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The Dilemma of Ephesians1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
Extract
Probably other presidents of this Society have wondered whether they have chosen the best type of topic for the occasion. The dilemma of Ephesians is not a new problem and one has little hope of shedding new light upon it. It is not a theological problem and therefore does not belong in that field of New Testament study which is especially popular today. Certain arguments applicable to it—linguistic or statistical—do not lend themselves easily to brief or oral presentation. There may, however, be some merit in restating the problem and in trying to indicate the limitation of our means forsolving it. Readers or hearers who expect an attempted proof of one side or the other will not find it here.
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References
page 91 note 1 Presidential Address to S.N.T.S., delivered on 2 September 1958 at the International Congress in Strasbourg.Google Scholar
page 91 note 2 Schmid, Josef, Der Epheserbrief des Apostels Paulus (Biblische Studien, xxii, 3 and 4), (Freiburg im B., 1928), 466 pages.Google ScholarPercy, Ernst, Die Probleme der Kolosser- und Epheserbriefe (Acta Reg. Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis xxxix), (Lund, 1946), 517 pages.Google ScholarGoodspeed, Edgar J., The Meaning of Ephesians (Chicago, 1933), 170 pages,Google Scholar also The Key to Ephesians (Chicago, 1956), which, without mentioning the preceding, reproduces it with very little change, except the substitution of English Greek in the tables of parallels.Google ScholarMitton, C. L., The Epistle to the Ephesians (Oxford, 1951).Google ScholarMasson, C., L'Építre de Saint Paul aux Éphésiens (Commentaire du N. T. ix, with P. Bonnard, Galates), (Neuchâtel/Paris, 1953).Google Scholar
page 92 note 1 This theory of literary precipitation leading to a kind of chain reaction is characteristic Goodspeed, E. J. and his pupils, as in their views on Ephesians, and is defended by him in J.B.L. lxiv (1945), 197–8.Google Scholar
page 93 note 1 Hunter, A. M., Expository Times, LXI (1949–1950), 356.Google Scholar
page 93 note 2 The first person to record a verdict against the genuineness of Ephesians is usually said to be Evanson, Edward in his Dissonance of the Four Generally Received Evangelists, and Evidences of their Respective Authenticity Examined (Ipswich, 1792), pp. 261 ff.Google Scholar
page 94 note 1 As by Schmid, J., op. cit. p. 128, at the close of a long discussion written before the Chester Beatty Papyri yielded their evidence to support the contemporary testimony of Origen and the later evidence of N* and B*.Google Scholar
page 94 note 2 Perhaps the best and latest answers to the questions under the alternate hypotheses are found in the essay by Dahl, N. A., ‘Addresse und Proomium des Epheserbriefes’, Theol. Z. vii (1951), 241–64.Google Scholar
page 95 note 1 As a curiosity of criticism may be mentioned the view of Seufert, W. in Zeitschrift für wissenschafiliche Theologie (1881), pp. 185 ff., 332 ff., that the same writer who composed in Acts the speeches of Peter and Paul also produced as letters of the same persons I Peter and Ephesiaas.Google Scholar
page 96 note 1 Goodspeed's suggestion that the collector of the Pauline corpus was also the composer of Ephesians was apparently anticipated at least tentatively in 1917 by Weiss, Johannes, Des Urchristentum, p. 534 (Eng. trans. p. 684).Google Scholar
page 97 note 1 For example, Beare, F. W., Interpreter's Bible, X (1953).Google Scholar
page 97 note 2 Cf. Canon of Muratori, lines 39–41.Google Scholar
page 98 note 1 Roller, O., Das Formular der paulinischen Briefe (1933). Compare Percy's detailed criticism from other angles of Roller's argument. Op. cit. pp. 10–14 n.Google Scholar
page 98 note 2 Mitton, C. L., op. cit. p. 29, using the tables in P. N. Harrison, The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles.Google Scholar
page 98 note 3 Schmid, J., op. cit. pp. 140 f.Google Scholar
page 98 note 4 Harrison, P. N., op. cit. pp. 34–8.Google Scholar
page 99 note 1 I say ‘appears to’, for Martyr, Justin, Dial, 39, 87 twice quotes Ps. lxvii. (lxviii) 19 with (instead of ) .Google Scholar
page 100 note 1 Cambridge, 1944.Google Scholar
page 101 note 1 Op. cit. p. 278. He finds à Kempis much more likely to have been the author than Gerson. ‘One cannot go further and say that the authorship of Thomas à Kempis is proved.’Google Scholar
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