Prison Letters

Excerpt from the Lexham Bible Dictionary, the most advanced Bible dictionary.

Four New Testament letters (sometimes called the “Captivity Letters”) attributed to the Apostle Paul: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. In each of these letters, Paul mentions that he is a prisoner (Eph 3:1, 4:1; Phil 1:7, 12–14, 17; Col 4:3, 10; Phlm 1, 9, 13, 23). (The Pastoral Letters also might have been written from prison, but these are grouped separately.)The Prison Letters could have been sent from Caesarea, where Paul was imprisoned for two years (Acts 24:27), or from Rome, where he spent two years under house arrest (Acts 28:16, 30). They also might have originated from Ephesus, although the New Testament provides no record of Paul being imprisoned there.

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The Lexham Bible Dictionary

Prison Letters

Prison Letters Four New Testament letters (sometimes called the “Captivity Letters”) attributed to the Apostle Paul: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. In each of these letters, Paul mentions that he is a prisoner (Eph 3:1, 4:1; Phil 1:7, 12–14, 17; Col 4:3, 10; Phlm 1, 9, 13, 23). (The

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible

Prison Letters

Prison LettersThe four letters (Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon) in the Pauline corpus that claim to have been penned while Paul was in prison (Eph. 3:1; 4:1; Col. 4:3, 10, 18; Phil. 1:7, 13–14, 16–17; Phlm. 1, 9–10, 13, 23). Traditionally, Paul’s Roman imprisonment has been considered

Eerdmans Bible Dictionary

Prison Letters

Prison Letters. Four letters of Paul—Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon—are linked with each other because they were written while the apostle was in prison (Eph. 3:1; Phil. 1:13–14; Col. 4:3; Phlm. 1). All four are traditionally assigned to Paul’s imprisonment at Rome (Acts 28; A.D. 61–63);

Dictionary of New Testament Background

Section 4: The Letters

4. The LettersThe twenty-one NT letters have traditionally fallen into two categories: the Pauline letters and the General, or Catholic, letters. A. Deissmann drew the distinction between letters and epistles, contending that only the former were real letters in that they were nonliterary because they

The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible, Volume 4, M–P

Prison Epistles

Prison Epistles. Term used to refer to a group of letters traditionally thought to have been written by the apostle Paul during his first Roman imprisonment: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. In all of these letters Paul makes some allusion to his being in chains or in prison, but not

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