Section 59
82The indented lines in the translation above are thought by many (e.g., P. Benoit) to be additions to an existing composition.
83R. P. Martin states what has become a majority view—that vv. 15-20 “form a compact, self-contained hymn written in praise of the cosmic Christ, the Lord of creation and redemption” (Colossians: The Church’s Lord and the Christian’s Liberty[Exeter, 1974], p. 39). M. D. Hooker is not convinced that there was a previously existing “hymn,” but suggests that the passage “may . . . have been developed and formulated . . . in order to demonstrate that both creation and redemption are completed in Christ because he has replaced the Jewish Law” (“Were there False Teachers in Colossae?” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament, ed. B. Lindars and S. S. Smalley [Cambridge, 1973], pp. 316-17, 329).
84Gk εἰϰὼν τοῦ θεοῦ (cf. here, εἰϰὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοϱάτου).
85Cf. S. Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel (Tübingen, 1981), pp. 137-62. Against J. Jervell, Imago Dei (Göttingen, 1960), pp. 171-336, and others, Kim denies that Paul borrows the εἰϰών conception from the Hellenistic church; he further maintains the Pauline authorship of Col. 1:15-20 and argues that Paul’s Adam christology and Wisdom christology were derived from his εἰϰών christology, not vice versa.