Epistle to Philemon

Epistle to Philemon
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Fragments of the Epistle to Philemon verses 13-15 on Papyrus 87 (Gregory-Aland), from ca. AD 250. This is the earliest known fragment of the Epistle to Philemon.
Book	Epistle to Philemon
Bible part	New Testament
Order in the Bible part	18
Category	Pauline epistles

The Epistle of Paul to Philemon, known simply as Philemon, is one of the books of the Christian New Testament. It is a prison letter, co-authored by Paul the Apostle with Timothy, to Philemon, a leader in the Colossian church. It deals with the themes of forgiveness and reconciliation. Paul does not identify himself as an apostle with authority, but as "a prisoner of Jesus Christ", calling Timothy "our brother", and addressing Philemon as "fellow labourer" and "brother."Onesimus, a slave that had departed from his master Philemon, was returning with this epistle wherein Paul asked Philemon to receive him as a "brother beloved."

Philemon was a wealthy Christian, possibly a bishop of the house church that met in his home (Philemon 1:1–2) in Colosse. This letter is now generally regarded as one of the undisputed works of Paul. It is the shortest of Paul's extant letters, consisting of only 335 words in the Greek text.

The epistle of Philemon is attributed to the apostle Paul, and this attribution has rarely been questioned by scholars. Along with six others, it is numbered among the "undisputed letters", which are widely considered to be authentically Pauline. The main challenge to the letter's authenticity came from a group of German scholars in the nineteenth century known as the Tübingen School. Their leader, Ferdinand Christian Baur, only accepted four New Testament epistles as genuinely written by Paul: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians and Galatians. Commenting on Philemon, Baur described the subject matter as "so very singular as to arouse our suspicions," and concluded that it is perhaps a "Christian romance serving to convey a genuine Christian idea."