Books by Janice Capel Anderson

This guide introduces readers to key issues in the interpretation and reception of Colossians. Anderson first explores the issue of Pauline authorship. She challenges readers to reflect on why the question of authorship has dominated scholarship as well as why and how interpreters create "stories" about the letter. Second, Andersonexamines rhetoric and context. She asks readers to consider how the letter constructs and seeks to persuade its addressees past and present. She surveys several pictures of the first audience and "opponents." Finally, Anderson delves into the functions of the Colossian household code, its reception, and the ethics of interpretation.

The "conversations" in this text challenge ideas that have become standard and subject them to critical re-examination. Their central thread is a reflection on the processes of reading and theologizing. Many focus on the relation of Paul to the energetic and complex Judaism of the 1st century.