Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke

[rgprice]

Philemon is a very short letter, and quite odd. It appears to be a purely personal letter with little or no theological value. Why is it considered "authentic"?

In its closing Philemon mentions these figures:

23 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, 24 as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.

These same people show up again in Colossians:

10 Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings; and also Barnabas’ cousin Mark (about whom you received instructions; if he comes to you, welcome him); 11 and also Jesus who is called Justus; these are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision, and they have proved to be an encouragement to me. 12 Epaphras, who is one of your own, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings, always striving earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. 13 For I testify for him that he has a deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis. 14 Luke, the beloved physician, sends you his greetings, and Demas does also. 15 Greet the brothers and sisters who are in Laodicea and also Nympha and the church that is in her house. 16 When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part, read [m]my letter that is coming from Laodicea. 17 Tell Archippus, “See to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, so that you may fulfill it.”

Philemon: 17 If then you regard me as a partner, accept him as you would me. 18 But if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account; 19 I, Paul, have written this with my own hand, I will repay it (not to mention to you that you owe to me even your own self as well). 20 Yes, brother, let me benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ.

Colossians 4: 18 I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my imprisonment. Grace be with you.

So, what's up with this? Both are supposedly written from prison. Both mention the same set of people. Why is Philemon considered authentic?

[lclapshaw]

Philemon is a very short letter, and quite odd. It appears to be a purely personal letter with little or no theological value. Why is it considered "authentic"?

In its closing Philemon mentions these figures:

23 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, 24 as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.

These same people show up again in Colossians:

10 Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings; and also Barnabas’ cousin Mark (about whom you received instructions; if he comes to you, welcome him); 11 and also Jesus who is called Justus; these are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision, and they have proved to be an encouragement to me. 12 Epaphras, who is one of your own, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings, always striving earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. 13 For I testify for him that he has a deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis. 14 Luke, the beloved physician, sends you his greetings, and Demas does also. 15 Greet the brothers and sisters who are in Laodicea and also Nympha and the church that is in her house. 16 When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part, read [m]my letter that is coming from Laodicea. 17 Tell Archippus, “See to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, so that you may fulfill it.”

Philemon: 17 If then you regard me as a partner, accept him as you would me. 18 But if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account; 19 I, Paul, have written this with my own hand, I will repay it (not to mention to you that you owe to me even your own self as well). 20 Yes, brother, let me benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ.

Colossians 4: 18 I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my imprisonment. Grace be with you.

So, what's up with this? Both are supposedly written from prison. Both mention the same set of people. Why is Philemon considered authentic?

I don't. This opinion is shared with many who consider it to be part of the so called prison letters.

Think you might be a contributer in the urpaul experiment? viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10382

Would love to get your take on it.

[davidlau17]

Philemon is a very short letter, and quite odd. It appears to be a purely personal letter with little or no theological value. Why is it considered "authentic"?

I think you answered your own question. I agree that this is a weak basis for authenticity. With its list of named figures and its prison letter context, Philemon seems to belong to the same letter set as Colossians and Ephesians; it seems to be no more authentic than these two.

I suspect there is also an apologetic reason Philemon's treatment. It is the only "authentic" letter to mention Luke as a companion of Paul. If Philemon fails, so does Luke's apostolic authority.

[John2]

Philemon is a very short letter, and quite odd. It appears to be a purely personal letter with little or no theological value. Why is it considered "authentic"?

I think you answered your own question. I agree that this is a weak basis for authenticity. With its list of named figures and its prison letter context, Philemon seems to belong to the same letter set as Colossians and Ephesians; it seems to be no more authentic than these two.

I suspect there is also an apologetic reason Philemon's treatment. It is the only "authentic" letter to mention Luke as a companion of Paul. If Philemon fails, so does Luke's apostolic authority.

Wilson mentions an interesting reason for why Philemon may have been preserved.

... there was at least one person involved who had every reason to have an interest in its preservation -the slave Onesimus. If Paul's wishes were fulfilled, he owed to this letter his restoration to the household of Philemon, possibly even, on one interpretation of v. 21 ... his liberation, and certainly the removal of that threat of punishment that must forever have haunted any runaway slave.


https://www.google.com/books/edition/Co ... frontcover

As far as who wrote Philemon and its relation to Colossians goes, my guess is that Timothy had something to do with them, since he is mentioned as co-authoring them and was in a better position to transmit and expand on Paul's teachings than anyone else. As Paul says in Php. 2:20-23:

I have nobody else like him who will genuinely care for your needs. For all the others look after their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy’s proven worth, that as a child with his father he has served with me to advance the gospel.

Perhaps Timothy had a heavier hand than Paul (or the only hand) in these letters.

[lclapshaw]

Philemon is a very short letter, and quite odd. It appears to be a purely personal letter with little or no theological value. Why is it considered "authentic"?

I think you answered your own question. I agree that this is a weak basis for authenticity. With its list of named figures and its prison letter context, Philemon seems to belong to the same letter set as Colossians and Ephesians; it seems to be no more authentic than these two.

I suspect there is also an apologetic reason Philemon's treatment. It is the only "authentic" letter to mention Luke as a companion of Paul. If Philemon fails, so does Luke's apostolic authority.

Right, the other two letters with Luke are Colossians and 2 Timothy. Both highly suspect.

[John2]

Philemon is a very short letter, and quite odd. It appears to be a purely personal letter with little or no theological value. Why is it considered "authentic"?

I think you answered your own question. I agree that this is a weak basis for authenticity. With its list of named figures and its prison letter context, Philemon seems to belong to the same letter set as Colossians and Ephesians; it seems to be no more authentic than these two.

I suspect there is also an apologetic reason Philemon's treatment. It is the only "authentic" letter to mention Luke as a companion of Paul. If Philemon fails, so does Luke's apostolic authority.

Right, the other two letters with Luke are Colossians and 2 Timothy. Both highly suspect.

But what if Timothy wrote them? He is named as a co-author of Colossians and was in a better position than anyone to pass himself off as Paul (and all the more so in the two letters addressed to himself).

Would Colossians and 2 Timothy be less "suspect" if someone as close to Paul as Timothy wrote them? It would be the next best thing to Paul, since Paul says "I have nobody else like him" and "you know Timothy’s proven worth." And Colossians says outright that Timothy co-authored it.

And it would make sense for Timothy to know Luke since Col. 4:14 says that Luke was a physician and 1 Tim. 5:23 tells Timothy to "Stop drinking only water and use a little wine instead, because of your stomach and your frequent ailments."

[John2]

If Timothy wrote Philemon, Colossians and 1 and 2 Timothy, I suppose it's possible that Paul didn't know Luke (or never met him). Luke could have been a follower of Timothy (perhaps they met because of Timothy's "frequent ailments"), and because these letters were thought to have been written by Paul (and who can blame it when that's what the letters say), Luke was thought to have been a follower of Paul. Hence the idea that the gospels were written by apostles (Matthew and John) and followers of apostles (Mark/Peter and Luke/Paul).

But it wouldn't make Luke any less real as a person, and it wouldn't derail the idea that he wrote the gospel of Luke. And he would have been in a great position to "compose an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by the initial eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account."

[John2]

However, I don't have any objection to the possibilty that Paul wrote Philemon and Colossians. The case against it doesn't seem very strong (as far as I've seen), and it would be less complicated to ascribe these letters to Paul and think that Paul knew Luke (perhaps via Timothy). Luke could certainly be characterized as "the beloved physician" if he attended to the ailments of Paul's right hand man (of whom he writes, "as a child with his father he has served with me to advance the gospel"). And Timothy could have had a hand in them in any event, as they purport.


https://drmsh.com/TheNakedBible/Colossians.pdf


Wilson notes a suggestion by Wedderburn that's more or less how I picture the writing of Colosssians.

His own suggestion is that Colossians 'was written by a close follower of Paul during the apostle's lifetime, perhaps in a situation where Paul's imprisonment (Col. 4:3, 10, 18) meant that he had to leave the composition of the letters to Colassae and to Philemon rather more in the hands of his associates than he had previously been accustomed to do' ...


https://www.google.com/books/edition/Co ... frontcover

The big question (which Wilson goes on to address) is how to fit this imprisonment into Paul's timeline, and that's something I need to take a closer look at.

[John2]

Dunn favors the idea that Timothy wrote Colissians in The Epistle to the Colossians and to Philemon:

The data [for the timeline] are somewhat confusing, and no hypothesis fits it all with equal comfort. But on the whole the most plausible solution is probably that the letter was written at about the same time as Philemon but actually composed by someone other than Paul himself. We may, for example, envisage Paul outlining his main concerns to a secretary (Timothy) who was familiar with the broad pattern of Paul's letter-writing and being content to leave it to the secretary to formulate the letter with a fair degree of license, perhaps under the conditions of his imprisonment at that point able only to add the briefest of personal conclusions ... If so, we should perhaps more accurately describe the theology of Colossians as the theology of Timothy; or, more accurately still, the theology of Paul as understood by Timothy.


https://www.google.com/books/edition/Th ... frontcover

[schillingklaus]

Philemon is full of Pastoralizing interpolations, as proved by Stuart G. Waugh.

Paul in prison must be understood metaphysically, not historically as Wilson does. It is a Judaization and Euhemerization of the classic attic equation "soma sema", as already known by Plato in GORGIAS.