KILEY, M.C., — Colossians As Pseudepigraphy.

UNKNO, 1987, 468p. Paperback. Series: The Biblical Seminar. ‘Kiley prefaces this revision of his 1983 Harvard dissertation with remarks about our cultural attitudes toward forgeries and the implications of those attitudes for our response to pseudepigraphy in the NT. While this preface might suggest that the bookdeals primarily with the issue of pseudepigraphy in its cultural context, the chapters that follow move well beyond that problem. Chap. 1, ’Interplay with the Culture: What, Why, How,’ does examine the attitudes toward pseudepigraphy that characterized the Greco-Roman world, concluding that pseudepigraphy was detected in the ancient world, that its detection did not prevent pseudepigraphy from being respected, and that the motives involved in pseudepigraphy ‘were not necessarily dishonorable’ (p. 20). (…) Chap. 2, ‘What Colossians is Not’, addresses the question of whether Colossians is in fact to be regarded as authentically Pauline. K. provides a concise review of the arguments that have been used against the authenticity of Colossians and then assesses their relative strength. (…). The most interesting and fresh of K.'s suggestions are that the lack of reference to Paul's financial arrangements provides further evidence that the letter is not genuine and that Colossians has its model in Philippians and Philemon rather than in Ephesians or Romans. Because so many aspects of the authenticity of Colossians are addressed in this slender volume, these important suggestions do not receive the extended treatment they deserve. We are, nevertheless, indebted to K. for a broad-ranging review of the issues bearing on the writing of Colossians.’ (BEVERLY ROBERTS GAVENTA in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 1988, pp.534-535).