Feb 10 2020 - Paul's Prison Epistles

Paul's Epistles, or letters, to the Philippians, Philemon, Colossians and Ephesians are known collectively as his Prison Epistles. They were evidently written while Paul was in prison and uncertain whether he would be freed or face death (see particularly Philippians 1:12-25). But the key question is when and from where were they written?

Many have argued that they were written from Paul's final imprisonment in Rome, therefore dating them after his letter to the Romans. Others have thought that they may have been written during Paul's imprisonment in Caesarea, after his arrest in the Temple at Jerusalem but before his transportation to Rome. These are the only occasions of lengthy imprisonment recorded in the Book of Acts.

However, in recent years many scholars have suggested that Paul may have been imprisoned in Ephesus in the early to mid 50s. N T Wright has provided what I believe to be persuasive arguments for this view. In particular, he and Michael Bird provide the following four arguments for this view in their excellent co-authored book, The New Testament in Its World (p. 439), which I summarise as follows:

1. Paul stayed in Ephesus for some time. An Ephesian imprisonment is a reasonable deduction based on Luke's report of the riots his preaching stirred up, his own reference to, "the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia" (2 Corinthians 1:8), and to his enigmatic remark about fighting "wild beasts in Ephesus" (1 Corinthians 15:32).
2. In his letter to the Romans, Paul states that he hopes to travel from Rome to Spain. But in his prison letter to Philemon, Paul suggests that if he is released from prison he hopes to come and visit Philemon in Colossae. Paul's comments to Philemon, along with the fact that Philemon's slave, Onesimus, fled to find Paul in prison, fit in with an Ephesian captivity rather than imprisonment in Rome.
3. Timothy is the co-author of Paul's letter to the Philippians. We have no evidence that Timothy accompanied Paul to Rome. The later Pastoral Epistles suggest he remained in Ephesus.
4. The suggestion that mention of "the praetorium" and the "saints of Caesar's household" in Philippians 1:13 and 4:22 suggest an imprisonment in Rome is unwarranted. "Given the prominence of the city, an imperial residence with imperial administrators and a skeleton garrison would be found in Ephesus."

These notes assume an Ephesian context for Paul's writing of the "Prison Epistles", and this accounts for their insertion at this point in the narrative of the Book of Acts.

Peter Misselbrook