Colossians and Philemon by G. K. Beale (review)

Beale’s Colossians and Philemon is an invaluable contribution that will leave a lasting impact on scholarship. It follows the structure of the series closely with general introduction for each letter prior to exegetical analysis of each pericope in the literary framework of the Greek text. The segments titled “additional notes” examine text-critical matters and elaborate on underdeveloped issues in the main discussion. Four extensive treatments and syntheses on the question of authorship, OT allusions, christology, and slavery are presented at the end as excursuses. Useful diagrams, charts, maps, bibliography, and indexes are aptly supplied. B. brings his impressive knowledge of Greek, Jewish literature, and the use of OT in the NT to bear in producing this instructive volume. He devotes fewer pages to the authorship dispute and defers to previous scholarship for elaborate discussion. He does not hesitate, however, to present a concise outline of the case against Pauline authorship (style, theology, and vocabulary) and to offer cogent counterarguments. For B., there is sufficient internal and external evidence in favor of a letter authored by Paul with an amanuensis to Colossae in the 50s c.e., known to us as Colossians.

Readers will need to keenly observe the manner in which B. frames the Colossian heresy in order to grasp the fullest extent of his contribution. He concurs with recent studies arguing that the false teaching at issue has pagan and Jewish features. B. is unique in his emphasis on “false temple worship” and related customs as a prominent feature thereof (pp. 179–81). Apparently, the false teachers required members to follow laws and customs associated with temple worship as a requisite to experience the fullness of God’s presence in worship. Paul then utilizes several OT allusions to expose the falsity of the teaching and to admonish on “how to experience God’s presence in the true heavenly temple” (p. 13). Dietary laws, holidays, circumcision, self-abasement (ascetic practice) and regulated disciplines, along with portraits of angels, are examined against the backdrop of distorted “temple theology” (p. 221). B. asserts that “the function of the dietary laws to make people clean for temple worship finds its reality in Christ’s sacrificial cleansing of people through his death in the new temple . . . to make them pure for worship in that temple” (p. 223).

Beale’s depiction of the errant teachers and their misguided tenets presumes that they are Jews. However, B. argues that these same people were converts from the mystery cults: “the false teachers in Colossae themselves may have gone through a mystery initiation before professing Christ; they may have heard about the Asia Minor Claros and Laodicea initiations” (p. 236). Might we assume that these were Jews indulging in syncretistic practices or gentiles who had become familiar with Jewish temple traditions? Converts from the mystery cults could be diaspora Jews or gentiles. For the central argument to stand (that is, false teachers advancing distorted temple theology), it is important to explain how non-Jewish heretics acquired their knowledge about the Jewish temple and to establish the motive for their teaching.

The christology of Colossians is purported to be a robust corrective to perverted temple theology—“that their participation in Christ as the true temple is all they need to experience the eschatological tabernacling presence of God” (p. 181). Christ is the head of “his latter-day temple” and thus all they need (2:10). Two christological developments relative to the central thesis are noteworthy. First, B. argues against the notion that Col 1:1–23 is hymnic material and makes a strong case that this passage is Paul’s own composition, partly to advance a particular Adamic christology to mitigate the potential threat. He reads “firstborn of creation/of the dead” and “image of God” as OT allusions (Gen 1:26–28; Psalm 67; Deut 21:17; Sir 36:17; and Psalm 88 LXX) underscoring the supremacy of the incarnate Christ over all creation. Readers will find some of these identifications of OT allusions...