Have You Ever Read Ephesians?

I agree with your sentiments. It is hard to imagine something knowingly and falsely attributed to someone else being of high moral value.As I have implied in posts above, I do believe that Paul lived and taught the highest morality. Jazzns may not agree, but that is my conviction regarding Paul.The book of Hebrews is a bit different. It was preserved and knowingly transmitted with the author's identity shrouded in secrecy. It is clear from the end of the Epistle that the recipients knew who the author was. I don't think there is any 'falsifying' implied here.

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I think the sublime content of this Epistle is another piece of circumstantial evidence.

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How is that evidence for Paul?

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I'd say something like this. It is likely that there were not many persons in the early Christian church who could have written like Paul or like the Epistle to the Ephesians. If there were others, their other writings and their identity would have been preserved. But since there is nothing that matches Ephesians, who else could have written such an Epistle. Perhaps that is the reason that the Epistle to the Hebrews is assigned to the Apostle Paul too.P.S. I corrected my quote (of myself) from last night...

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I'd say something like this. It is likely that there were not many persons in the early Christian church who could have written like Paul or like the Epistle to the Ephesians. If there were others, their other writings and their identity would have been preserved. But since there is nothing that matches Ephesians, who else could have written such an Epistle. Perhaps that is the reason that the Epistle to the Hebrews is assigned to the Apostle Paul too.

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Why is it unlikely that anyone else could have written like Paul?Paul supposedly used amanuenses and since Paul's letters were available to read, it wouldn't be difficult for someone to imitate Paul. Even Goodspeed speculated that Onesimus could fit the bill. Edited by purpledawn, : typo correction

It is quite evident that Paul taught Timothy and Titus and others to teach the same things as he taught. So that others wrote sounding like Paul is certainly the case.Why could not some also imitate Paul's consecration, integrity, forthrightness as well ?As Paul would not write a letter pretending to be Peter because such would be dishonest, so also other workers could not allow themselves to pretend to be Paul.I heard a lecture on by one Bart Erhman claiming that imitation and forgery was somehow a typical and acceptable activity in the early era of the church. At first I assumed Dr. Erhman must know and therefore be trusted on this.Lately, I have had a change of heart. Wait a minute. Lying is immoral. Does Erhman mean lying was okay then and only has become immoral in latter centries ?I write to you pretending to be someone that I am not. And this is typical and acceptable. This is the line proposed by Dr. Erhman. Now I have second thoughts about this.

"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God..."

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"Therefore I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you ..."

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"I ... do not cease giving thanks for you making mention of you in my prayers ..."

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"For this cause, I PAUL, the prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you, the Gentiles - if you have heard of the stewardship of the grace of God which was given to me for you...

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... by revelation the mystery was made known to me ... in reading it you may perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ ...

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I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God which was given to me according to the operation of His power ... to me less than the least of all saints ...Therefore I ask you not to faint at my afflictions for your sake, since they are your glory.

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For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father ...
I beseech you therefore ...
This therefore I say and testify in the Lord ... Is all this written suppose to be the writings of an imposter, deceiving, impersonating ?Then this unknown tricksters exhorts -
" If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him as the reality is in Jesus ...
Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth ...
... be renewed in the spirit of your mind ...
Put on the new man, which was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the reality
Be imitators of God as beloved children ..." All this is imagined to be play acting. The imposter pens away trying his best to sound like Paul so that the readers will not know that Paul is not the actual author. "Let no one deceive you with vain words ..." writes the liar. A liar, I say, because he is NOT actually "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus ..." however talented or useful he may have been in his own right.And the imposter further writes: "For the things which are done by them in secret it is shameful even to speak of." while in secret the imposter puts on his best imitation in falsehood. "This mystery is great, but I speak with regard to Christ and the church ..." he writes. But the "I" is an imitator of the apostle. " ... by means of all prayer and petition ... and for me [to pray] that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known in boldness the mystery of the gospel." Remember, this is suppose to be a liar, a fraud. He needs prayer not that he be a better impersonator but that he be bold in speaking forth the gospel of Christ. "For I am an ambassador in a chain [LIES supposedly], that in it I would speak boldly [LYING that is], as I ought to speak." And just to make the forgery really believable the imposter adds - "But that you also may know that things concerning me, how I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make all things known to you.

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Him I have sent to you for this very thing, that you may know the things concerning us and that he may comfort your hearts." That is to comfort your hearts with deceptions, lies, imitations, forgeries, conspiracies ... all very comforting.I submit that the conspiracy of a fake Ephesians epistle is as ridiculous as "The Passover Plot" and a non-dead, swooning Jesus, imitating a resurrection. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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That is to comfort your hearts with deceptions, lies, imitations, forgeries, conspiracies ... all very comforting.

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I've tried very hard to get people to stop assuming lies and deception from these writings. The ghostwriter is paid for the work. Is it unethical? Paul didn't think so apparently.They used ghostwriters and we still use ghostwriters today. Presidents don't necessarily write their own speeches. White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speech WritersPopes don't necessarily write their own Encyclicals. In academia, it is wrong for the student to hire a ghostwriter, but once graduated ghostwriters are used. There are medical ghostwriters. It is used in the music and film industries.
It can also be used as a blacklisting countermeasure. I've even ghostwritten for another. He provided the information and I wrote the story. He even won an award for it from the New Orleans Press Club. The story was the important part, not the writer.Even today we have: Religious Ghostwriting ServiceGhostwriting is still part of our society today and seems to be legal in some instances. The Scandal of Christian GhostwritingSo the tradition continues and not just in religion. Is all of it lies and deception?

I am aware that presidents use speech writers. Usually the final decision of what is said is made by the president.I am aware that publishers of music in Mozart's and Haydn's day, in order to SELL a piece of music, might attribute it to one of the popular composers as a facade (a marketing deception). This was sometimes considered flattery by the prospective unknown composer.And I agree that ghostwriters are hired.Paul was up front about writing a letter in coordination with someone else. Paul and Timothy, Paul and Sosthenes, etc. He gives us heads up when he is being assisted by a colleague. "I, Tertius who wrote this epistle, greet you in the Lord" chimes in one Tertius in Romans 16:22.Now you are asking me to step from this kind of coordination to ghostwriting in this sense:1.) Paul perhaps goes out and HIRES someone to write a letter in his name.I don't believe that the apostle Paul went out and hired a ghostwriter. I think this is reading modern day degraded Christianity into the early church life.You served God because you consecrated your life to God. You were not hired or fired. If you want to give your time and life to serve Jesus you did so in faith with no motive of compensation except in the kingdom of God.So the idea that a hired ghostwriter wrote Ephesians for monetary gain is not realistic to me.2.) How about some caring, sincere servant of God took it upon himself to ghostwrite for Paul apart from Paul's knowledge.However you look at this, this is a dishonest facade. To tell people that you are praying for them when perhaps you are only saying that to SOUND like the apostle Paul, should offend the Christian conscience.To ghostwrite and out of facade claim to be sending Tychicus to inform the audience of PAUL's well being is lying and concocting a facade however you look at it.Do you want me to believe that a ghostwriter said - "But that you also may know the things concerning me [PAUL], how I [PAUL] am doing, Tychicus, the beloeved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make all things known to you.

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Him have I sent to you for this very thing, that you may know the things concerning us and that he may comfort your hearts." Now let's get a grip on what you propose. Tychicus, when coming, in order to keep up the deception, must now LIE and pretend to have been sent by Paul. But actually a ghostwriter has arranged the entire charade. Does this make sense?So Tychicus, the "faithful minister in the Lord" must do a little unfaithful munipulating of the audience when he comes. He has to pretend that Paul has sent him when Paul has not. He must pretend to know about Paul condition when perhaps he doesn't know OR he doesn't know he is suppose to bring them up to date on Paul.I don't see how the Tychicus passages can be fake. And if the man Tychicus IS to visit and inform the audience, he has to be complicit in the charade.I think any ghostwriting theory about Ephesians had to have been apart from Paul's knowledge. I don't think the apostle would work that way. "Stand therefore, having your loins girded with TRUTH ..." (6:14) "Now, let me go out and hire myself a ghostwriter to pretend to be me."How do you factor in the compliance of one Tychicus when he is to arrive at Ephesus ? He is sent for the express purpose of informing them of Paul's well being. Are you saying Tychicus then, with a straight face, fills the audience in, all the while KNOWING that Paul had not sent him for the express purpose because the letter was a ghostwriter's facade ?Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Usually ghostwriting is considered valid when it is able to be endorsed by the person who is the public face. Nobody thinks that when the president delivers a speech that was prepared for him, that he does not endorse the ideas therin.The problem with Ephesians (something that is even more grossly overstated in other forgeries such as 2 Peter, the Pastorals, etc) is that the content is at ODDS with what the public face would have said or HAD said.Also, we just can't know. Most of the obvious forgeries were made long after the peole who they are named for had died. We can't know how Paul's ideas would have changed with the time. Perhaps he would have been right on board with the whole "resurrection in the now" ideas expressed in Ephesians. Maybe Peter really would have come around to the whole justified by faith thing. But we can't assume that they would have, we can only go on what we know of their character and what they said and did while they were alive.The only reason I think you have any consistency with this point is that you don't seem to accept Ephesians on the basis of authority but rather on its content. As I have said many times in this thread thus far, I think that is perfectly fine but there is a cost even to this. That cost is that you are deciding to accept the agenda of someone who decided, perhaps even piously, to go against their forebearers and to justify that agenda with deception.Just like the author of A Million Little Pieces discovered, even if the message may have value on its own, people tend to disregard both the message or the messenger after the lying is revealed. Trust is important. Jaywill and Richh are off the hook for this because they simply deny the lie. To not do this yourself you are either being very disengenuous or very enlightened and I can't quite tell.Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

The title of the article suggests the "scandal" involving something shady. Don't you think ?Guilt by association here purpledawn ?Benny Hinn, Dave Wilkerson, Norman Vincent Peale, Jerry Farwell, the 700 Club, AND the Apostle Paul too ?Reverend Ike, therefore Paul and John too ? All acted the same ?
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Just to correct a point, if Bart Erhman ever once did claim that forgery was typical and acceptable, he has since changed his mind quite dramatically.The popular press version of his work is simply called "Forged" and it is a discussion not just of the various forgeries in and out of the Bible but a long discussion about how the practice of forgery was both widely used and widely condemned.It is bizzare how brazen some people were. The father of the modern canon himself, Athanasius, used forgery as a tool to change the character of his opponents after his death.Forgery was throught of so badly in fact that it was perhaps even used to attept to discredit legitimate writings by claiming that they were forged.At any rate, not to drift too far off topic into forgery in general, I agree with you that not only forgery is not acceptable, it was not acceptable to the ancients either.

That is possible.At the public library I took out some lectures by Dr. Erhman "The Teaching Company" knowing nothing about who he was. I have since found out more about him. I don't know that work. The series of lectures I got was deeply involved with the Apochryphal writings. He's a good teacher, as all of the Teaching Company professors usually are.I remember one lecturer on Ancient Egypt I could hardly put away he was so fascinating. Back to Ephesians. Someone should describe to me just how the passages concerning Tychicus were to be acted out by Tychicus.Or was the Tychicus passage completely fiction ? Ephesians says "how the mystery was made known [to Paul] ... by revelation" (3:3). Those who read the letter can gain "insight into the mystery of Christ" (3:4) It is hard for me to imagine any deliberate imitation of this kind of phraseology without an intention to deceive rather than edify followers of Jesus Christ.Then the truth would be that the imitator did NOT receive anything by revelation. And the imitator is impersonating Paul.1.) I don't see why Paul would PAY to have someone do this.2.) I don't see why anyone who cared for the health of the church would embark to do this for pay, given the high morality of the letter's exhortations.3.) I don't see why anyone perceptive to know the spiritual wealth of such a writing would impersonate Paul thinking he was doing a favor to the disciples of Jesus.4.) I don't see how the impersonator could insight Tychicus to go along with his scheme expecting him to imitate a faithful minister of Christ Jesus.I could see someone competiting in rivalry with Paul. But in that case he would probably be teaching something else to tear down Paul's work.And First Corinthians and Romans contain so much of the same revelation as Ephesians.

[qs]The more I think about it, the more this actually is relevant to Ephesians. Is it not relevant that the person who put one of the final stamps on the status of Ephesians as authoratative was himself a known forger? He was a forger not for money or for piety, but rather to elevate the status of his power. He was brazen enough to forge a letter from the emperor himself! Or is it simply post-hoc rationalization of the fact that a person Tychicus was already there. This is also done in a better known forgery of 2 Timothy at the end where the forger gives a bunch of very personal instructions including asking for a cloak. This is the known technique of adding verisimiltude to the forgery. It was well practiced in other known forgeries. You would have to ask the many many many other forgers that we KNOW about who did very similar things that didn't happen to make it into canon. Often times not even in rivalry of Paul but in support. One of the more famous forgeries of Paul is someone who was trying very hard to make Paul look really good. He forged a series of letters between Paul and an important philosopher of the day Seneca. The letters were intended to retroactivly improve the status of Paul, as having sparred with a celebrity. The Pastoral Epistles were forged precicely to undermine a growing branch of Paulean Christians who preached equality of the sexes and chastity even in marriage, they themselves supported by the false stories that later became the forged Acts of Paul!Of all of the hypotheticals you mention above, we have KNOWN examples of people doing that! And I think that you are plainly misreading Romans and 1 Corinthians on this point as I have mentioned before. But I won't go into those depths again. I don't think it is worth trying to change your mind on this point because it is based on your theology, not on the evidence.

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The only reason I think you have any consistency with this point is that you don't seem to accept Ephesians on the basis of authority but rather on its content. As I have said many times in this thread thus far, I think that is perfectly fine but there is a cost even to this. That cost is that you are deciding to accept the agenda of someone who decided, perhaps even piously, to go against their forebearers and to justify that agenda with deception.

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You don't know what I personally have decided or accept. We are debating authorship. Stick to that.My point being that ghostwriters were around back then as they are around now and since Paul did use them, there were people around who could write as well as Paul.As for the lying. Pseudepigraphs are those writings where the real author attributed it to a figure of the past. It only applies to the attribution, not necessarily that the content is false or invalid.Both were common and used in religion with varying results.Just because Ephesians doesn't sync with Paul, doesn't mean it doesn't reflect the teachings of the time.Basically, one doesn't have to throw the baby out with the bath water.

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Amanuensis ... a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another; secretary.

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An amanuesis is not the same as a ghostwriter.

You are wise not to try to convince me that First Corinthians on the church is fundamentally different from Ephesians on the church.As for you forgery theory - the bottom line is that you cannot prove that Paul did not write Ephesians. You cannot prove that Paul did not write First or Second Timothy - period.You can assert that you know he did not write it. But you don't know that. I will assert that you probably are wrong. You don't know that Paul was not the author - period.I can't prove you absolutely wrong in this.
Neither you, not purpledawn, nor Mr. Goodspeed can absolutely prove that Paul did not author Ephesians.And I think I should move on from this stage of the discussion and further use the other New Testament books to help getting into the depths of Ephesian's revelation.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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An amanuesis is not the same as a ghostwriter.

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Sometimes jobs aren't as cut and dried as their position description. Dictation just means we write down what is said. The whole letter may be spoken or just ideas. People don't necessarily talk with proper sentence structure. There is some cleanup when turning shorthand into a proper letter.In 2 Corinthians 11:6, Paul admits to not being a trained speaker. Maybe in private he puts his thoughts together better than in public, we don't know.My point was that to suppose that no one could write as well as Paul in those early days is rather shortsighted.