Ephesians In Recent Studies
EPHESIANS IN RECENT STUDIES
A good deal of attention has been paid to the question of authorship in recent studies. The relation to Colossians has been scrutinized closely, and new considerations have been produced, such as the parallels between Ephesians and some of the Qumran writings. This points to traditions shared by some parts of Judaism and by some early Christians, 24 and many recent scholars detect common tradition underlying both Colossians and Ephesians. This means that similarities are not necessarily to be explained by direct borrowing: there may well be independent use of the common stock of tradition. This will not account for all the similarities, and in the end there must be some more direct relationship, but it puts the problem in another perspective.
There is a tendency on the part of some students to find elements of Gnosticism behind most of the New Testament writings, so it is not surprising that some have found it here. Thus Bultmann finds "the Gnostic Redeemer-myth” and specifically "the descent and re-ascent of the Redeemer” in Eph. 4:8-10. In the quotation from Psalm 68:19 he finds "the idea that he conquered the inimical spirit-powers by his journey to heaven” (with the idea of victory over the cosmic powers also in Col. 2:15). 25 It is "Gnostic language” when the writer refers to "the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2; so also 1:21; 3:10) and to the "spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (6:12). 26 Terms such as πλήρωμα (pleroma, "fullness,”, G4445, 1:23 etc.) are frequently found in Gnostic literature. That the author has on occasion used language that also occurs in the later Gnostics can scarcely be denied, but that he is either indebted to Gnosticism or that he is writing in opposition to it has not been demonstrated. It is not along such lines that a fruitful understanding of this letter is to be sought. 27
The letter’s emphasis on the church is unmistakable; Ephesians clearly tells us more about the church universal than do other writings in the Pauline corpus. This has generated a great deal of discussion. 28 For many, this focus on the church is a natural and acceptable development, but for Kasemann (among others) it is a distortion of the real Christian message. In Ephesians, he writes, "the gospel is domesticated.” The world "may be its sphere. But it is so only as the frame into which the picture of the church fits.” He goes on to complain that here "Christology is integrated with the doctrine of the church....Christ is the mark towards which Christianity is growing, and no longer in the strict sense its judge.” 29
More theologically telling are those studies that recognize distinctive emphases in Ephesians but relate such emphases to central themes in the Pauline corpus. For example, Lincoln examines what it means to be seated with Christ in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6) and concludes that it is a kind of spatial equivalent of inaugurated eschatology. 30 Caragounis 31 and Bockmuehl 32 have examined the "mystery” language in the Pauline corpus, especially rich in Ephesians; the latter’s work, cast against the backdrop of first-century understanding of the nature of revelation, is especially suggestive.