothy's name is on the letter. In that sense should we even call Dunn's position "pseudonymity"? It is a way to place Colossians within the lifetime of Paul and Timothy, by Paul and Timothy, and yet explain the slight differences in style and approach. Again, I don't know if Dunn is correct, but it is an example of his ability to bring fresh perspectives on old problems.