Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-wxvwp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T14:14:04.643Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Source of the Christology in Colossians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

J. C. O'Neill
J. C. O'Neill
Affiliation:
Cambridge, England
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the author of the Epistle to the Colossians took his great Christological statements in i. 9–23 and ii. 6–15 direct from Jewish sources. I am denying on the one hand the thesis that he was writing as a creative theologian who drew from time to time on a store of theological ideas which he made his own, and on the other hand the thesis that he was citing ‘hymns’ that were already complete entities. He neither created a Christology nor cited one or two commonly agreed pieces of liturgy; rather, he put together a great number of distinct but related statements which already existed in his sacred traditional sources.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , October 1979, pp. 87 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

LIST OF WORKS CITED

Abbott, T. K., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, The International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh, 1897).Google Scholar
Bammel, Ernst, ‘Versuch zu Col. I. 15–20’, Z.N.W. 52 (1961), 88–95.Google Scholar
Barrett, C. K., ‘The Imperatival Participle’, Exp. T. 59 (1947–1948), 165 f.Google Scholar
Daube, David, ‘Participle and Imperative in I Peter’, Appended Note in Selwyn, E. G., The First Epistle of St Peter (London, 1946), pp. 467–88.Google Scholar
Dibelius, Martin, An die Kolosser, Epheser, an Philemon, Handbuch zum NT (Tübingen, 1912; 3rd edn newly revised by Heinrich Greeven, 1953).Google Scholar
Ellicott, Charles J., St Paul's Epistles to the Philippians, the Colossians, and Philemon with a Critical and Grammatical Commentary, and a Revised Translation (London, 1857; 2nd edn 1861; 4th edn 1875).Google Scholar
Ewald, Heinrich, Die Sendschreiben des Apostels Paulus (Göttingen, 1857).Google Scholar
Foerster, Werner, Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts, English translation edited by Wilson, R. McL., 2 (Oxford, 1974). The Gospel of Truth is in part 1: Coptic Sources (Martin Krause).Google Scholar
Gabathuler, Hans Jakob, Jesus Christus: Haupt der Kirche – Haupt der Welt. Der Christushymnus Colosser I. 15–20 in der theologischen Forschung der letzten 130 Jahre (Zürich, 1965).Google Scholar
Hart, J. H. A., The Hope of Catholick Judaism: An Essay towards Orientation, Studies in the History and Doctrine of Judaism and Christianity edited by Williams, A. Lukyn (Oxford and London, 1910).Google Scholar
Käsemann, Ernst, ‘Eine urchristliche Taufliturgie’, in Festschrift Rudolf Bultmann zum 65. Geburtstag überreicht, edited by Wolf, E. (Stuttgart, 1949), pp. 133–48; reprinted in Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen, i. Band (Göttingen, 1960), pp. 34–51; English translation by W. J. Montague in Essays on Mew Testament Themes (London, 1964), pp. 149–68. Martin Krause, see Werner Foerster, above.Google Scholar
Martin Krause, see Werner Foerster, above.Google Scholar
Lightfoot, J. B., St Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (London, 1875; 2nd edn 1876).Google Scholar
Lohmeyer, Ernst, Die Briefe an die Philipper, Kolosser und an Philemon, Meyer Kommentar (Göttingen, 1930; 2nd edn revised according to the author's handwritten corrections by Werner Schmauch, 1953).Google Scholar
Lohse, Eduard, Die Briefe an die Kolosser und an Philemon, Meyer Kommentar (Göttingen, 1968); English translation by W. R. Poehlmann and R. J. Karris, edited by Helmut Koester (Philadelphia, 1971).Google Scholar
Masson, Charles, L'Épître de Saint Paul aux Colossiens, Commentaire du Nouveau Testament (Neuchâtel and Paris, 1950).Google Scholar
Moule, C. F. D., The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Colossians and to Philemon (Cambridge, 1958).Google Scholar
Moulton, James Hope, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, I, Prolegomena (Edinburgh, 1906; 2nd edn 1906; 3rd edn 1908), in, Syntax, by Nigel Turner (Edinburgh, 1963).Google Scholar
Norden, Eduard, Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede (Leipzig, 1913; 4th edn reprinted Darmstadt, 1956), pp. 250–4.Google Scholar
Osborn, Eric Francis, Justin Martyr (Tübingen, 1973).Google Scholar
Robinson, J. M., ‘A Formal Analysis of Colossians I. 15–20’, J.B.L. 76 (1957), 270–87.Google Scholar
Schille, Gottfried, Frühchristliche Hymnen (Berlin, 1965), pp. 79–85.Google Scholar
Schweizer, Eduard, ‘Die Kirche als Leib Christi in den paulinischen Antilegomena’, Th.L.Z. 86 (1961), columns 241–56; reprinted in Neotestamentica (Zürich and Stuttgart, 1963), pp. 293–316; ‘Kolosser I, 15–20’, in Beiträge zur Theologie des Neuen Testaments: Neutestamentliche Aufsätze (1955–1970) (Zürich, 1970), pp. 113–45.Google Scholar
von Soden, Hermann Freiherr, Die Briefe an die Kolosser, Epheser, Philemon; die Pastoralbriefe, Hand-Commentar zum N.T. (Freiburg i. B. and Leipzig, 1890; 2nd edn 1893).Google Scholar
Turner, Nigel, see J. H. Moulton, above.Google Scholar
Wilson, R. McL., see Werner Foerster, above.Google Scholar