1–2 Thessalonians. Nijay K. Gupta
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and then what would possess him to write a pseudonymous letter to the Thessalonians? If he had a collection of Pauline letters, he would be writing in the second century or later. Aside from the question about why he would write a letter with such specific details to Thessalonica (dealing with issues that would have related to the community in the middle of the first century), there is also the matter of why the pseudepigrapher would make the claim that this is how Paul writes in all his letters (2 Thess 3:17), when knowledge of a wider collection would not demonstrate this.98
The last area of “theological differences” is also not a serious obstacle in view of authenticity. Only a simplistic view of Paul’s theology and how he engages in nuanced ways with churches dealing with various problems can eliminate Paul from the equation of the authorship of 2 Thessalonians. Leon Morris points out that it is rather common for writers with an apocalyptic worldview to “hold to the two ideas of suddenness and the appearance of preparatory signs.”99 John Barclay perhaps says it best:
Apocalypticists are notoriously slippery characters. Many apocalyptic works present conflicting scenarios of the end and inconsistent theses concerning signs of its imminence. That Paul should write both of these apocalyptic passages, and do so within a short space of time, is by no means impossible; why should his apocalyptic statements be any more consistent than his varied remarks about the law?100
Conclusion on Authorship
Despite the surge of popularity in favor of the vote for pseudonymity in the early and middle twentieth century, confidence in this decision has largely waned in the UK and North America.101 Probably many are like me: agnostic.102 I have lost confidence that we have the tools and the samples sufficient to render a judgment of “not written by Paul” on texts like 2 Thessalonians and Colossians. My assumption of authenticity is not borne out of 100 percent confidence, but rather in a lack of persuasive evidence to the contrary. I follow the guidance of Markus Barth in his evaluation of the authenticity of Colossians: in dubio pro reo—“when in doubt, side with the accused” (or as we sometimes say, “innocent until proven guilty”). Those who argue from pseudonymity may have “rescued” Paul from inconsistencies, but they insufficiently explain why someone would write such a letter, in Paul’s name, to one specific church, about issues that relate to 1 Thessalonians and very particular problems there, repeating the first letter quite closely in some ways, and yet obviously wanting to say something new.103 Unless these issues can be resolved, it seems to me to be the most sensible option to attempt to understand the letter as it is written, Paul to the Thessalonians.
1. See Geertz 1973.
2. Later in the commentary we will demonstrate that Paul was likely influenced in his thinking on this matter by the story that Jesus tells in Mark 13:34–37. Even though 1 Thessalonians was undoubtedly written before Mark, Paul probably knew of this kind of Jesus tradition. For a case made that Paul was especially drawing from the Jesus tradition linked to Matthew 24 (more specifically), see Shogren 2012: 31–37; cf. Rigaux 1956: 98–101.
3. See Diogenes 1853: 18.
4. Nigdelis 2015: 2.
5. See Smith 2004: 57.
6. Nigdelis 2015: 4.
7. See Harris 2013: 270.
8. Donfried 2002: 35.
9. Palatine Anthology 4.228.
10. While it was once common for scholars to assume the prominence of this cult in Paul’s time, this is now questioned; see Pillar 2013: 103–5.
11. Some scholars question the historicity of Acts and, thus, its relevance for reconstructing Paul’s experience there. However, this commentary follows the lead of a number of scholars who accept the general accounts of Luke’s narrative understanding that, while he had his own theological interests, he was still intending to convey the history of the earliest church. See Keener 2012.
12. Luke does mention certain Thessalonian believers who cross paths with Paul, namely, Aristarchus and Secundus (20:4; cf. 27:2).
13. See Dunn 2009: 560–61; Runesson et al. 2008: 121.
14. See especially Ascough 2003: 202–3.
15. See Gaventa 1998: 20; Ascough 2015: 9. Richard Ascough argues that Luke’s account in Acts 17 about the first converts to Christianity in Thessalonica being Jews and god-fearers cannot be harmonized with the impression from 1 Thessalonians. He explains: “The natural understanding of this text is that these initial adherents in Thessalonike were not Jewish or even Jewish sympathizers. They were, in fact, non-Jews who worshipped one or more of the many deities in the Greek and Roman pantheon, if not also a few local gods alongside them. The Thessalonian Christ group is thus a Gentile group at its core” (9).
16. Still 1999: 70–71.
17. See Cohick 2009: 187. Bruce Winter also notes a mid-first century AD inscription in honor of the civic patroness Junia Theodora of Corinth; see Winter 1994: 46.
18. See Nestor 2012: 64–65; cf. Witherington 2006: 43.
19. Boring 2012: 210.
20. See Ascough 2000: 311–28; 2003: 186-90; 2010: 53.
21. See Ascough 2003: 186.
22. One commentator of which I am aware, Linda M. Bridges, has taken up Ascough’s proposal and integrated this theory into her commentary; see Bridges 2008.
23. Trozzo 2012: 41.
24. Trozzo points out that Paul’s associate Priscilla herself was a female tent-maker (p. 42), perhaps even co-participant in a guild with her husband Aquila; see Keller 2010: 3; see also Johnson 1992: 322.
25. Trozzo 2012: 43.
26. Johnson-DeBaufre 2010: 99.
27. Johnson-DeBaufre 2010: 100.