Der Kolosserbrief im Kontext des paulinischen Erbes

The Epistle to the Colossians as a Pauline pseudepigraphon provides the earliest example of intertextual modification of authentic Pauline texts through fictitious self-references. By adapting Pauline language, motifs and letter formulas, the author of Colossians not only establishes the fiction of Pauline authorship but also a specific reading of the authentic Pauline letters. By using fictitious self-references to texts such as the baptism formula of Rom 6:4-8, Colossians functions as a kind of »reading instructions« on how these earlier texts are to be understood correctly, indicating also which interpretations are to be excluded. In aiming to reconstruct and analyze these forms of fictitious self-references and intended »reading instructions,« Nicole Frank analyzes Colossians in its mutual intertextual relation to the Pauline pretexts.