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The Ordering and Chronology of the Ministry and Epistles of Paul, Part 2: The Prison Epistles

As I had explained in the opening presentation in this short series, I had hoped to gather into one place my interpretations of the time and place of the writing of each of the epistles of Paul of Tarsus, as well as a general chronology of the events recorded in the Book of Acts. I had also originally hoped to do that in a single presentation, but it was just not possible. So while we have discussed what I have called Paul’s “travelling epistles”, now we shall discuss the time and place, and also the circumstances, of the writing of the 6 epistles that were written while Paul was a prisoner. Once again, for much of this presentation I am drawing on information which I had already presented in our commentaries for each of the epistles of Paul and in our earlier commentary on the Book of Acts. There are also some new perspectives.

This is important to us for several reasons. First, it is an important reference tool, because in my opinion no other such reference exists which has a truly accurate chronology of the events of the ministry of Paul, the writing of his epistles, and the Book of Acts. As I had also said, there is much misinformation in many popular and supposedly authoritative academic sources concerning the ministry of Paul and the writing of his epistles, and it is convenient to have our own opinions of these things in one single article, or perhaps more accurately, one single source of reference.

The Ordering and Chronology of the Ministry and Epistles of Paul, Part 1: The Travelling Epistles

Here I hope to gather into one place my interpretations of the time and place of the writing of each of the epistles of Paul of Tarsus. Here we shall discuss the travelling epistles, a name which I am giving to Paul’s first 8 epistles in order to distinguish them from the other 6 which were written while Paul was a prisoner. So for this endeavor, I have collected at least most of the information from what I had already presented in our commentaries for each of the epistles of Paul and in our earlier commentary on the Book of Acts, all of which spanned about a hundred and fifty-five podcast presentations from April, 2013 through December, 2017. This I believe is important as a reference guide, first because we have had a skeleton article on the Ordering and chronology of the epistles of Paul in the References section at Christogenea since August of 2015 which I have long hoped to complete. But more importantly, there is much misinformation in many popular and supposedly authoritative academic sources concerning the ministry of Paul and the writing of his epistles, and it is convenient to have our own opinions of these things in one single article.

Doing this it will seem as if we are taking it for granted that Paul had written all fourteen of the epistles which are commonly attributed to him. But the truth of that assertion should become even more evident as we proceed here, giving our reasons detailing both when and from where each of the epistles were written, and, in certain cases, also as to why they were written. Furthermore, while for different reasons the Christogenea New Testament generally presents Paul’s epistles in the traditional order found in other Bibles, we made exceptions, especially with Hebrews and placed it before the four personal epistles which were addressed to Timothy, Titus and Philemon. That we did in order to make a statement confirming our belief that Paul was indeed the author of the epistle to the Hebrews. But here we shall begin with the earliest epistle which Paul had written, and proceed in the chronological order in which we believe he had written them all.