Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans

"Turn with me in your Bibles this morning to the Epistle To The Laodiceans," says the preacher one Sunday.

Would you do it?

Well, first of all, you'd probably say that there IS no Epistle to the Laodiceans. Well hang on, if you've read Paul's Epistle to the Colossians, you should already know about it:

And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.--Col. 4:16

So there's no question that Paul wrote an epistle to Laodicea. Nor that he expected to to be read widely. So what happened to it?

Here's what Jerome wrote of what passed for that epistle in his day (4th century):

"Some read the Epistle to the Laodiceans, but it is rejected by everyone."

He was referring to a pastiche of Pauline content found to this day in some copies of Jerome's Vulgate. And truly, not a single patristic writer identifies it as a unique Pauline composition.
But what if there really was an Epistle to the Laodiceans, that got somehow misplaced, and the pastiche was only a lame attempt to provide what the author thought to be missing? What if another epistle was, in turn, re-labeled in a lame attempt to provide what someone else thought was missing?

Well, I propose exactly that. The Epistle to the Laodiceans is still in your Bible, just a few pages before Colossians. It's what has been known since at least the second century as the Epistle to the Ephesians.

Although I recently came to this conclusion independently just from studying the extant texts of Ephesians and Colossians, it turns out that this subject was hashed out rather thoroughly over a century ago--so, rather than rehash it here I provide links to two authors who wrote deeply on the subject:

F. Hugh Pope wrote in favour of the theory.

William Burgon wrote in opposition to the theory.

It goes much farther back than this, of course. Like virtually every textual debate currently raging, there can be some evidence found way back in Christianity: in this case, the late second century, when Tertullian wrote against the doctrines of Marcion. One of Marcion's purported errors, it turns out, was labeling what appears to have been what we now call Ephesians as the Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans.
Tertullian's Against Marcion, Book V goes through the Pauline Epistles, pointing out areas in which Marcion's ideas ran contrary to orthodox doctrine. The order in which he treats these epistles gives us an idea of the arrangement of Marcion's canon:
Galatians
1 & 2 Corinthians
Romans
1 & 2 Thessalonians
Laodiceans (i.e., Ephesians)
Colossians
Philippians
Philemon

This is what he has to say of the Epistle to the Laodiceans:

I pass by another epistle which we have inscribed to the Ephesians, but heretics to the Laodiceans. . . .
We have it on the true tradition of the Church, that this epistle was sent to the Ephesians, not to the Laodiceans. Marcion, however, was very desirous of giving it the new title, as if he were extremely accurate in investigating such a point. But of what consequence are the titles, since in writing to a certain church the apostle did in fact write to all? It is certain that, whoever they were to whom he wrote, he declared Him to be God in Christ with whom all things agree which are predicted.
Now, to what god will most suitably belong all those things which relate to “that good pleasure, which God hath purposed in the mystery of His will, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might recapitulate all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth,” (Eph. 1: 9, 10).

So, in essence, Pope was recapitulating Marcion's argument of the mid-2nd century, and Burgon Tertullian's of the early third century. 'Tis a pity we have no record of any evidence in favour of Marcion's argument, and that Tertullian's consists of no more than an appeal to authority.

There are, of course, several possibilities. The only one that I do not accept is that we have, in our Bibles, what Paul wrote as an Epistle to the Ephesians. I have read this epistle dozens of times, and have come to the following conclusions about its recipients:

1. They lived near Colosse.
2. Paul didn't know them.
3. Paul hoped to get to meet them sometime.

As I get time I intend to fill in these three points, but you can actually do it yourself by studying the epistle and comparing it to Colossians and Philemon, which appear to have been delivered on the same trip.

Here are the remaining possiblitities:

1. There was another letter to the Ephesians, which was lost. This one was re-labeled to replace it.
2. There was no letter to the Ephesians. They felt so left out that they appropriated this one instead.

I recommend this website for a thorough coverage of the question from an Alexandrian Priority perspective. Don't bother reading the whole thing, as he goes on and on in favour of the Alexandrian text; the best stuff in is the vicinity of pages 47 and 67. To get to the bottom line, he believes that the epistle was a general letter intended for churches in the vicinity of Laodicea, and that name became attached to it due to the reference in Colossians 4:16.

I should probably go into even more detail as to how it got its present name, but that would really just be sheer speculation . . .

Why I won't be buying any of Pat Williams' books

Although it was fast eclipsed by my opening post on albinism, my expression of opposition to Arthur Blessitt's divorce and second marriage has stayed in a strong second place ever since.

Now, I have a similar sad story to relate--I speak of the divorce and second marriage of Pat Williams.

Recently, my own marriage was helped by reading a book written by Pat and his wife Jill--a book I'd heard about when it first came out but had never read. I remembered that I hadn't heard from them since they were given a big magazine spread featuring them and their 18 children (14 of whom were adopted). I found, to my dismay, that--only 10 years after publishing a book sharing how Pat was able to singlehandedly save their marriage--Jill once again felt estranged from him, but this time, unlike before, she saw divorce as the solution. Their divorce wasn't even final yet when Pat fell in love with a single mother of one, whom his website now says, "Pat and his wife, Ruth, are the parents of 19 children, including 14 adopted from four nations, ranging in age from 26 to 40." As in the case of Arthur and Sherry, there is not a single mention of the woman with whom he posed with all 18 children. The woman with whom he coauthored at least three books. The woman who pushed him to adopt all those children in the first place.

Pat, on the other hand, had gone on with nary a glitch. Like Arthur, he's very close to the children and now their children. He's even had the temerity to coauthor, with new item Ruth, a book on raising a megafamily (he and Jill coauthored one back when they had only 10 children).

This adds to the considerable list of people who have appeared on Focus on the Family to talk about how God's hand was upon their marriage--only to disappear off the radar later on when, apparently, it wasn't.

ADDED MARCH 28, 2014
This post is a big hit today. In trying to find out why, I've found a few other articles on the story And--dreadful. He's written another book with his latest item, "Happy Spouse, Happy House."

UPDATE May 2021

In response to a recent reader (most recent comment) I've added a link to his website (the page has, of course, long been deleted, but whoever did so wasn't quite successful at erasing its existence entirely), and edited this post to more precisely quote the websites I linked to. I've even taken a look at the book he subsequently wrote, in which he does open up quite a bit about how his marriage unraveled. Jill moved out on him in early 1994--pretty interesting given that they released a commemorative edition of their "Rekindled' book in August 1995! 

Missing the rains down in Africa--and other likely causes of the Seven Bad Years

In an earlier post, I mentioned in passing what may have caused the 14 years of changed climate reported in Genesis chapters 41-47. I thought my readers would like a more extended coverage of this topic.

Prior to the building of the Aswan Dam in the 1960's, the annual flooding of the Nile from June to September was the make-or-break season of the year for the entire Egyptian civilization. The flood level varied from 12 cubits to 18 cubits at the Delta, with the most desired level right between those two extremes.

What made the flood so vital to life in Egypt were two things: the water itself, and the rich sediment it carried. The water extended out toward the limits of the floodplain, soaking the soil enough to supply in one watering the moisture needed to germinate the crops. The sediments were left behind as the flood receded, enriching the soil with nutrients.

There are two ways that agriculture in Egypt could be devastated: one by too much water, and one by too little water. Too much water would rise high enough to wash away the farmers' homes, scour the fertile silt from their fields, and dampen the remnants of the previous year's harvest, damaging their seed and leaving them no grain to subsist on until the next harvest.

Too little water would mean unflooded fields, unable to sustain a crop until harvest.

Now, the scenario in Genesis is 7 years of plenty, during which a huge surplus of crops was stored up. This was followed by 7 years of famine, during which the surplus was eaten. This scenario doesn't fit very well with the too-much-water theory, which would have washed away or at least dampened the surplus grain. The too-little-water theory is a much better fit with the evidence.

Now, what could cause the twice-normal bumper crops for 7 years running? The most likely answer is a biannual flooding of the Nile, allowing two crops a year to be grown.

This is the usual Nile annual cycle:

Akhet (June-September): The Flooding Season. 
No farming was done at this time, as all the fields were flooded. Instead, many farmers worked for the pharaoh (king), building pyramids or temples. Some of the time was spent mending their tools and looking after animals.

Peret (October-January): The Growing Season. 
In October the floodwaters receded, leaving behind a layer of rich, black soil. This fertile soil was then ploughed and seeded.

Shemu (February-May): The Harvesting Season. 
The fully grown crops had to be cut down (harvested) and removed before the Nile flooded again. It was also the time to repair the canals ready for the next flood.


In order to fit in two crops a year, the seasons would have had to be shorter in duration, with each flood following hard on the previous harvest:

Akhet I (July-August) - The First Flooding Season.

Peret I (September-October) - The First Growing Season. 


Shemu I (November-December) - The First Harvesting Season. 



Akhet II - the inundation (January-February) - The Second Flooding Season.

Peret II (March-April) - The Second Growing Season. 


Shemu II (May-June) - The Second Harvesting Season. 


Now, interestingly enough, there already are two annual flood cycles on the Nile: one on the White Nile, and one on the Blue Nile.  Flow on the White Nile starts to climb in March and peaks in October; flow on the Blue Nile and other Ethiopian tributaries begins to pick up in June and peaks in August. Thus the Blue Nile flood is superimposed in the White Nile flood, causing a huge fluctuation in the annual flow of the Nile downstream of Atbara, especially so because, at its peak, the Blue Nile contributes nine times the volume of water than the already-flooded White Nile.

Now, what could possibly cause these two flood cycles to spread far enough apart to occur opposite each other on the annual calendar? Furthermore, it had to have been something that happened only once, as the Nile has never again experienced this sort of 14-year cycle.

The obvious answer is that it had something to do with the melting of Ice Age glaciers in the high mountains of Ethiopia.  Prior to this, Egypt would have only received one flood a year, from the White Nile. Rainfall in Sudan was probably considerably higher than it is now, but still seasonal. Thus Egypt was used to a single annual increase in Nile volume spread out over half the year, from say June to January. But one year the glaciers in Ethiopia began to melt, with just a small outflow the first summer, say from June to August. This, on top of the already rising waters of the White Nile, provided a gentle watering of the river valley suitable for the cultivation of orchard crops such as dates, figs, and pomegranates. As colder weather returned in September, the glaciers stopped melting and the floods receded long enough to allow the orchards to dry out and harvesting to occur.

Meanwhile, the rains in Sudan and Uganda--perhaps even on down into the Southern Hemisphere, if the Nile was longer back then--continued to swell the White Nile to another peak in January, soaking the ground for the planting of spring crops like flax, barley, wheat, and spelt (according to Exodus 9:32, none of these were ripe yet in April). These were just nicely grown to full size for harvesting in May before the water level rose again in June.

Now, let's say it took seven years for the Ethiopian glaciers to melt. It was also about this time that the Sahara was turning from green to brown, so the rainfall in Sudan probably dropped considerably as well. Wind patterns keep moisture-laden air from reaching the Ethiopian highlands where it could precipitate to fill the Blue Nile tributaries. The level of the Nile began to drop after the 7th year, and just kept getting lower and lower. It would half-heartedly flood each summer, but not enough to reach the fields--the fruit trees survived the drought with greatly diminished harvests, but the grainfields remained too parched to even plant, year after year.  Finally, after another seven years, wind patterns shifted around to once again bring those rains down in Africa, and one June the Nile began to rise to pre-drought levels.

Well, this is just one scenario. Another possibility is that the seven bad years were caused by double floods that kept the fields too wet to plant until there wasn't enough time left to harvest before they were flooded again. I don't know which is the more likely, or better fits the evidence; but at least I've fleshed out one theory for the origin of the Seven Good and Seven Bad years of Genesis 41-47.

One last comment: the Nile is now able to support a greatly increased population due to irrigation schemes that allow most of inhabited Egypt to grow two crops a year. The downside is that the Aswan High Dam has ended all the benefits of the annual inundation.

In that sense, every agricultural year in modern Egypt is equally both Good and Bad.

UPDATE 12/12/12: This just in:
Matt Konfirst, a geologist at the Byrd Polar Research Center, speaking at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, presented evidence of a devastating drought in Sumeria about 4000 years ago. He estimates it lasted about 200 years. I would propose that he is off by a factor of 20.

UPDATE 03/23/13
Well, according to research reflected in the map at this website, there were no Ice Age glaciers in Ethiopia. In fact, no tropical glaciers are thought to have existed. So, back to the drawing board--either for me, or for them. Probably for AIG--this website clearly shows that there are equatorial glaciers in Africa now; surely there also were then.
"Despite Mount Kilimanjaro’s location in the tropics, the dry and cold air at the top of the mountain has sustained large quantities of ice for more than 10,000 years"

UPDATE 09/23/2018
This academic article makes quite a case for the bad years being caused by non-receding floodwaters; I suppose it obvious that Joseph would have had the foresight to locate the granaries up in the desert where they wouldn't get flooded. Thus the image of starving cattle emerging from the same Nile as the fat cattle would have symbolized a second flood un-doing all the benefits of the first one, on whose heels it followed.

On the ingenuity of spammers

I just checked my comments and saw that I had three of them. One was clearly spam, but it wasn't until I took a closer look at the other two that I realized they were spam as well. One of the comments appealed to my vanity. It thanked me for the video I had posted and asked me to please write more (since I was so good at it) and not rely on just posting a video. I was about to reply when I realized that this comment was to a post that didn't have a video! The true giveaway, though, was that the poster included a link to his own commercial website. The other commenter appeared to ask a question: "I have a blog like yours, and I get a lot of spam comments. How to I avoid this?"  Very, very, clever. The best clue in this case was that the comment was vague enough that it could have been sent to thousands of blogs. The other clue, of course, was the link to his own site. The last clue was that all 3 comments had been to the same post. Well, keep trying guys. You may as well know now, though, that I'm not going to approve any comments that appear to be spam. And a link to your own site is usually a dead giveaway.

Legislators laze, pilots perish

It is with great sadness that I read of this plane crash in Oregon today. Apparently one of the wings just fell off, causing the plane to fall out of the sky, killing both occupants. This sort of thing never happened twenty or thirty years ago, when small planes were manufactured by companies like Cessna, Piper, and Taylor. These mass-produced planes were simple to fly and incredibly airworthy. But none of these companies are in business today. Why? Every time a plane crashed due to pilot error, the manufacturer was held liable for the damages. Small plane manufacturers were sued out of existence. The result was fairly predictable--since the demand for small aircraft continues unabated, pilots have to fly their own homemade planes--a situation that has set general aviation back 100 years. Homemade planes were notorious for crashing then--and they are now. The blood of these pilots is on the hands of America's legislators, who sat on their hands while general aviation was being sued out of existence.