Starting Argument

That the writing style of Ephesians stands out within the traditional Pauline corpus was seen already by Erasmus: “Certainly the style is so different from several of Paul’s letters, that it might seem to be by another, were it not for the fact that the spirit and nature of the Pauline mind altogether vindicate it” (Certe stilus tantum dissonat a ceteris Pauli epistolis, ut alterius videri possit, nisi pectus atque indoles Paulinae mentis hanc prorsus illi vindicarent). 56 Evanson in 1792, and then Usteri in 1824, both maintained that its impersonal character and close proximity to Colossians made it suspect. But W. M. L. de Wette was the first to formulate the full argument against its genuineness in his Einleitung of 1826, an argument repeated in his commentary of 1843. In de Wette’s view, the letter contains much that is “foreign to the apostle … or not worthy of him in its mode of writing and thought.”

C.L. Mitton’s 1951 analysis of Ephesians is a key contribution to the modern study of this letter in the Bible. Mitton’s analysis includes a wealth of arguments based on linguistics, style, literary dependence, historical circumstances, and doctrine. His argument against the authenticity of Ephesians is not weakened by his adoption of the now-discredited Goodspeed-Knox theory that the letter was originally intended as a “cover letter” for the Corpus Paulinum. Among critical scholars, Ephesians is widely acknowledged to be pseudepigraphic, including recent commentators such as Sellin.

There are good reasons to believe that Paul did not write the letter of Ephesians. The most obvious is its relationship to Colossians, which it appears to be modeled after. If Colossians was a forgery, as is widely believed, it is unlikely that Paul himself would have imitated it in another letter. Scholars have evaluated the similarity between the two letters in different ways. Mitton’s famous claim is that a third of the words in Colossians appear in Ephesians, while Lincoln gives more precise statistics showing that 34% of the words in Colossians appear in Ephesians and 26.5% of the words in Ephesians appear in Colossians. Hüneburg is more cautious, recognizing that the similarity between the two letters depends on how one counts words in parallel passages. By his count, between 26.5% and 50% of the words in Ephesians can be found in Colossians.

The close relationship between the letters of Ephesians and Colossians is strong evidence that Paul did not write Ephesians. In particular, Eph. 6:21-22 repeats an entire 29-word passage from Col. 4:7-8, which is impossible without one author copying the other. There are also several other passages that have significant overlap, including three with seven words in common, two with five consecutive words in common, and several more that appear to be elaborations or conflations of passages in Colossians. The majority of scholars today believe that Colossians is the original letter and that Ephesians was written based on it. Various solutions to the problem of the literary ties between the two letters have been proposed, but most scholars today agree that Colossians is the original and that Ephesians was written based on it.

If Colossians was a forgery, as is widely believed, then Ephesians, which is based on it, was also a forgery. This is confirmed by a range of arguments based on style, vocabulary, structure, and content. The stylistic features of Ephesians, including its long and awkward sentences, strings of participles and infinitives, and repetitions of prepositions, are not characteristic of Paul’s writing. Furthermore, statistical analysis shows that Ephesians has a higher proportion of long sentences than other letters attributed to Paul. These stylistic considerations, along with others, suggest that Ephesians was not written by Paul, even though he was capable of writing in this way.

The structure and word usage of Ephesians are also distinct from Paul’s other letters. The letter contains both a blessing and a thanksgiving, which is unusual in the canonical corpus. The author also uses distinctive phrases like “in the heavens” instead of Paul’s “in heaven” and refers to the Devil instead of Paul’s Satan. These linguistic differences, along with the non-Pauline phrase “good works,” suggest that the author of Ephesians had a different perspective than Paul, as seen in the letter’s non-Pauline contents. The letter’s realized eschatology, in particular, stands in tension with Paul’s carefully developed views on the subject. Whereas Paul emphasized the future resurrection of the dead, the author of Ephesians presents it as a past event that has already happened to believers, who are now enjoying the benefits of their raised existence. This view is at odds with Paul’s teachings and suggests that the author of Ephesians was not Paul.

Ephesians also differs from Paul’s other letters in its content. Like its model Colossians, Ephesians speaks of redemption in a non-Pauline way and presents Christ as the head of the body rather than the body itself. The letter also includes a household code that is more in line with the social ethics of the Roman world than with Paul’s radical social ethic and endorsement of celibacy. The letter’s key teaching, that Christ abolished the Law by his death, is also at odds with Paul’s view that the Law is established in Christ. In addition, the letter’s presentation of salvation as a completed event, with believers already seated in the heavenly places with Christ, is at odds with Paul’s emphasis on the future resurrection and the eagerly expected nature of salvation. These and other differences between the letter and Paul’s writings suggest that the author of Ephesians was not Paul.

The letter contains many non-Pauline ideas and words, and that its style is not characteristic of Paul. Additionally, the author points out that the letter contains a number of self-references that make it clear that the author is trying to convince the reader that he is actually Paul.

Polemics of the Letter

The Letter to the Ephesians is not focused on polemical content, but rather on celebrating the unity of Jews and Gentiles in the body of Christ. However, it does contain some concerns about false teaching, and may engage in a more subtle kind of polemic. In contrast to its model, Colossians, Ephesians makes explicit appeals to the Jewish scriptures in its exhortations and stresses the historical connections between the body of Christ and the people of Israel.

Kummel provides three arguments that have persuaded most scholars to consider Ephesians to be deutero-Pauline (Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 358-361): language and style, dependence upon Colossians, and theological differences.

1. Many terms in Ephesians aren’t found in genuine Paulines but are found in the later NT writings and early patristic writings. Also, the author of Ephesians uses different words for important Pauline concepts. “Although these and related linguistic and stylistic differences alone could not prove the Pauline authorship of Eph to be impossible, they make extremely difficult the supposition that Paul could have written Eph in the form in which it has been handed down.” 2. Almost all of Ephesians evinces verbal contacts with Colossians, indicating that the author of Ephesians wrote in imitation of Colossians, and the author also shows contact with the rest of the Pauline corpus (excepting II Thess). “Decisive against assuming that the same author wrote Col and Eph very quickly one after the other are those instances where Eph manifests clearly (a) literary dependence or (b) at the same time a really substantive difference from Col.” 3. Kummel shows five different ways in which Ephesians clearly has a further developed theology than Colossians. Moreover: “If these developments beyond Paul are in any case completely inconceivable in a letter of Paul written at almost exactly the same time as Col, other ideas and formulations in Eph stand in any case in irreconcilable opposition to Paul. In characteristic fashion, Eph 2:10 in reworking Col 1:10 employs the plural εργα αγατηα which Paul always avoids (see 21.4.1). Equally characteristic is the fact that Eph in contrast with Col uses several εν-formulae that Paul does not have: εν τω χριστο ιησον (3:11), εν τω ιησον (4:21), εν τω κυριο ιησον (1:15). And in 1:15 πιστισ is linked with κυριοσ, while in Paul it is linked only with χριστοσ. Also it cannot be an accident that only in Eph 1:17; 3:14 (in contrast to all the Pauline letters) do we hear God addressed as Father in petition. Still more essential than these divergences, however, are three other factors which cannot be reconciled with Pauline authorship. First, in contrast to all the Pauline letters including Col 3:4, there is lacking in Eph any mention of the expectation of the parousia. With its formulation εισ πασασ τασ γενεασ τον αιωνοσ των αιωνων, Eph 3:21 is scarcely counting on a near eschaton. The valuing of marriage as the image of the heavenly union of Christ and his church (5:25 ff) is scarcely open to the same Paul who wrote I Cor 7. Finally, the statement that Paul’s commissioned office was to proclaim the unity of Jews and Gentiles in the promise of Christ (3:2 ff) is contradicted by his own statements including Col 1:25 ff, and the self-designation of Paul as εγαχιστοτεροσ παντων αγιων (3:8) is scarcely a conceivable overstatement of εγαχιστοσ τον αποστολων (I Cor 15:9).”

1. Richard Heard writes (An Introduction to the New Testament): “These developments of Pauline thought are of great value and importance, but seem to be the building of another thinker on Pauline foundations rather than Paul’s continuation of his own work. This impression is confirmed by the nature of the epistle itself which does not address itself to a particular situation, as all of Paul’s genuine epistles do, but is more of a treatise than a letter. The personal references (3:1, 4:1, 6:21-22) appear to be selected from Colossians, and the reference to ‘holy’ apostles (3:5) sounds strange from Paul’s pen, although natural to a writer of the next generation.”

1. A. D. Howell-Smith writes (Jesus Not a Myth, pp. 132-133):
2. https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/SCSB-8034544

If the Pauline authorship of Colossians is doubtful, that of Ephesians is still more so. In style it differs even more than the Epistle to the Colossians from the earlier Epistles attributed to Paul. Though it has stylistic peculiarities, as well as expressions, which differentiate it from Collosians, there are such close resemblances, in places, between the two as to suggest that Ephesians was written in imitation of the other work. The Christologies of both Epistles are similar. It is hard to believe that Paul wrote that the Church is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets” (Ephes. ii, 20); would one who had to fight so hard for his claim to apostleship against those who denied it have spoken in this impersonal way of the Apostles as a closed and sacred body? Still harder is it to regard as Pauline the statement that the “mystery which from all ages has been hid” – to wit, “that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs” of the Gospel of Christ – has been now revealed “unto (Christ’s) holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit” (Ephes. iii, 5, 6, 9). The “holy apostles” are here represented as joint recipients of the same revelation, and Paul is merged in the group as having no special status of his own in the divine economy. That which Paul called “my Gospel” is no longer recognized as such, and the long struggle he had undergone to win for his Gentile converts spiritual equality with Jewish Christians has been quite forgotten.
Against Wallace, it is not the case that 1 Clement is familiar with Ephesians. The earliest author to show clear dependence upon Ephesians is Ignatius (Eph 12:1, Polyc 5:1). Kummel reasons (op. cit., p. 366): “If, then, it is determined that Eph was written in the post-Pauline period, the fact that Ignatius knows it implies a date no later than the first decade of the second century. A more exact date might be determined if we could prove a literary dependence of I Peter on Eph, but in view of the common paranetic tradition this is not convincing. And since Eph seems to know the collected Pauline letters, an earlier date is not likely. The date of writing cannot be determined more closely than sometime between 80 and 100.”

Oxford Annotated Bible, page 1691, Michael David Coogan, Marc Zvi Brettler, Carol Ann Newsom, Pheme Perkins: Significant differences between Ephesians and the letters ascribed to Paul with certainty (Rom, 1 Cor, 2 Cor, Gal, Phil, 1 Thess, Philem) raise questions about the identity of its author. Many important terms in Ephesians are not used by Paul elsewhere (e.g., “heavenly places,” “dividing wall,” “fellow citizen”), and some of Paul’s characteristic terms and emphases are given new meaning (e.g., “church” as a universal rather than a local community) or are absent (e.g., “the Jews,” “justification”). In addition, the verbose rhetorical style of Ephesians, especially the use of complex, long sentences (many of which have been divided in the NRSV), is not characteristic of Paul. Theological differences are also evident, especially the letter’s emphasis on the experience of salvation in the present (1.3–12; 2.4–10) and the use of Greco-Roman household rules for ethical teaching (5.22–6.9); see further the Introduction to Colossians. A majority of scholars therefore hold that Ephesians is pseudonymous, written by a Jewish-Christian admirer of Paul who sought to apply Paul’s thought to the situation of the church in the late first century, although some scholars hold that Paul composed this letter at the end of his career while imprisoned in Rome (see 3.1; 4.1). This latter position attributes different theological emphases to developments in Paul’s thinking and the particulars of the situation addressed.

Pamela Eisenbaum’s “Paul Was Not A Christian”:

The scholarly consensus is that Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus are not by Paul, and cannot be used for historical Paul criteria.

Majority of scholars do not think Paul wrote Ephesians. For example, several important manuscripts of the text commonly known as Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians do not specify “those in Ephesus” as the recipients. Variations in handwritten manuscripts are common (they will be discussed in more detail in the next section) and often attributable to scribal errors, but the quantity of early manuscripts that originally had no reference to the Ephesians indicates something is awry—the phrase “to those in Ephesus” was not part of the original text of Ephesians but was added later, which is one reason for the scholarly suspicion that Paul did not write Ephesians, a position held by the majority of New Testament scholars.

Ephesians doesn’t read like Pauline style, it reads like a generic letter. It doesn’t seem to say anything personally. (another argument).

Another argument against traditional authorship of Ephesians would be the style.

Ephesians seems to contradict Romans, and again, doesn’t use Pauline language.