Corpus-Paul

[Jeff Peterson <peterson AT mail.ics.edu>]

At 10:35 AM -0700 5/4/99, Jim Hester wrote:
>Finally, in response to Peterson, I am not sure that it is necessary to
>assume that "Paul" would have had to have written a letter in order to
>comment that the congregation had to be careful of  letters purporting to be
>from him.  The point of the comment might be to highlight the fact that as
>far as he was concerned, this was the first letter he had sent them.

I'm afraid Jim must've misunderstood my reply to John Contabile regarding
the sequence of the letters; I didn't refer to 2:2 in that connection but
to 2:15, which mentions traditions which the recipients "were taught
(EDIDAXQHTE) whether through oral instruction (DIA LOGOU) or through our
letter (DI' EPISTOLHS hHMWN)." The aorist passive verb puts the reception
of tradition in the past tense, and so refers to a prior letter (singular,
not plural), and not to 2 Thess itself. So whether Paul or a Paulinist is
responsible for 2 Thess, can we agree that this letter was written in the
awareness of a prior letter of Paul addressed to the Thessalonians?

Jeff


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Jeffrey Peterson
Institute for Christian Studies
Austin, Texas, USA
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