Includes bibliographical references (p. [135]-146) and index.

Preliminary Material -- I. Introduction -- II. Epistolary Analysis I: The Prescript -- III. Epistolary Analysis II: The Thanksgiving Period -- IV. Epistolary Analysis III: The Letter Body -- V. Epistolary Analysis IV: The Paraenesis -- VI. Epistolary Analysis V: The Letter Closing -- VII. A Theological Synthesis of Laodiceans -- VIII. Concluding Comments -- Appendix I: Text, Translation, and Epistolary Arrangement of Laodiceans -- Appendix II: Dating the Apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans -- Bibliography -- Ancient Texts Index -- Modern Author Index -- Subject Index.

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Challenging nearly two centuries of scholarship, this book offers the first close analysis of the apocryphal epistle to the Laodiceans. A near consensus in scholarship has emerged in which Laodiceans is dismissed as a random collection of phrases plucked from the undisputed Pauline letters, which lacks any organizational structure or theological sophistication. In The Apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans, Philip Tite offers a detailed analysis of this Latin letter by exploring the epistolary conventions utilized by the letter writer. What emerges is a pseudonymous text that is a carefully crafted paraenetic letter with a discernible rhetorical situation. By highlighting Laodiceans’ use of Paul as a literary culture hero, Tite situates the letter within second-century Christian identity formation.