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  • From: "Frank W. Hughes" <fwhughes AT sunbeach.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: 1 Thessalonians and the early Paul
  • Date: Thu, 08 Apr 1999 09:11:06 -0300


Dear Mark,

It seems to me you are primarily asking a question not about the theology or
situation
(or rhetoric or whatever) of 1 Thessalonians but about the possibility of
doing
Pauline chronology at all. Of course, if you want to put Paul's writing of 1
Thessalonians after the Jerusalem Conference you are agreeing with the book
of Acts
and thus with some chronologists and you are thus disagreeing with John Knox
and those
who have followed his line of research in one way or another.

As I put it in my article in the Collins volume, the traditional theological
critique
of 1 Thessalonians has been that it has no justification by faith. For Baur
this
deficiency made it impossible for 1 Thessalonians to be an authentic letter.
Permit
me to quote at some length Baur in the English translation by Allan Menzies:

The second of these Epistles has already been attacked by criticism; but the
first has
as yet excited no suspicions. The reason of this is probably to be found in
the
nature of its contents, in which there is nothing at all striking or
peculiar. In the
whole collection of the Pauline Epistles there is none so deficient in the
character
and substance of its materials as 1st Thessalonians. . . . The whole
Epistle is made
up of general instructions, exhortations, wishes, such as appear in the other
Epistles
merely as adjuncts to the principal contents; what is accessory in the other
cases is
here the preponderating and essential element. This might appear at first
sight to
favour the opinion that the Epistle is genuine -- there is so little for
criticism to
lay hold of. The very insignificance of its contents, however, the want of
any
special aim and of any intelligible occasion or purpose is itself a criterion
adverse
to a Pauline origin; but not merely do these negative considerations demand
explanation: a closer view of the Epistle betrays such dependence and such
want of
originality as is not to be found in any of the genuine Pauline writings.
(Ferdinand
Christian Baur, Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, English translation by A.
Menzies
[London: Williams and Norgate, 1875[ 2.85)

It seems to me that Baur's conclusion is the most consistent one on 1
Thessalonians if
you are not going to posit something like "the early Paul" to try to explain
theologically all the things that are missing by comparison to the
Hauptbriefe,
including flesh vs. spirit, clear quotations from the Old Testament, Paul's
apostleship being an issue, justification by faith (which I believe are
strongly
related to each other). Admittedly Baur thought Paul had a one-track mind,
and that
track was justification by faith and everything related to it.

Pauline studies have really come a long way since then. Two other members of
the
Tübingen School disagreed sharply with Baur on 1 Thessalonians, Richard
Adelbert
Lipsius and Adolf Hilgenfeld. Their responses concerning 1 Thessalonians
were that it
was an earlier letter than any of the Hauptbriefe.

My judgment is that if you don't want to posit an "early Paul," Baur's
conclusion
concerning the authorship of 1 Thessalonians is the most consistent one. In
other
words it is impossible for us not to compare 1 Thessalonians with the
Hauptbriefe; the
question is what we make of our comparisons. When you have all of the other
authentic
letters of Paul having quite consistently justification and the issues and
language
that go with it, and then when you see that 1 Thessalonians doesn't have
those things,
it seems logical for us to account for that lack historically. When you also
look at
the naivete of what Paul says about the Parousia and the fact that, as John
Hurd
pointed out form-critically, Paul thought he was giving the Thessalonians
information
they didn't previously have in 1 Thess. 4:13 ff., it seems to me that the most
consistent picture we can get for 1 Thessalonians is to describe it
historically as
coming from "the early Paul." It seems to me that given the apparent fact
that on his
founding visit Paul didn't preach to the Thessalonians about the resurrection
of
Christians but only that of Christ, one should raise even more questions
about what
"the early Paul" did and did not teach.

All best,
Frank W. Hughes
Codrington College





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