The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (100 page)

³¹
Bruce,
Galatians
, 14-15.

³²
D. A. Carson and D. J. Moo,
Introduction to the New Testament
, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 458.

³³
Bruce,
Galatians
, 15.

³⁴
Ibid., 13-14.

³⁵
Ibid., 9.

³⁶
Betz (
Galatians
, 4) rather casually dismissed the South Galatian theory, stating, “The arguments in favor the ‘province hypothesis,’…, depend upon another hypothesis, the historical reliability of the itineraries in Acts, and upon the argument from silence. …There is no real need to think that the author of Acts always had reliable or complete information.”

³⁷
Betz (
Galatians
, 11—12) is an interesting exception. Although he accepted the North Galatian theory, he argued based on internal evidence that Paul wrote Galatians between 50 and 55. On the other side of the spectrum is M. Silva,
Explorations in Exegetical Method: Galatians as a Test Case
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 129—39, esp. 131—32, who favored the South Galatian theory but argued for a late date.

³⁸
Calvin (
Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians
, vol. 11 of
Calvin's New Testament Commentaries
, trans. T. H. L. Parker [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965], 24—25) was an exception since he assumed the North Galatian theory but argued that Galatians was written before the Jerusalem Council. The chronology assumed by most who affirm the North Galatian theory differs by several years from the chronology suggested in this text (see “Pauline Chronology” in chap. 9 above).

³⁹
Lightfoot,
Galatians
, 36—56.

⁴⁰
Burton,
Galatians
, xliv.

⁴¹
E.g., J. Knox (
Chapters in a Life of Paul: Explorations into Paul's Career and His Religious Experiences as Revealed in the Personal Passages in His Letters
[New York: Abingdon, 1950], 61—73) argued that Paul actually made only three of the five Jerusalem visits described in Acts and that the famine relief visit of Acts 11:28—30 was actually the last Jerusalem visit.

⁴²
The Greek construction translated “first” in the NIV can function as a comparative adjective meaning the earlier of two.

⁴³
K. Lake,
The Earlier Epistles of Paul: Their Motive and Origin
(London: Rivington's, 1927), 266.

⁴⁴
Betz (
Galatians
, 312) pointed out that Paul's use of a personal secretary or professional letter writer implies a careful process of composition: “It is apparent that the very employment of an amanuensis [secretary] rules out a haphazard writing of the letter and suggests the existence of Paul's draft and the copy by an amanuensis, or a sequence of draft, composition, and copy.”

⁴⁵
E.g., Lightfoot,
Galatians
, 5—6; Cole,
Galatians
, 27.

⁴⁶
The three major types of rhetoric are: (1) forensic or judicial rhetoric (accusation or defense); (2) deliberative rhetoric (persuasion or dissuasion); and (3) epideictic rhetoric (praise or blame). Major parts of an author's or speaker's argument are: (1) the
exordium
(introduction); (2) the
narratio
(exposition of facts); (3) the
partitio
(listing of propositions); (4) the
probatio
(support for propositions); (5) the
refutatio
(refutation of opposing arguments); and (6) the
peroratio
(summary and emotional appeal). For a helpful resource on rhetorical criticism, see D. F. Watson, “Rhetorical Criticism,” in
Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 699.

⁴⁷
See Betz,
Galatians;
G. A. Kennedy,
New Testament Interpretation Through Rhetorical Criticism
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1980), 144—52; and J. D. Hester, “Epideictic Rhetoric and Persona in Galatians 1 and 2,” in
The Galatians Debate: Contemporary Issues in Rhetorical and Historical Interpretation
, ed. M. Nanos (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2002), 181—90. The latter volume introduces students to major rhetorical approaches.

⁴⁸
See especially Longenecker,
Galatians
, civ—cv; Martyn,
Galatians
, 20—23.

⁴⁹
See especially Dunn,
Theology
, 12: “Rhetorical analysis can beget its own scholasticism. In particular it seems to me fairly pointless to argue about whether Paul's letters are ‘epideictic’ or ‘deliberative’ or something else, when most are agreed that Paul's creative genius has adapted to his own ends whatever model he may have borrowed and has done so to such an extent that the parallels are as likely to be misleading as helpful. And as for some of the elaborate structures which have been proposed for Paul's letters, one might simply observe that there seems to be an inverse ratio between the length of proposed chiasms in an individual letter and the light they shed on either the argument or its point. The vigour of Paul's theology evidently did not allow it to be easily contained within regular grammatical and compositional structures!”

⁵⁰
Longenecker,
Galatians
, c-cix.

⁵¹
Dunn (
Theology
, 365—66) essentially agrees, but this detail has been especially emphasized by Wright.

⁵²
Wright also denied that the life of the believer in any way earns God's favor or eternal blessing. Although the believer's righteous life is insufficient to merit eternal life, it does demonstrate whether an individual truly is “in Christ.”

⁵³
See the discussion of “Justification” in chap. 13.

⁵⁴
See J. A. Fitzmyer, “Paul's Jewish Background and the Deeds of the Law,” in
According to Paul: Studies in the Theology of the Apostle
(New York: Paulist, 1993), 18-35; D. J. Moo, “‘Law,’ ‘Works of the Law,’ and Legalism in Paul,”
WTJ 45
(1983): 73-100; and T. R. Schreiner, “‘Works of Law in Paul,’”
NovT33
(1991): 217-44.

⁵⁵
See Gal 2:15-16,19; 3:10-14; 5:3.

⁵⁶
R. B. Hays,
The Faith of Jesus Christ: An Tnvestigation of the Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3.1—4.11
(Chico: Scholars Press, 1983), 139—91; M. Hooker,
“Pistis Christou,”
in
From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul
(Cambridge/New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990), 165-86.

⁵⁷
For a compelling defense of the objective interpretation of
pistis Christou
(“faith in Christ”), see Dunn (
Theology
, 379—85), who noted that Paul's consistent contrast is between “works of the law” and faith in Christ (see Rom 3:22,26; Gal 2:16 [twice], 20,22; Phil 3:9).

⁵⁸
Martyn,
Galatians
, 567. See also A. J. Köstenberger, “The Identity of the
\ill\
(Israel of God) in Galatians 6:16,”
Faith and Mission
19/1 (2001): 3-24.

⁵⁹
L. W. Hurtado, “Jesus as Lord,” in
Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 108-17.

CHAPTER 11

CORE KNOWLEDGE

Basic Knowledge:
Students should know the key facts of 1 and 2 Thessalonians. With regard to history, students should be able to identify each book's author, date, provenance, destination, and purpose. With regard to literature, they should be able to provide a basic outline of each book and identify core elements of each book's content found in the Unit-by-Unit discussion. With regard to theology, students should be able to identify the major theological themes in 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

Intermediate Knowledge:
In addition to mastery of the core content identified in Basic Knowledge above, students should be able to present the arguments for historical, literary, and theological conclusions. With regard to history, students should be able to discuss the evidence for Pauline authorship, date, provenance, destination, and purpose. With regard to literature, they should be able to provide a detailed outline of each book. With regard to theology, students should be able to discuss the major theological themes in 1 and 2 Thessalonians and the ways in which they uniquely contribute to the NT canon.

Advanced Knowledge:
In addition to mastery of the core content identified in Basic Knowledge and beyond the Intermediate Knowledge noted above, students should be able to assess the role that language, style, form criticism, and theology play in attributing Pauline authorship to 1 and 2 Thessalonians. In addition, they should be able to defend the traditional chronological order of the letters and to determine the influence of rhetorical criticism on the letters.

Map 11.1: Provenance and Destination of 1–2 Thessalonians

INTRODUCTION

T
HE THESSALONIAN LETTERS are probably among the more neglected of Paul's letters. This is partly due to the modest amount of discussion in the letters regarding salvation compared to works like Romans and Galatians. It is also partly due to their brevity and to questions about the authorship of 2 Thessalonians. But these letters are significant for providing insight into the missionary methods and message of the great apostle. They are invaluable for the insights that they offer regarding the return of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of believers, the eternal punishment of the wicked, and the events immediately preceding Jesus' return. They also offer helpful instructions regarding sanctification, election, and the Christian work ethic.

Paul's letters to the Thessalonians are also among the earliest letters written by Paul. Those who affirm the North Galatian theory of provenance for Galatians typically view the Thessalonian correspondence as the earliest samples of Pauline literature. Most of those who hold to the South Galatian theory place 1 and 2 Thessalonians after Galatians. Since Paul's letters are treated here in likely chronological order, and since the South Galatian theory has been established as more plausible than the North Galatian one, Paul's Thessalonian correspondence is discussed subsequent to Galatians. In any event, the letters offer important information about the foundational truths of the apostle's theology.

HISTORY

Author

Modern NT scholars generally recognize 1 Thessalonians as an authentic letter of Paul. The Pauline authorship of the letters attributed to him in the NT is of considerable
importance since these letters tie this correspondence to this important figure in the history of the early church, the one who was commissioned by the risen Christ himself to his apostolic ministry. At least from the time of Irenaeus (c. 130—200), the early church unanimously accepted the letter as both Pauline and canonical. Irenaeus quoted 1 Thess 5:23 and identified that quotation as the words of the “apostle” in “his first epistle to the Thessalonians” (
Against Heresies
6.5.1). Clement of Alexandria (c. 150—215;
Paedagogus
5) and Tertullian (c. 160—225;
Against Marcion
5.15) also acknowledged that the letter was Paul's own composition.
¹

The first scholar to challenge Paul's authorship of the letter was Schrader in 1836.
²
A decade later F. C. Baur argued that the letter was spurious, and his arguments were deemed persuasive by a number of other scholars.
³
But a century later Frame painstakingly compiled the statistics necessary to demonstrate that the vocabulary, phrases, and concepts are so thoroughly Pauline as to “establish the Pauline authorship of I [Thessalonians], unless one is prepared to assert that Paul never lived or that no letter from him has survived.”
⁴
By the end of the twentieth century, one commentator could accurately state “no contemporary scholars of repute seem to doubt the authentic Pauline character of the letter.”
⁵

Despite the near unanimous acceptance of 1 Thessalonians, the majority of modern scholars reject the Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians. External evidence for the authenticity and acceptance of 2 Thessalonians is slightly better than that for the first letter. Like 1 Thessalonians, the letter was included in the Canon of Marcion (c. 150), the Muratorian Canon (likely late second century), and was mentioned by Irenaeus (c. 130—200) by name.
⁶
In addition, Justin Martyr (c. 100-165) alluded to the letter, and Polycarp (c. 69—155) twice quoted from it.
⁷
Although 2 Thessalonians is now completely missing from p
⁴⁶
, an early manuscript of the Pauline corpus produced around the year 200, it clearly belonged to the final pages that were later lost from the book. No one appears to have challenged Pauline authorship of the letter until J. E. C. Schmidt (1801) became the first to cast doubt on the letter.
⁸
He argued that 2 Thess 2:1—12 contradicted the eschatology depicted in 1 Thess 4:13—5:11. The former text describes a sequence of events that would
precede the Second Coming, but the latter text emphasizes the immediacy of the Second Coming. Schmidt initially argued that 2 Thess 2:1—12 was an interpolation in an otherwise authentic letter of Paul.
⁹
Three years later Schmidt denied the authenticity of the letter as a whole.
¹⁰