Below are the literary and theological issues that arise when Colossians is compared to Paul’s authentic letters.
All below are from Bart Ehrman’s blog posts.
Bullets below are extracts from his post: Did Paul Write Colossians? According to Most Scholars No – Paul did Not Write Colossians, January 11, 2020.
- None has proved more decisive over the past thirty years than the question of writing style. The case was made most effectively in 1973 by Walter Bujard, in a study both exhaustive and exhausting, widely thought to be unanswerable.
- Bujard compares the writing style of Colossians to the other Pauline letters, focusing especially on those of comparable length (Galatians, Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians), and looking at an inordinately wide range of stylistic features: the use of conjunctions (of all kinds); infinitives; participles, relative clauses; repetitions of words and word groups; use of antithetical statements; parallel constructions; the use of preposition ἐν; the piling up of genitives; and on and on. In case after case, Colossians stands apart from Paul’s letters.
- In particular, this domestication of Paul in his embrace of family ideals stands at odds with Paul’s firmly stated preference, for himself and others, for celibacy. Nowhere in Paul’s letters do we find such a celebration of standard Greco-Roman ethics; on the contrary, Paul insisted on the superiority of the ascetic life free from marriage (1 Corinthians 7). This, indeed, was the appropriate response to a world that was in the processs of “passing away.” Here in Colossians, on the other hand, the world is not passing away (there is no imminent crisis); it is here for the long haul, and so are the Christians who make up Christ’s body in it. As a result, they need to adopt behavior appropriate for the long term. Relations to those living outside the community are especially important, not to inform them of the “impending crisis” but to maintain a proper upstanding relationship. In short, this is written by someone who knows the church has been here and will be here for the long term. There is no imminent expectation of the coming end. On the basis of all these considerations, it is clear that with Colossians we are not dealing with a letter of Paul, but a letter of someone wanting his readers to think he is Paul.
From Bart’s post: The Letter to the Colossians: Who, When, and Why? on May 24, 2025
There are, however, solid reasons for questioning Paul’s authorship of this letter. One of the most compelling arguments depends on a detailed knowledge of Greek, for the writing style of Colossians differs markedly from that found in Paul’s undisputed letters. Whereas Paul tends to write in short, succinct sentences, the author of Colossians has a more complex, involved style. The difference is not easily conveyed in English translation, in part because the long, complicated Greek constructions have to be broken up into smaller sentences to avoid making them appear too convoluted. Colossians 1:3–8, for example, consists of just one sentence in Greek. The problem is not that this is bad or unacceptable Greek but that Paul wrote in a different style (just as Charles Dickens and William Faulkner both wrote correct English, but in very different ways). This kind of evidence has convinced a large number of linguistic specialists that Paul did not write the letter.
Far and away the most compelling study of the writing style of Colossians was done by a German scholar named Walter Bujard, nearly forty years ago now.[1] For this kind of study, linguists look especially hard at stylistic features that most people don’t think much about when they write, for example, what kind of conjunctions they use, how often they use them, how often they use infinitives, participles, relative clauses, strings of genitives, and on and on — scores of things. When Bujard analyzed all sorts of stylistic features of the letter, he was particularly interested in comparing Colossians to letters of Paul that were similar in length: Galatians, Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians. The differences between this letter and Paul’s writings are striking and compelling.
Just to give you a taste:
- How often does the letter use “adversative conjunctions” (i.e., words like “although”) Galatians 84 times, Philippians 52, 1 Thessalonians 29; but Colossians only 8.
- How often does it use causal conjunctions (conjunctions like “because): Galatians 45 times; Philippians 20; 1 Thessalonians 31; Colossians only 9.
- How often does it use a conjunction to introduce a statement (“that” or “as” etc.) Galatians 20 times; Philippians 19; 1 Thessalonians 11; but Colossians only 3.
Bujard’s lists go on for many pages, looking at all sorts of information, with innumerable considerations all pointing in the same direction: this is someone with a different writing style from Paul’s.
Theological Differences Bart Cites:
The most striking is one that you may have already surmised: this author believes that Christians have participated with Christ not only in his death but also in his resurrection. He is, in fact, quite emphatic on this critical point: believers have already been raised with Christ in the heavenly places to enjoy the full benefits of salvation (Col 2:12; 3:1). Paul himself, however, is equally emphatic: even though Christians have “died” with Christ in their baptism, they have not yet been raised with him. And they will not be raised until the very end, when Christ returns. Not only does Paul stress this point in his most explicit discussion of a baptized person’s participation with Christ in his death in Romans 6, he also argues precisely this point against his opponents in Corinth, who claimed to have already experienced the resurrection and so to be ruling with Christ.
See the second sub-bullet in the first set of extracts above for another theological difference.
WHEN – We cannot assign an exact date to the letter, but it appears to have been written after Paul’s death, possibly toward the end of the first century.
For an in-depth discussion of the literary and theological issues between Colossians and the authentic letters, see Bart’s Post Did Paul Write That Letter? Getting Into the Weeds…May 25, 2025. Two extracts follow.
There are other theological differences from Paul, frequently noted, all of them pointing in the same direction. A later author has taken up Pauline themes and shifted them in decidedly non-Pauline ways. Unlike Paul, this author understands redemption as the “forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:14; as does Eph. 1:7). The phrase occurs nowhere else in the Pauline corpus; indeed, the term ἀφίημι itself, in the sense of “forgive sins,” is absent from Paul, except in the quotation of Ps. 32:1 in Rom. 4:7 (“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven”). So too, analogously, with a different term, Col 2:13 speaks of trespasses being forgiven: χαρισάμενος ἡμῖν πάντα τὰ παραπτώματα. Χαρίζομαι is never used this way in the undisputed Paulines. So too Col 3:13 speaks of “forgiving one another just as the Lord has forgiven you,” using χαρίζομαι again.
This author speaks famously of “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” for the sake of the church (Col 1:24), a shocking image for Paul: were Christ’s sufferings in some way inadequate and needed to be completed? At the same time the author offers an exalted Christology (Col 1:15-20), far beyond anything in the undisputed letters, even the Philippians hymn: Christ is the “image of the invisible God,” the “first born of creation,” “in him all things were created … and in him all things hold together,” “in him all the fullness was well pleased to dwell.” This is far closer to the Johannine prologue than to Paul. As a result, in comparison with Paul, the author of Colossians seems to have a much higher view of Christ (Col 1:15-20) and a much lower view of the efficacy of his death (Col 1:24).
Col 1:23-24 RSV – 23 provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. 24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,
