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corpus-paul - Re: Pseudonymity of 2 Thessalonians

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  • From: "Frank W. Hughes" <fwhughes AT sunbeach.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Pseudonymity of 2 Thessalonians
  • Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 09:27:48 -0300


> Adolf Hilgenfeld, "Die beiden Briefe an die Thessalonicher nach Inhalt und
> Ursprung",_ZWTh_ 5 (1862), pp. 225-64.

I dealt with Hilgenfeld in pp. 29-35 of my dissertation. It was an excellent
article,
written two years after the death of Baur by a fellow member of the Tübingen
School in
a journal edited by Hilgenfeld. Hilgenfeld (1823-1907) is very close indeed
to where
I think most people who accept the pseudonymous authorship of 2 Thess. (and
the
Pauline authorship of 1 Thess.) today are. It is an article that still
repays careful
study. This article and the article by Richard Adelbert Lipsius (1830-1892),
"Ueber
Zweck und Veranlassung des ersten Thessalonicherbrief," _Theologische Studien
und
Kritiken_ 7 (1854) 905-34, were excellent refutations of Baur's position
against the
Pauline authorship of 1 Thessalonians. It was to Lipsius that Baur responded
in "Die
beiden Briefe an die Thessalonicher: Ihre Echtheit und Bedeutung für die
Lehre von der
Parusie Christi," _Theologische Jahrbücher_ 14 (1855) 141-68. Baur came to
the
stunning (and unique) solution that, not only did Paul not write either
Thessalonian
letter, but that 1 Thessalonians was literarily dependent on 2 Thessalonians!
Baur's
article is translated by Allen Menzies in Baur, _Paul, the Apostle of Jesus
Christ_
2.314-340. Both Lipsius and Hilgenfeld defended the Pauline authorship of 1
Thessalonians by positing that it was an earlier letter.

Frank W. Hughes
Lecturer in NT Studies
Codrington College
Barbados





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