2 Thessalonians
Home > New Testament > 2 Thessalonians 2 Thessalonians At a Glance Letter Genre: (3/5) *** Reliability of Dating: (2/5) ** Length of Text: Greek Original Language: Ancient Translations: Modern Translations: English Estimated Range of Dating: 80-100 A.D. Chronological List of Early Christian Writings Discuss this text on the Early Writings forum. Text American Standard Version King James Version World English Bible Resources e-Catena: References to the New Testament in the Church Fathers Patristic References to 2nd Thessalonians, Chapters 1 2 3 Edgar Goodspeed: The Second Letter to the Thessalonians Catholic Encyclopedia: Epistles to the Thessalonians Offsite Links Perseus NT (English/Greek/Latin) The Lord Has Not Come Yet: An EasyEnglish Commentary NAB Introduction Daniel Wallace's Introduction Books Burton L.
Mack, Who Wrote the New Testament? : The Making of the Christian Myth (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 112. Raymond Edward Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1997), pp. 590-598. Udo Schnelle, translated by M. Eugene Boring, The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), pp. 315-325. David J. Williams, 1 And 2 Thessalonians (Hendrickson Publishers 1993). Recommended Books for the Study of Early Christian Writings Information on 2 Thessalonians Second Thessalonians is widely regarded as pseudonymous. The reference in 2:2 suggests that the letter belongs to the deutero-Pauline period, and the letter may have been intended to replace 1 Thessalonians entirely.
The time of composition is likely to have been in the last two decades of the first century when hopes in the imminent parousia were faltering. Bart Ehrman observes (The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, p. 23): "The frequent occurence of forgery in this period does not suggest a basic tolerance of the practice. In actuality, it was widely and strongly condemned, sometimes even within documents that are themselves patently forged. This latter ploy serves, of course, to throw the scent off one's own deceit. One of its striking occurrences is in the orthodox Apostolic Constitutions, a book of ecclesiastical instructions, ostensibly written in the name of Jesus' apostles, which warns its readers to avoid books falsely written in the name of Jesus' apostles (VI, 16).
One cannot help thinking of 2 Thessalonians, which cautions against letters falsely penned in Paul's name (2:1-2); many New Testament scholars believe that 2 Thessalonians is itself non-Pauline." Alfred Loisy comments (The Birth of the Christian Religion, pp. 20-21): "Imitated from the First Epistle and specially co-ordinated with the insertion on the resurrection of the dead [4:13-5:11], the Second to Thessalonians is, for the most part, a theological dissertation on the conditions of the Second Advent. It is not written for the instruction of a particular community but aims rather to dissapate the general uneasiness of Christian thought in regard to the Parousia, impatiently expected and continually postponed.
The author enlarges on the apocalyptic theme of the Antichrist, prehaps identified with Nero risen from the dead, whose manifestation was to cause the ruin of the Roman Empire. The document is conceived in the spirit of the synoptic Gospels and is probably not earlier than the first quarter of the second century. Since Marcion accepted it as authentic, we can hardly place it as late as 130-135. The pains taken by the author at the end (iii, 17) to declare his signature genuine render it the more suspect." Norman Perrin writes the following (The New Testament: An Introduction, pp. 119-120): Second Thessalonians is so like 1 Thessalonians and yet so different that it must be an imitation of 1 Thessalonians written to meet a later situation.