This week we tackled the most difficult passage to interpret in Colossians, 2:16-19. Verse 18 has the most difficult phrase, “which things he has seen, entering.” The phrase “worship of angels” is also a problem — is it subjective, or objective?
As you watch the video, you’ll see us handling the Greek and discussing the interpretive possibilities. But I’ve also included below a few paragraphs from my dissertation on this passage that explains more thoroughly (and with citations) the view I espouse in the video.
In conjunction with this Greek webinar, we’re offering 25% off our Colossians Greek Reading Videos with coupon code 25OFFCOL. We hope you can use this series to regain and improve your Greek, and also to prepare lessons or sermons in Colossians from the Greek with our help.
An Explanation of Col 2:16-23 and the Interpretive Crux
Colossians 2:16–23 is the heart of the epistle and the most polemical, so it is significant that the notion of the temple comes so aggressively to the fore. The false teachers in Colossae were advocating the continuance of food and drink purity laws. There were many purposes of the food purity laws, but the main reason was likely the necessity for purity in order to enter the temple for worship.[1] They also seem to have been insisting on keeping Jewish feasts, new moons, and Sabbaths (2:16), a triadic formula in the LXX always tied up with or held at the temple.[2]
The use of ἐμβατεύω in 2:18 likely refers to entering into the heavenly sanctuaries, where they have seen such things as the worship and asceticism of angels. M. Dibelius in 1917 argued that the verb referred to entering into visions during initiation rites for mystery cults. He based his argument on the evidence of newly found inscriptions from the Sanctuary of Apollo at Claros, dated to the second century AD.[3] Dibelius was criticized for inferring visions as the direct object of ἐμβατεύων, but his argument was improved by C. Arnold, who has demonstrated that the word ἐμβατεύω was used in the initiation rites of contemporary mystery religions to speak of initiates entering the inner sanctuary of the god after preliminary rites.[4] W. Carr before Arnold had also demonstrated the use of the verb to refer to a human or deity stepping into a temple or sacred space.[5] The truncated nature of the phrase also suggests a fixed expression for a known rite.[6] Thus, we may infer that the “heavenly temple” is the implied object of ἐμβατεύων.
This heavenly temple is where the false teachers have seen “these things” (ἅ), namely, worship by angels and asceticism.[7] Notwithstanding ongoing resistance to this reading, it is currently the interpretation with the most textual and historical evidence to support it, and it is currently the most popular interpretation among commentators.[8] Further evidence that this context refers to entering a heavenly temple is that the term θρησκεία, which is one of the things the visionaries have seen by “entering in,” refers to worship in temples in many Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts.[9] Col 2:19 parallels closely the wording of Eph 4:11–16, which I have argued presents the church as a temple, so the idea may indeed be implicit in Col 2:19. The prohibitions not to touch (ἅπτω) or taste (γεύομαι) were likely intended to keep the visionaries clean so they could enter the heavenly temple.[10]
[1] See, e.g., 1QH III, 20–23; Philo, Plant. 163; Ebr. 127, 131, 138; Spec. 1.150; Moys. 2.21–24, 66–78; Jos. Ap. 2.102–108; 11Q19 (= 11QT) XLVII, 3–4; and 4Q400 fr. 1 I, 14; Heb 9:8–14.
[2] 1 Chron 23:31; 2 Chron 2:3; 8:13; 31:3; 2 Esd. 5:51–53; Neh 10:33; Isa 1:13–14; Ezek 45:17; Josephus, Ant. 11.77; J.W. 5.230; Philo, Spec. 1.168. Cf. also Ezek 44:24; 46:3; 1 Macc 1:39; 1:45; Philo, Spec. 1.182; 2.140, 144–145; m. Šebu. 1:4–5; 1QS X, 3–7; Hos 2:11; Jdt 8:6; 1 Macc 10:34.
[3] Martin Dibelius, Die Isisweihe bei Apuleius und verwandte Initiations-Riten (Heidelberg: Carl Winters, 1917), 30–39.
[4] Clinton Arnold, The Colossian Syncretism: The Interface between Christianity and Folk Belief at Colossae, WUNT 2 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), 104–157.
[5] Wesley Carr, “Two Notes on Colossians,” JTS 23 (1973): 499-500.
[6] Eduard Schweizer, Der Brief an die Kolosser, EKKNT 12 (Benziger: Neukirchener, 1994), 124.
[7] Taking ἀγγέλων as a subjective genitive since the worship of angels by men is rare in Jewish literature. By contrast, the Qumran liturgy Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice demonstrates a lively belief, at least among that sect, of worship by angels in a heavenly court.
[8] On the prevalence of the interpretation, see Petr Pokorný, Der Brief des Paulus an die Kolosser, 122–124; Peter T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, WBC 44 (Dallas, TX: Word, 1991), 144. The second most likely meaning for ἐμβατεύω is its meaning in six of its seven occurrences in the LXX, “to march into” or “to take possession of by entering” (Josh 19:49, 51; 1 Macc 12:25; 13:20; 14:31; 15:40). In the Colossians context, ἐμβατεύω would refer to entering into their inheritance. This use would fit with the emphasis on future hope and inheritance elsewhere in Colossians (e.g., 1:12–14; 3:1–4) and is argued extensively by Christopher Beetham, Echoes of Scripture, 206–208. But this view does not make much of the grammar; the text would mean that the false teachers have seen the worship and asceticism of angels “by entering into [their inheritance]” (Beetham’s explanation of the meaning of the clause on p. 208 does not clarify this problem). Supplying “the heavenly sanctuary” as the implied direct object of ἐμβατεύων makes more sense as a location in which they would see the worship and asceticism of angels. For ongoing resistance to this interpretation, Richard E. DeMaris, The Colossian Controversy: Wisdom in Dispute at Colossae, JSNTSS 96 (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1994), 63–68; O’Brien, Colossians, 144–145.
[9] Philo, Legat. 298, 232; Sibyl. 8:380; Clementine Homilies, Homily 10, chap. 22; Dionysius of Haicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Bk. 2.63; Dio Cassius, Roman History, Bk. 26.87; Bk. 49.22; Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism (= Pyrrhoniae hypotyposes) III.220; Herodian, Hist., Ab excess divi Marci, Bk. 5.6.2; Chaeremon Frag. 10 (3x).
[10] These terms are used to refer to ritual purity or impurity in Lev 5:2 and likewise 19 other times in Leviticus; so also Num 19:11, 16, 21–22; 31:19; Deut 14:8; Hag 2:13; Let. Aris. 142, 162; 2 Macc 6:18–20.
