[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Concerning Colossians 2:14 and what was blotted out at the cross:

From the Forward to Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words:

...New Testament Greek is not the Attic of the Classics, nor is it "a language of the Holy Ghost" as one scholar called it, but it is the ordinary vernacular Greek of that period, the language of everyday life, as it was spoken and written by the ordinary men and women of the day, tradesmen, soldiers, schoolboys, lovers, clerks, and so on, that is, the koine, or "Common" Greek of the great Graeceo-Roman world.

In illustration of this, look at Col. 2:14, which has several words which are found in the papyri; and take one of these, Cheirographon, handwriting. This means a memorandum of debt, 'a writing by hand' used in public and private contracts, and it is a technical word in the Greek papyri. A large number of ancient notes of hand have been published and of these Dr. Deissmann says, "a stereotyped formula in these documents is the promise to pay back the berrowed money, 'I will repay'; and they all are in the debtor's own hand, or, if he could not write, in the handwriting of another acting for him, with the express remark, 'I have written for him'". In such a note-of-hand, belonging to the first century, and with reference to a hundred silver drachmae, one named Papus wrote on behalf of two people who could not write, "which we will also repay, with any other that we may owe, I Papus wrote for him who is not able to write."

Now, this expression occurs in the New Testament twice, in the parable of "The Lord and his Servants", "have patience with me, and I will pay thee all", and in Paul's note to Philemon concerning Onesimus, "if he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account, I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it."

In the famous Florentine papyrus of A.D. 85, the governor of Egypt gives this order in the course of a trial,--"Let the hand-writing be crossed out," which corresponds to the "blotting out the hand-writing" of Col. 2:14. Many such illustrations might be given, from which we see that the papyri have a distinct expository value.

https://studybible.info/vines/

(emphasis added)

Yeah, so?

Paul is using the illustration to show that the ordinances were similar to the formula in documents you referred to.

BARNES:

The word rendered handwriting means something written by the hand, a manuscript; and here, probably, the writings of the Mosaic law, or the law appointing many ordinances or observances in religion. The allusion is probably to a written contract, in which we bind ourselves to do any work, or to make a payment, and which remains in force against us until the bond is cancelled. That might be done, either by blotting out the names, or by drawing lines through it, or, as appears to have been practiced in the East, by driving a nail through it. The Jewish ceremonial law is here represented as such a contract, binding those under it to its observance, until it was nailed to the cross. The meaning here is, that the burdensome requirements of the Mosaic law are abolished, and that its necessity is superseded by the death of Christ. His death had the same effect, in reference to those ordinances, as if they had been blotted from the statute-book. This it did by fulfilling them, by introducing a more perfect system, and by rendering their observance no longer necessary, since all that they were designed to typify had been now accomplished in a better way; compare the notes at Eph_2:15.
Of ordinances - Prescribing the numerous rites and ceremonies of the Jewish religion.