Have You Ever Read Ephesians?

Is it relevant to discuss if Ephesians is authentic? Should we put spiritual trust in a book that lies about who wrote it in order to gain acceptance? If there is value regardless of the author, why couldn't the ghost writer use his own name? Was it even intended for the Ephesians and does that matter?

No. Nor did I suggest this. The issue of the authorship of Ephesians happens to be an open question. My overall question is that if there is any value in examining Ephesians, is that value necessarily reduced by knowedge or suggestion that Ephesians not written by who claims to have written it nor for the audience it claims to be given to. Get over yourself. Are you so incensed that someone might dare question the reliability of your holy wisdom that you need to put words in other peoples' mouths? Please take note of the question marks I used in the post you are replying to and re-evaluate your hysteria. Wow! I was unaware that formal training and credentials was a requirement to ask a question on an internet forum! Are you now going to proceed with such vigor and indignation into threads where non-geologists are currently asserting the superiority of their opinions about the facts of nature to actual practicing geologists? If you notice, I did not put out any information. I asked questions to potentially lead the discussion. Should the discussion actually go that way perhaps I will add my own opinion and then of course I will do my best to reference my facts where appropriate.Here is one simple fact that I hope will not be too controversial for you. Some people don't believe Paul wrote Ephesians. My question is, does the question of Paul's authorship bear upon the relevance of Ephesians as theological work?

The question of the authorship of Ephesians is based on scholarship not rumors. And in many circumstances, this scholarship comes from people who are just as faithful as those who try to iron over these little wrinkles in the bible.So perhaps we treat Ephesians as PD suggests, as a commentary on Christianity by someone whos insight we trust based on how much we accept the content.I think PD is minimizing how much pseudography was rejected in those times. The Acts of Thecla was popularly read in those times but was eventually rejected because of issues of authenticity and pseudography. Even more glaring was the Shepherd of Hermas which is even included in some early canons (although likely more due to its lack of apostolic authority not pseudography).The point is, people REALLY did care who wrote things and REALLY did reject things when they were found out to not actually be by who they said they were.So perhaps today some people may say that they don't care. They may accept Ephesians either because they choose to reject the scholarship that brings its authorship into doubt or simply because they don't care and liken it to a commentary.But if it is "God's Living Word" as some believe, then you have to ask yourself why its providence should be so ambiguous. If it is just a commentary then what should we say about verses such as: Something that has needlessly caused a lot of suffering in our world in the 1900 years that people thought that this shit was real.IF some people want to have a higher view and think of it as commentary, they can reject this part as the backward and primitive statement that it is. But the problem is that many people think this is a commandment from God and have excused the discrimination of half the worlds population on its basis amongst other forgeries (Timothy) and bastardizations of Paul's message (edits to Corinthians).

I think purpledawns musings on reliability belie what reliability really means to some people. PD is saying that we can use Ephesians as a reliable indicator of what Christian thought by people of its time in this one branch of Christianity. What I am saying is that such a stance is far removed from considering it the reliable Word of God (TM) on that same basis. Which you choose most certainly depends on where you fall on the question of its authenticity. Moreover, if it was not Paul who wrote this you have to consider that the person was willing to claim they were Paul. No. I mean at the end of the day some questions of authorship are ambiguous. I think there is enough evidence against Pauline authorship of Ephesians in particular that I fall on the side of this particular book being deutro-Pauline. But I wouldn't go to the mat with someone who said they believed it is authentic. It really is hard to say. Other books are less ambiguous such as 1 and 2 Timothy which are almost certainly deutro-Pauline.And it really boils down to what you are trying to do with the book. Like I said, if you are just treating it as a commentary then that is a fairly innocent purpose. If what you are claiming is that we should use this book as instruction to live by due to its authority imbued by God then I will question why God would use a vehicle with such uncertainty surrounding its origins for that purpose. I am familiar with the , "but the books of the bible are better attested to than other ancient documents" argument. It is simply not convincing to me to claim that we should trust that Ephesians, or anything else for that matter, is authentic just because lots of copies of it were made many decades or centuries after its inception.Also, the level of the claims does not match up. People talk about how much better the bible is preserved compared to the works of Homer but fail to take into account the fact that Homer never claimed that his works were the inspired works of the one true god that describe the path to eternal salvation or damnation.If the bible is what it claims to be (or what Christians claim it to be rather), than really why don't we have near perfect attestation and distribution? Why did it take 700 years for the Far East and double that for the entire western hemisphere of the world to receive the first glimpse of the holy word of god?I don't even know which logical fallacy this might be. The argument from superior distribution? Perhaps if Constantine had decided to be Gnostic then we would be having this exact same argument about the Gospel of Thomas.

If you are just going to go ask god to tell you what you should do, why do you need to refer to Ephesians at all? Why do you need to refer to the bible at all?What responsibility for the oppression of women is born by a god who will give you the right rules when you use his secret telepathy technique rather than reading the words on the pages of his supposed holy word?If Ephesians has no authority, WTF is this thread for?

And how many times in these books do they claim that there exists a supernatural redeemer who will give you eternal bliss if you believe in him and eternal torture if you do not?How many times in these books do they instruct, on the threat of eternal punishment, for women to accept a degraded status, to scorn the rest of society due to percieved ills, or do whatever rituals are required to appease the wrath of the creator?Perhaps a book that DOES include these things SHOULD then rise to a higher standard of attestation don't you think?Are you implying that because these other unrelated books were poorly preserved (ignoring the fact that other Christian writings DID get destroyed only some of which we even know about) that we should regard the Bible as reliable?Shouldn't we expect more from the creator of the world and his one true religion than a mild improvement over similar ancient documents of the time that don't even make equivalent claims? So then there is no objective truth to the words on the page? That certainly does not inspire confidence. I have the feeling that some of your other co-religionists may have something to say about that.And if I am right, that this is all in your head, then when you read Ephesians verses about the status of women and you are going to get the cultural relativistic answer you want, the mysoginist is going to get the answer he wants, etc ad absurdum.

I really am amazed by this. You say this and then the very next thing you do is pull a half of a verse of scripture out of context. Peter, excuse me "Peter", is saying that you should read the plain dang words! Also, it is unclear to me that Peter is talking about scripture in general rather than prophecy specifically.But that is just one problem with what you are saying. You follow up by claiming that, in context, Ephesians 5:22 isn't so bad. In reality, the context CONFIRMS the destructive nature of the advice. The instructions to the husband makes it crystal clear that the ordering is the husband over the wife.I didn't go into the slave thing because I thought that the misogyny would be sufficient for my point. But to just drive the nail deeper, this is NOT inspired advice: Paul is telling slaves to obey their master as they would obey Christ himself! This section is the very definition of unbalanced. The husband/wife relationship is proscribed to be unbalanced. The master/slave "relationship" is even worse.You are telling me that you can actually read these verses out loud and say with a straight face that "the rights of all respected and the needs of all met"?The main point I am leading toward in this thread though, is that Paul in the genuine epistles (minus a few additions to those) is not interested in preserving earthly institutions and traditions. Paul is greatly concerned in his early letters about the conduct of all people in the church and their readiness for the return of Jesus. He is battling with Peter about the law and telling people NOT to get married if they can help it. Over time he is consoling them about their worries that Christ is delayed and providing encouragement.As you get into the disputed epistles, such as Ephesians, and then into the garbage that is the Pastoral epistles, you are looking at a very different Paul. This Paul is more concerned with durable institutions and the day to day mundane issues of life as a Christian. This Paul also just seems to have it in for women and really goes out of his way to make sure that their inferiority is established.So in the end, I think the authenticity of Ephesians speaks quite vividly to the issue of how we should value it. Ephesians is sub-standard as a moral guide and the fact that its authorship is questionable gives us all the more reason to reject it, not just on the basis of its failings.

You are welcome to your opinion. I think your opinion is incongruent with modern morals. Why should you ever be capable of using the word "Christian" to refer to the word "master" and have ANY credibility in this discussion? I would hope, that the moment you become a Christian, you would cease to be anybody's master. Oh I agree! Paul's true message is not intended to improve the world. Paul thinks that the woes of the world are incurable. The problem is that most Christians don't really understand that and they use verses like Ephesians 5 over the years to justify misogyny and slavery for their worldly purpose. If this was not God's intent, we can be sure that he COULD have said things in a way that we people didn't continue to erroneously enslave our fellow men and treat women as subordinate. It would have been as simple as not saying the things that were said!

I really don't think that is true. It think the words have an intent and our purpose for studying them it to attempt to discover that intent. I think that the FULL quote from Peter II speaks exactly to that which why I thought it was ironic that you choose that quote.You said specifically in the post I responded to that the situation he describes is "balanced" and: I am not sure if you consider your other quotes from Paul as adequately responding to the fact that there is nothing balanced at all. Nothing in the other quotes speaks to that point at all. Ephesians 5 is retrenching the existing IMBALANCE that existed at the time. Paul is essentially saying, "accept the imbalance and look to different things." I cannot possibly fathom how you can interpret those words in a different way. Its pleasing to God for slaves to obey their slave masters? It is pleasing to God for slave masters to continue to have slaves as long as they are "nice" to them?Thankfully the world has for the most part moved beyond these backwards sensibilities. Painfully and slowly it has moved on. But it has done so in spite of, and against the push back from, those who have used the words from Paul among other as justification.

I don't think our morality should include having slaves.I don't think we should look to ancient writing for morality.Even assuming for the moment that the Bible is a better prescription for treating women or slaves than anything that existed 2000 years ago...the point is that it is still backward thinking morality.

I don't think it was with malice of course. But it does have that effect. I think you are making a different point. I don't have any problem accepting that Paul's treatment of women was better than the surrounding culture. But whatever marginal improvement that was over the existing culture, modern culture has surpassed that greatly in spite of those who used these verses in the Bible to hold it back.I think there is a divide between someone like you and others. Some see Ephesians more for what it is, the opinions of a pious Christian cultured by his surroundings, informing us about opinions of the time. Others see Ephesians as the holy word of God delivered through his divinely inspired apostle who's scripture shall ring true and endure until the end of days.I don't have a problem with the former.

It doesn't really matter what KIND of slavery you are talking about. People as property or people as debt still makes the message, that slave masters should stop malice toward their slaves, completely incongruent with the message from Jesus and the early Apostles in Acts that the rich should sell their property and share their resources. This would include presumably freeing your slaves regardless if it was physical bondage or debt bondage.The value of their debt owed to the master would BETTER be spent working on the great commission. Keeping a slave after becoming a Christian is very similar to the husband and wife who kept back a portion of their land in Acts.The rest of your post is a tangent that I dont' care to get into. I am sorry. I don't feel like playing the equivocation game in order to rescue Paul here.

I am not blaming the "someguy" who wrote Ephesians. Obviously the blame for the persecution lies at the feet of the people who used it for those ends.What I am trying to say, is that on the issue of the inspiration of this text, the fact that it is both of questionable origins and of questionable ENDURING morals, that it should be rejected. It should hold nothing more than a historical curiosity of what we have advanced beyond.Perhaps it is even notable as a valid and important step along that way as you seem to be suggesting. We today look back at the inability of women to vote as barbarism in comparision to modern equality issues. "Paul" may have been a revolutionary in terms of women's rights in his time. But this advice does not apply today and the only beef I have is with people who try to claim that it does due to magical thinking. That doesn't seem to be your positions so it seems we are arguing over superficialities.

Absolutly not. Although I would not have a problem with the writings of a revolutionary to encourage his people in uprising, such words would ALSO be incongruent with the original Paul and Jesus.A simple edict for masters to free their slaves from bondage and to witness to them so that they might also serve Christ would have been more fitting with the gospel message and the ideals of the apostles in Acts. I don't think it was the law that people HAD to own slaves. THAT the slaves remained slaves seems to be at least somewhat up to the goodwill of the masters. If Christ was truly prevailing in the believers who were masters, it seems to me that a better message to have delivered by his supposidly inspired apostle would be to FREE those slaves if possible. Not to wallow in the institution of slavery. Paul did not write down the different types of people just to appeal to them. He did so in order to encourage them to ACT in a particular way according to their role. The criticism is not that this Paul chose to mention masters. The criticims is what he told them to do, in particular that they should remain masters. THAT is what is not concordant with the teachings of Jesus, what is described in Acts, and what the earlier real Paul actually taught. You are projecting again. I actually don't have that many problems with Paul the original. I also don't have that many problems with Jesus. I do have a problem with the faker Paul(s) and I do have a problem with God. But that has nothing to do with the fact that the people who supposidly speak for God can't get on the same message.My problem with God, if he is as is described in the Bible, is that he is a sadistic and evil dictator who has no business appealing to the cause of human suffering. But that is for a different thread! I have read the gospels. I really don't recall having read about Jesus saying anything that makes women to be inferior or that slavery is okay for believer to maintain. Can you tie Ephesians 5-6 back to something Jesus said? Please be specific. Don't get me wrong! Telling husbands to be good to their wives is a good and enduring idea! There are other things in Ephesians that are plainly just fine. But if you hand me a bowl of delicious ice cream with just a tiny little amount of shit mixed in it, I still will not eat it.That is also besides the point I am making which you have yet to address. It is the incongruency in behavior, theology, language, all together that create the case that this "Paul", this writer of Ephesians, is a phony. The Paul of Ephesians is different than the Paul of Galatians. If Christianity is to have any credibility, it needs to stop basing its theology on people who feel they need to forge documents for their ideas to be accepted.

No. You are misreading me. I think you are completely missing my point. Even in this new quote of 1 Cor 11, you can't seem to see that what exists is not a description of a situation that is "balanced" (your words mind you) and "sweet harmony among all parties with the rights of all respected and the needs of all met". There wouldn't be any problem with you retracting those words. Just say what I think you are getting at in your roundabout way. Just say, "YES there IS an imbalance and that is okay because ...." You are essentially saying that anyway. Just be clear about it and don't try to pretend that those words in Ephesians 5&6 don't exist in the way that they do.I am also not convinced that 1 Cor 11 is original because of other additions to 1 Cor that were placed there specifically to make Paul sound like a misogynist. It seems like later writers just really were sort of peeved at Paul for not smacking down women enough since many of the things written in his name after the fact seem to emphasize that. But that is beside the point. Even if Paul DID agree with his future forgers on the status of women, it only makes BOTH writings fail the modern morality test.Either, like I am contending, there is a difference in the writings of the undisputed and disputed epistles in this regard in which case people who claim that they are all God inspired have some explaining to do; or Paul is congruent with "Paul" and they are both BAD guides for how we should treat women and that owning people is still okay. No, I don't. Thats bullshit. If anything biology tells us that it is the exact opposite. A male is a altered female not the other way around. If that is true, God certainly is ineffective at his wrath delivery. The slaves of Christians continued to be beaten, tortured, and killed for centuries after this. It took the other guys having more guns and determination to finally put a stop to the fact that CHRISTIANS OWNED OTHER PEOPLE. God's wrath is most certainly NOT being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness. Either he is saving his wrath for a time and place that will conveniently produce no evidence of it, or God is fake. But the point is, which still has not been addressed, is that this supposed enduring moral delivered by God's inspired apostle, is inferior to the morality of today. Assuming that we continue to progress, it will be even more inferior to the morality of tomorrow.Women should not in fact be subordinate to men. The concept of a slave master should be illegal and stricken from our society and has been for the most part. If you want to claim that these words are inspired, then show me the inspiration. Alternatively, be honest and admit that they are not, like PD. That would be far more honorable than this full throated defense of the indefensible.