I spent a good portion of the day reading for my Theology of Ephesians class.
The weird part was that a good part of the reading I was doing from Hoehner's Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary was trying to explain and justify that Paul was the author of the epistle. Honestly, why is that even debated?! The book begins with, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus..." Paul OBVIOUSLY wrote the book.
I don't understand why people over-speculate and complicate the bible. That's why I like people like Pastor Chuck Smith—it's all about the simplistic gospel!
And...I never ever thought I'd be quoting this man in a blog, but as Leonard Knight (the man who built Salvation Mountain) always says, "Just keep it simple!"
Keep It Simple!
4 Responses to “ Keep It Simple! ”
What if someone was pretending to be Paul?
Believe it or not, that's one of the claims!
A lot of gospels and letter written towards the end of the Apostolic age, and just after it (late first, early 2nd centuries) claimed to be written by Apostles to get more recognition and gain an air of authority. This always worked against them though; everyone rejected books by authors who had lied about their identity (a practice known as pseudepigrapha), whereas anonymous books (or those that were written anonymously) such as Hebrews, Mark and Matthew did get in after consideration and examination.
Of the books we have now, we can be almost certain of pretty much every author; Hebrews is a complete unknown, and it's not certain which John wrote Revelation (though it is most likely the Apostle).
KISS
Keep it simple stupid...I mean student! lol!