Pauline epistles Archives - Page 5 of 5

A few weeks ago I blogged a bit on Romans 13, then heard a paper at ETS from Michael Bird on Anti-Imperialism in Romans. Turning my attention to Ephesians this week I was surprised to see the topic coming up once again. I read an article by Denny Burk in JETS a few years ago which was a decent summary of anti-Imperial readings of Paul, although I think that he has lumped N. T. Wright along with Richard Horsely and Hal Taussig. To me, Wright is not doing the same sort of work as Horsely, even though there are some similarities. Both make the same sorts of observations concerning Paul’s alleged use of imperial language, but Horsely and Taussig take the issue much further than Wright by applying Paul’s anti-Imperialism to the imperialism of the United States.

First I will lay out the basics of anti-Imperial readings of Paul and then I will make a few observations about why this is an important issue for reading Ephesians.

The increased interest in the impact of the Imperial cult in Asia Minor in the first century has driven anti-imperial readings of Paul. In the first century, Caesar was described as Lord (κύριος) and god in art and coinage. Since he was the one who brought peace (εἰρήνη) into the world, the emperor should be thought of as the savior (σωτήρ) of the world. News of the Emperor was announced as “good news” (εὐαγγέλιον). This imperial propaganda was pervasive and could not be avoided, although most people in the first century would have simply accepted the equation of “Caesar as God” and moved on with life.

Paul preached the good news that Jesus was the Lord and savior of the world, the one who brings peace. For those of us with Christian ears, these words are all quite familiar . But to anyone who heard them in the first century Roman world they were just as familiar, but applied to Caesar, not Jesus! By calling Jesus Lord, it is argued, Paul is setting up an implicit anti-Roman narrative. Once words like gospel, Lord, savior, and peace are taken as anti-imperial, then other less common Pauline concepts are seen through this lens, such as the language used for the return of Christ in 1 Thess 4:13-18.

For the most part, the implications of these anti-Imperial readings of Paul for reading Ephesians is to confirm the non-Pauline nature of the book. It is thought that Ephesians lacks the anti-Imperialism of Romans or other certain Pauline letters, This is evidence of a later, more pro-imperial writer. This is a major factor for Crossan and Reed in their In Search of Paul. Ephesians is not considered to be Pauline because of the reversal of the egalitarianism evident in Romans and Galatians.

But as Wright says early on in his Paul: A Fresh Perspective, “The argument recently advanced (in North America particularly) that Ephesians and Colossians are secondary because they move away from confrontation with the Empire to collaboration with it is frankly absurd.” The reason for this “absurdity” is that Ephesians is just as anti-Imperial (according to Wright) as Romans 13 or any other certain Pauline text. In fact, if there is actually an anti-empire subtext in the choice of terms Paul uses to describe Jesus and his mission, the Ephesians ought to be considered right at the heart of Pauline anti-Imperialism. I suspect the section on submission of wives drives Ephesians out of the Pauline corpus for most of the anti-Imperialist scholars.

What elements of Ephesians might be considered “anti-imperialist”? What benefit is there in reading Ephesians 1-2 in this way?

Bibliography:

Burk, Denny. “Is Paul’s Gospel Counterimperial? Evaluating The Prospects Of The Fresh Perspective” For Evangelical Theology,” JETS 51 (2008; 2009): 309-338

Ephesians is one of the books in the Pauline collection which is frequently assumed to be pseudonymous. Despite the fact that Paul refers to himself four times in the letter (1:1, 3:1, 4:1, and 6:19-22), the majority of scholarship in the last 150 years denies the authenticity of the letter. Rather than written by the “historical Paul,” the letter was created in the late first century, perhaps as a companion to the book of Acts.

P49 Verso

While there are many variations on this argument, many introductions to Paul reject the letter as authentic on the basis of vocabulary, style, and theology. For many, the letter does not sound enough like Romans, Galatians, or 1-2 Corinthians to be accepted as authentic. Usually the letter of Ephesians is thought to be a post-Pauline compendium of Paul’s theology. It was written by a disciple of Paul (“Paul’s best disciple,” Brown, 620). Sometimes the reconstruction of the circumstances are quite complex. For example, Goodspeed suggested that Onesimus returned to Philemon, was released from his slavery and eventually became the bishop of Ephesus. After Acts was published, there was a great deal of interest in Paul, so Onesimus gathered all the various letters Paul sent to the churches of Ephesus as an introduction to Paul’s theology. As Brown says, this is interesting but “totally a guess.”

There are some differences between Ephesians and the other Pauline letters. For example, the common Pauline term brethren is missing (except 6:23), and the letter never calls the Jewish people “Jews” in the epistle, even though the Jews are an important part of his argument. More surprising is the fact that the verb “to justify” is not used, even though while it is common in Galatians and Romans and might have been useful in the argument of 2:11-22.

Does it matter if Paul did not write the letter himself? If the letter contains the actual “voice of Paul” then the letter can be considered Pauline. By way of analogy, in the study of the Gospels there is a great deal of discussion over the words of Jesus. When I read the words of Jesus in my ESV Bible, can I know that these are the real words of the historical Jesus? The answer which satisfies me is that the words of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels are true “voice of Jesus,” even though they are not the actual words Jesus’ words were originally spoken in Aramaic, translated to Greek and then to English for me to read!

In the same way, even if Ephesians was not written by Paul, the true “voice of Paul” can be found in the letter. As it happens I think Paul did write Ephesians, albeit much later in his life during his Roman house arrest. The letter was intended to go to all the house churches in Ephesus and there is no burning problem which Paul has to address (as in Galatians or Corinthians). This explains why the letter is generic in terms of theology and practice.

Considering Ephesians to be an authentic Pauline letter may change the way we envision Paul’s theology. While Romans and Galatians are concerning with justification and the struggle to define the Church as something different than Judaism, Ephesians is a witness to the universal church which includes Jews and Gentiles in “one body.” Unity of the church seems to be Paul’s main theme in the letter. Rather than drawing lines, Paul is arguing for unity among those who are “in Christ.”

How might taking Ephesians seriously change the way we think about various elements of Pauline Theology?