Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 61:3 (Sep 2018)
Article: The Imprisonment that Could Have Happened (And the Letters Paul Could Have Written There): A Response to Ben Witherington
Author: Joel R. White

JETS 61:3 (September 2018) p. 549

The Imprisonment that Could Have Happened (And the Letters Paul Could Have Written There): A Response to Ben Witherington

Joel White*

* Joel White is Hochschuldozent für Neues Testament and Director of International Exchanges at the Freie Theologische Hochschule Gießen. He may be contacted at [email protected].

Abstract: This article is a response to Ben Witherington’s contention that Paul was never imprisoned in Ephesus and thus could not have written the Prison Epistles there. After reviewing the evidence for and against an Ephesian imprisonment, much of which Witherington overlooks, it is concluded that Paul was imprisoned in several places on his missionary journeys and that it is likely that Ephesus was among them. The possibility that Paul wrote Philemon, Colossians, and Ephesians during that period of incarceration is weighed against the traditional view of Roman provenance and found to offer a somewhat more satisfactory explanation of the evidence.

Key words: imprisonment, Ephesus, Prison Letters, Rome, Ben Witherington III

In a recent article in this Journal, Ben Witherington has argued against the possibility that Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus.1 This theory has gained traction in recent years among scholars who, for a variety of reasons, have begun to question the traditional view concerning the provenance of the so-called “Captivity Epistles” or “Prison Letters” in Rome, which commands majority support among scholars.2 One great obstacle hinders broader acceptance of the theory of Ephesian provenance:

JETS 61:3 (September 2018) p. 550

We do not know for certain that Paul was, in fact, imprisoned there. Neither he nor Luke mentions a period of incarceration in Ephesus, hence Witherington’s description of it as “the imprisonment that did not happen.” Still, his brief article demands a response, not least because he has, in my opinion, neither dealt with the strongest arguments for an Ephesian captivity nor identified the strongest argument against it.

I. THE PROVENANCE OF THE CAPTIVITY EPISTLES

First, a word should be said about the epistles themselves. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon all intimate that they were written during a period in which Paul was incarcerated (cf. Eph 6:20; Phil 1:13, 17; Col 4:3, 10,