What Your Pastor Won't Tell You: Paul Did Not Write Ephesians

When your pastor quotes from the various epistles of Paul during his Sunday morning sermons, you naturally expect that Paul wrote these words. Why would it be otherwise? But in fact, it is otherwise. For six of the letters attributed to Paul - Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus – it is doubtful that Paul wrote these. In fact, these are likely to be forgeries.

Ephesians - Early Manuscript

When looking at the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, for example, the consensus view among biblical scholars is that Paul did not write it. That’s right. Experts of all faiths and denominations have come to this conclusion and this problem is taught in seminaries. In fact, your pastor is likely aware of this problem but, for obvious reasons, is keeping his mouth shut about it.


For example, According to the New American Bible: "Since the early nineteenth century much of critical scholarship has considered the letter's style and use of words (especially when compared with Colossians), its concept of the church, and other points of doctrine put forward by the writer as grounds for serious doubt about authorship by Paul."

A number of specific peculiarities rule out the idea that Paul wrote Ephesians. Among these peculiarities are:

§  The language and style are different from the known Pauline works. Ephesians contains 40 new words, e.g. 1:3 "heavenly places"; "family, or fatherhood" (3:15). 1:19 has four different words for "power"; Eph & Col use a different word for "reconcile" from Paul's word (Col 1:20, 22; Eph 2:16).

§  Eph copies Col at many places. Eph has 155 verses, 73 of which are copied from Col: e.g. Eph 4:1-2 = Col 3:12-13. Eph 5:19-2 = Col 3:16-17, Eph 6:21-22 = Col 4:7-8.

§  Eph takes many key ideas from Col.  including Wisdom and Mystery. The word of truth. Gospel of salvation. Saints of God.

§  Eph also refers to most of the other letters of Paul. In many ways it seems like a summary of Paul's ideas, written by a disciple of his, and brought up to date for the Church of his own time.

§  Metaphors, or illustrations in Paul are turned into actual objective realities in Eph (and sometimes in Col also). E.g. faith, gospel, word of God, reconciliation, salvation, our resurrection and glorification, the Church as the Body of Christ, Minister, Saints of God.

§  Eph shows that the Church is becoming an advanced and powerful universal institution (rather like the Church today). In Paul's time there was no universal Church in that sense, but only informal gatherings of individual believing communities.

§  Eph contains no mention of charismatic gifts. It looks as if they have disappeared from the church, to be replaced by ordained ministers.

§  Eph shows Jesus acting on his own account and by his own authority. In Paul's letters, Jesus always acts on God's behalf and with God's authority.

The puzzling part is this. While there is wide consensus that Paul did not write this book  and near universal consensus that he did not write books such as 1 and 2 Timothy, why the secrecy? It is likely that your pastor knows this, but is not willing to pass this information on to members of the flock. It seems to me that any detailed and meaningful conversation regarding the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians must begin with a discussion of Paul’s doubtful authorship. This should be a part of Bible Study 101 and not a topic that is brought up by busy-body skeptics.

So while I may be accused of speaking Satan’s lies, we should ask ourselves who is actually lying here. If we know that these words were not written by Paul, why do we continue to quote these words as if they were? Someone from antiquity wrote these words while claiming to be Paul and this little thing called science has called them out. My suggestion. The next time you hear your pastor say, “According to Paul in Ephesians…” you should lift up your hand and challenge him by saying, “Did Paul actually write that?”  MORE INFO...