Date of composition

• (This gets complicated.) Late 100s to the 400s. The problem with discussing this letter is that we have different letters claiming to be from Paul to the Laodiceans. The Muratorian List (c. 175) states that a Letter to the Laodiceans was a forgery for the Marcionites. This means it came from the second century. We do have a copy of a Letter to the Laodiceans, but scholars are unsure if it is the one from the second century that the Muratorian List referred to or one that dates from as late as the fifth century.
• Plus, this will deepen the confusion: Tertullian (d. 220) wrote that heretics, by which he meant Marcion and his followers, believed that the letter to the Ephesians was actually the letter to the Laodiceans. But why would anyone confuse the Ephesian letter with a letter to the churches in Laodicea that Paul mentioned in Colossians 4:16? One simple reason: the Ephesian letter is assumed to have been written to the church in Ephesus is because Ephesians 1:1 states, in part: "To the church in Ephesus." The phrase "in Ephesus" is not in some of the earliest copies of the letter. Plus, the first two Bibles discovered (both of them are almost complete and date from the mid-300s), Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, do not have "in Ephesus" as part of the letters of Ephesians. This led some people in ancient times to believe the letter to the Laodiceans referred to in Colossians 4:16 was, actually, the letter of Ephesians.
• As for the Letter to the Laodecians that we have, it is not the letter to the Ephesians but is a different letter, concise, and not in any New Testament today. It was in some medieval Bibles until Luther refused to include it in his New Testament printed in 1522, and it has been absent from New Testaments ever since.
• That is a long story to say that I will report on the shorter A Letter to the Laodiceans that we have, which may or may not be the one that Marcion and his followers used.

Type of Apocrypha (heretical or in error (made up))

• Error. The author claimed to be Paul.

Length

• We do not have the entire letter, only less than one double-spaced page.

Summary

• Many scholars believe this letter is simply a summarized form of Philippians. For example, the letter states, "And what is pure, true, proper, just and lovely, do." This is very familiar to Philippines 4:8: "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

Noteworthy from the book

1. The letter claims that Paul is in prison.