The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (106 page)

FOR FURTHER STUDY

Beale, G. K.
1—2 Thessalonians.
IVP New Testament Commentary. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003.

Best, E. A
Commentary on the First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians.
New York: Harper & Row, 1972.

Bruce, F. F.
1 and 2 Thessalonians.
Word Biblical Commentary 45. Waco: Word, 1982.

Collins, R. F.f, ed.
The Thessalonian Correspondence.
Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium 87. Leuven: University Press, 1990.

Donfried, K. P. “The Cults of Thessalonica and the Thessalonian Correspondence.”
New Testament Studies
31 (1985): 336-56.

Donfried, K. P., and J. Beutler, eds.
The Thessalonians Debate: Methodological Discord or Methodological Synthesis?
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.

Frame, J. E.
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians.
International Critical Commentary. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912.

Green, G.
The Letters to the Thessalonians.
Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.

Harrison, J. R. “Paul and the Imperial Cult at Thessaloniki.”
Journal for the Study of the New Testament
25 (2002): 71-96.

Holmes, M. W.
1 and 2 Thessalonians.
NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

Jewett, R.
The Thessalonian Correspondence: Pauline Rhetoric and Millenarian Piety.
Foundations and Facets: New Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986.

Malherbe, A. J.
The Letters to the Thessalonians.
Anchor Bible 32B. New York: Doubleday, 2000.

__________.
Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophical Tradition of Pastoral Care.
Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987.

Marshall, I. H.
I and II Thessalonians.
New Century Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.

Martin, D. M.
1, 2 Thessalonians.
New American Commentary 33. Nashville: B&H, 1995.

Morris, L.
The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians.
Rev. ed. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.

Nicholl, C. R.
From Hope to Despair in Thessalonica: Situating 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 126. Cambridge: University Press, 2004.

Richards, E., E. Krentz, R. Jewett, and J. M. Bassler. “The Theology of the Thessalonian Correspondence.” Pages 37—85 in
Pauline Theology.
Vol. 1:
Thessalonians, Philippians, Galattians, Philemon.
Edited by J. M. Bassler. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991.

Still, T. D.
Conflict at Thessalonica: A Pauline Church and Its Neighbours.
Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement 183. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999.

Wanamaker, C. A.
Commentary on 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990.

Weima, J. A. D., and S. E. Porter.
An Annotated Bibliography of 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
Leiden: Brill, 1998.

¹
See D. Guthrie, New
Testament Introduction
, 2d ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1990), 589.

²
K. Schrader,
Der Apostel Paulus
, (Leipzig: Kollmann, 1836), 5:23ff, cited by J. E. Frame,
Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians
, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1953), 37.

³
F. C. Baur,
Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi: Seinleben undWirken, seine Briefe und seine Lehre
(Osnabruck: Otto Zeller, 1968 [1845]), 2:94-107.

⁴
J. E. Frame,
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians
, ICC (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912), 37.

⁵
C. Wanamaker,
Commentary on 1 and 2 Thessalonians
, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 17.

⁶
See the discussion in G. Milligan,
St. Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians
(London: Macmillan, 1908), lxxvii. Irenaeus referred to 2 Thessalonians by name in
Against Heresies
3.7.2.

⁷
Justin's allusion appears in
Dialogue with Trypho
110. Polycarp (
Philippians
11:3, 4) quoted 2 Thess 1:4; 3:13. He identified the source of his first quote as Paul's letter to the Philippians, though the words appear only in 2 Thessalonians. But Philippi and Thessalonica were both important cities in Macedonia, and Polycarp may have viewed them as a single community.

⁸
Milligan,
Thessalonians
, lxxviii.

⁹
J. E. C. Schmidt,
Vermutungen über die beiden Briefe an die Thessalonicher
, Bibliothek für Kritik und Exegese des Neuen Testaments und der ältesten Christengeschichte 2/3 (Hadamar: Gelehrtenbuchhandlung, 1801).

¹⁰
Frame,
Thessalonians
, 40.

¹¹
F. H. Kern, “Über 2. Thess 2,1—12. Nebst Andeutungen über den Ursprung des zweiten Briefs an die Thessalonicher,”
Tubinger Zeitschrftfur Theologie
2 (1839): 145—214.

¹²
Milligan,
Thessalonians
, lxxviii.

¹³
W. Trilling,
Untersuchungen zum zweiten Thessalonicherbrief
(Leipzig: St. Benno, 1972). Form criticism gives special attention to the forms of biblical literature, that is, typical genres of verbal discourse. See K. L. Sparks, “Form Criticism,” in
Dictionary of Biblical Criticism and Tnterpretation
, ed. S. E. Porter (London/New York: Routledge, 2007), 111—14.

¹⁴
W. Wrede,
Die Echtheit des zweiten Thessalonicherbriefes
, TU 9/2 (Leipzig: J. C. Henrich, 1903).

¹⁵
Milligan,
Thessalonians
, li—liii.

¹⁶
M. J. J. Menken,
2 Thessalonians
(London: Routledge, 1994), 32.

¹⁷
A. Malherbe (
The Letters to the Thessalonians
, AB [New York: Doubleday, 2000], 366) pointed out that the lengthy sentences typically appear early in the epistle. This corresponds to 2 Thess 1:3—12, the lengthiest sentence in the letter. It appears that not only the long sentence but even its placement is characteristically Pauline.

¹⁸
Trilling,
Untersuchungen
, 23. Form criticism looks at the various types of writing present in examining a given document.

¹⁹
Wanamaker,
Thessalonians, 24-25.

²⁰
Trilling,
Untersuchungen
, 27.

²¹
E.g., 2 Mace 6:12-18;
2 Bar.
13:3-10; 78:5; Pss.
Sol.
13:9-10.

²²
E.g., compare Rom 10:9,13 and Phil 2:9,11 with Joel 2:32. In Romans 10, an OT Yahweh text is applied to Jesus. In Philippians 2, the identification of the title
Lord
as the “name that is above every name” demonstrates that
Lord
is functioning like it typically did in Jewish Greek texts as a reverent substitution for the name Yahweh.

²³
R. Jewett,
The Thessalonian Correspondence: Pauline Rhetoric and Millenarian Piety
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 18.

²⁴
E. Best,
A Commentary on the First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians
(London: A. and C. Black, 1977), 52.

²⁵
J. C. West, “The Order and 1 and 2 Thessalonians,”
JTS
15 (1914): 66—74; J. Weiss,
Earliest Christianity: A History of the Period A.D. 30-150
, trans, and ed. F. C. Grant (New York: Harper, 1959), 1:286-91; T. W. Manson, “St. Paul in Greece: The Letters to the Thessalonians,”
BJRL
35 (1952—53): 428—47; R. Gregson, “A Solution to the Problem of the Thessalonian Epistles,”
EvQ
38 (1966): 76—80; C. Buck and G. Taylor,
St Paul: A Study of the Development of His Thought
(New York: Scribner's, 1969), 140—45; and R. W. Thurston, “The Relationship Between the Thessalonian Epistles,”
ExpTim
85 (1973-74): 52-56. F. F. Bruce
(1 and 2 Thessalonians
, WBC 45 [Waco: Word, 1982], xli) suggested that Hugo Grotius (1641) was the first scholar to suggest the priority of 2 Thessalonians.

²⁶
Wanamaker,
Thessalonians
, 38—39.

²⁷
Ibid., 39.

²⁸
Wanamaker (
Thessalonians
, 41) suggested that the reference may be to another letter that is no longer known. If so, Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians is no longer extant; 2 Thessalonians is the second letter of Paul to the congregation, and 1 Thessalonians is the third letter. But positing the existence of an otherwise unknown letter when other explanations are plausible results in a strained argument. Alternatively, Wanamaker suggested that “you were taught… by our letter” refers to the immediately preceding section of 2 Thessalonians itself. This would require the word
edidachthete
(“you were taught”) to be an “epistolary aorist,” which is unlikely. For a brief discussion of Paul's possible use of the epistolary aorist elsewhere, see K. L. McKay, “Observations on the Epistolary Aorist in 2 Corinthians,”
NovT 37
(1995): 154-58; cf. D. B. Wallace,
Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 562.

²⁹
M. W. Holmes,
1 and 2 Thessalonians
, NIVAC (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 28.

³⁰
Martin,
1, 2 Thessalonians
, 33. See J. W. Simpson Jr., “Letters to the Thessalonians,” in
Dictionary of Paul and His Letters
, ed. G. F. Hawthorne, R. P. Martin, and D. G. Reid (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993), 937.

³¹
Both assumptions are supported by C. J. Hemer,
The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), 119.

³²
Malherbe added nearly a month to the chronology because he assumed that Timothy had to travel from Berea to Athens (a three-week journey) and then from Athens back to Thessalonica (six weeks). This is possible, but Acts implies that Paul and Timothy did not reconnect until after Paul had begun his ministry in Corinth (Acts 18:5). See M. Dibelius,
Die Briefe des Apostels Paulus. II Die Neun Kleine Briefe
(Tübingen: Mohr, 1913), 12; I. H. Marshall,
1 and 2 Thessalonians
, NCBC (London: Marshall, Morgan, and Scott, 1983), 89; and Wanamaker,
Thessalonians
, 126—27.

³³
Both Alexandrinus (fifth century) and the first corrector of Vatican us (fourth century) identify the letters as “from Athens.”

³⁴
Manuscript 81 (AD 1044) and a few others indicate that 1 Thessalonians was “written from Corinth by Paul and Silas and Timothy.”

³⁵
This reconstruction was affirmed earlier by E. von Dobschütz,
Die Thessalonicherhriefe
, 7th ed., KEK (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1909), 130. Best (
Thessalonians
, 131) rejected von Dobschütz's reconstruction on the grounds that the interpretation “deprives his willing determination to remain behind alone in Athens of meaning.” This protest is incorrect since in this reconstruction Paul was left alone by his escorts who had to carry instructions back to Timothy in Berea. Some commentators make no attempt to integrate the statements in 1 Thessalonians with the account in Acts. D. A. deSilva (
An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods and Ministry Formation
[Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004], 529) argued, “In such cases it is probably better to rely on Paul's firsthand account of the events rather than Luke's second-hand, later and often incomplete account.”

³⁶
Malherbe (
Thessalonians
, 71—72) treated the issue of an Athenian versus a Corinthian provenance more extensively than most commentators.

³⁷
This provenance is supported by subscriptions in Alexandrinus (fifth century), the revision of Vatican us (fourth century), and a number of later manuscripts.

³⁸
See the subscriptions in manuscripts 6 (13th cent.), 614 (13th cent.), and the margin of 1739 (10th cent.).

³⁹
Wanamaker,
Thessalonians
, 3.

⁴⁰
See especially C. Edson, “Cults of Thessalonica,”
HTR 41
(1948): 153-204; and K. P. Donfried, “The Cults of Thessalonica and the Thessalonian Correspondence,”
NTS
31 (1985): 336—56.

⁴¹
See Destination above.

⁴²
Compare 1 Thess 4:9; 5:1 with 1 Cor 7:1,25; 8:1. Some argue that this is especially likely since two of the issues that Paul addressed, brotherly love and the Day of the Lord, are issues he personally did not feel needed to be addressed. But Paul's statements in 1 Thess 4:9 (“you don't need me to write you”) and 5:1 (“you do not need anything to be written to you”) are examples of a common rhetorical device called paralipsis and do not provide any real support for theories of written correspondence from the Thessalonians to Paul. See BDF 495.1. For other Pauline examples, see 2 Cor 9:1; Phlm 19.

⁴³
Jewett,
Thessalonian Correspondence
, 71—72; G. Lyons,
Pauline Autobiography: Toward a New Understanding
, SBLDS 73 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 219—21; Wanamaker,
Thessalonians
, 47.

⁴⁴
See Wanamaker,
Thessalonians
, viii. Jewett (
Thessalonian Correspondence
, 72—76) suggested that the
exordium
ended at 1 Thess 1:5 and the
narratio
began in 1:6. Jewett compared his own analysis to other rhetorical analyses on pp. 76—78.

⁴⁵
The classification of this section as
probatio
is somewhat problematic. The section is more devoted to exhortations than to proofs or arguments to support the author's case. The analyses by F. W. Hughes, G. Kennedy, and H. Koester recognize this section as devoted to exhortations, injunctions, or admonitions. For a chart that conveniently compares various topical and rhetorical outlines of the book, see Jewett,
Thessalonian Correspondence
, 216—21.