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  • From: Craig de Vos <csdevos AT trinity.unimelb.edu.au>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Jesus as deliverer from Wrath in 1 Thess
  • Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 09:33:36 +1100

Jeffrey,
Taking your second question in relation to deliverance from wrath in 1 Thess 1:10 (5:9) first...

2. Is there any evidence that prior to their conversion the Thessalonian
community already believed in a concept of wrath for which the Biblical
idea of God's wrath is a rough and already familiar parallel? Or is the
idea of the wrath of which Paul speaks something that is so
distinctively biblical, and so bound up with the story of Israel and of
how Israel's God relates to humanity, that the Thessalonians would not
have heard about, let alone accepted it, until Paul preached to them and
taught them to make as their own the ideological/religious framework of
which the idea is a part?

'No' to the first part and a resounding 'yes' to the second. Where "wrath" was spoken about in Graeco-Roman religious contexts, my impression is that it had to do with a community's (or its representative's) failure to fulfill its duty, e.g., not paying homage, offering sacrifices, holding festivals, consulting omens etc. But the consequences were normally seen as occurring in the short term, not as some sort of future eschatological event (by the way, did the Greeks actually have a lineal understanding of time, such as this concept of eschatology presupposes? I don't think the Romans did: cf. chpt 7 of M. Bettini's Anthropology and Roman Culture; and my Church and Community Conflicts, pp215-16 n.144). And, in the context of such a "wrath" there was no need for a "deliverer". Rather, all that was needed was for the community to attend to what had be neglected. In light of this, then, I would also answer 'no' to your first question...

1. Is there any indication or reason to believe that this declaration is
a counter proposal? That is to say, is Paul's identification of
**Jesus** as the one "who delivers us from the wrath to come" set in
opposition to a prior and (to the Thessalonians) more familiar claim
that **someone else** has the office that Paul attributes to Jesus. In
other words, is what we have in or behind Paul's declaration about Jesus
and wrath an assertion something along the lines of "contrary to what
you and others have been taught, it is **not** X or Y (e.g., the Kabrii,
the Emperor?), but Jesus, the crucified one, who delivers from wrath"?

Craig



--------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Craig S. de Vos
Bromby Lecturer in New Testament
Trinity College Theological School
Royal Parade
Parkville VIC 3052
Australia
(O) +61 3 9349-0129 (F) +61 3 9349-0460
csdevos AT trinity.unimelb.edu.au
http://www.trinity.unimelb.edu.au/~csdevos/CdVhome.html
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