Philemon In Recent Study
PHILEMON IN RECENT STUDY
A good deal of recent discussion turns on Knox’s argument that this letter is the one described as "the letter from Laodicea” (Col. 4:16). He thinks that Philemon was a Laodicean, the leader of the churches in the Lycus valley and a man to whom the Colossians would look for guidance. Because of the light it would shed on the position and future of Onesimus, it was important that this little letter be read at Colossae, but it was sent to Philemon at Laodicea first. With this Knox takes the view that it was Archippus who was the owner of Onesimus and to whom the pleas in the epistle to Philemon would be addressed. But it would help in having him respond if Philemon of Laodicea added his weight to what Paul had written. 3 A few scholars see this as a fruitful line of approach, but Knox and those who think with him have not been able to convince the world of scholarship that all this is really credible. It is not the natural way to interpret Philemon 1-2 and Colossians 4:16, nor does it reckon with the fact that Marcion knew a letter to Laodicea as well as a letter to Philemon.
Others start with the premise that Colossians is inauthentic and suggest that Philemon was published to induce people to think of Colossians as genuine. This, too, has attracted little support. It seems an unlikely explanation of a letter as full of human interest as Philemon.