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  • From: Craig de Vos <csdevos AT trinity.unimelb.edu.au>
  • To: Corpus Paulinum <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Dating 1 Thessalonians
  • Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 12:07:49 +1000

Title: [corpus-paul] Re: Dating 1 Thessalonians
At 8:19 AM -0500 on 18/4/02, Mark Nanos wrote:
2. Would not lack of Tanak references compared to other letters argue for
later (if any sequence is implied at all), since Paul would begin from that
which he was familiar (for himself and his audiences), and later be creating
and learning new ways to express himself as a part of a subgroup developing
its own symbolic world, authorities, language, etc.?

Hi Mark,
Surely that line of argument only works if the Christian community at Thessalonica was of a dominantly Hebrew/Judean origin. However, the evidence we have from the letter itself (leaving aside the Lukan construction of Paul's ministry in Thessalonica), is that it was a Gentile community. See, in particular, 1 Thess 1:9 [in fact, in my Church and Community Conflicts, I argued that the Thessalonian community was not only entirely Gentile in origin, but also comprised of native Thessalonians -- see pp. 144-47]. As such, it would be foolish for Paul to cite the Hebrew scriptures (and this letter has the fewest number of references and allusions among the genuine paulines) regardless of when the letter was written. Surely, the lack of these references says more about the community Paul was addressing than the time at which he wrote.
Craig
-- 
Rev. Dr. Craig S. de Vos                              
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