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Essay / Colossians Ephesians - 621
In ancient times, forgeries were commonplace. The New Testament is no exception to forgeries, with perhaps as many as 11 out of 27 books counterfeited. We will examine two Deutero-Paulian books in particular to determine whether or not they have been falsified: Colossians and Ephesians. In the field of biblical criticism, there is no clear consensus on whether Colossians and/or Ephesians are false, but we will argue for the counterfeiting of both books. First, we will look at the more questionable work of the Colossians. Among biblical scholars, more believe that Ephesians was forged than believe that Colossians was forged. Colossians shows similarities between authentic Pauline works such as Romans and Galatians. The formatting of the text seems to coincide with Paul's writings and the ending of the letter also seems similar. However, the differences are too noticeable to ignore. There are very different vocabularies in the Colossians as opposed to those of the Romans and/or Galatians. The way in which the author formulates his arguments is quite different from authentic Pauline works, and more significantly in Col....