“The Spirit”: Left Out and Then Reintroduced? A Study of Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:18-19 in the Context of the Authorship Debate

Abstract

This article aims to formulate a new hypothesis on the authorship debate concerning the disputed letters Colossians and Ephesians. It argues that the letters were co-written with Paul by his co-workers in order to make Paul's theology more acceptable to the congregations. Colossians omits controversial Pauline terms, but Ephesians corrects this and tries to reintroduce Pauline theology in a way that will build unity in the churches. A particular parallel text, the study of which sparked this research, is discussed to see if this hypothesis makes sense both of the similarities but also the differences between the two letters.