The Pseudepigraphal Letters to the Thessalonians

Marlene Crüsemann, Linda Maloney

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780567694881
• eBook ISBN:
  9780567683359
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Marlene Crüsemann examines the Thessalonian letters in the context of Jewish-Christian social history; building upon her analysis of 1 Thessalonians, Crüsemann comes to the conclusion that it is post-apostolic epistolary communication, and questions whether it is a letter of Paul and indeed whether it is an early letter. This analysis in turn adds weight to the thesis, propounded by some previous scholars, that the letter is somewhat out of place and may be a later work by another author.

Crüsemann subsequently illustrates that 2 Thessalonians, by contrast, revokes the far-reaching social separation from Judaism that characterizes 1 Thessalonians, and thus aims socio-historically at a solidarity with the entire Jewish people. Analysing the concept of the Jews as supposed enemy, the future of the Greek gentile community, and the relationship between the two letters, Crüsemann concludes that the discussion about a "divergence of the ways of Christians and Jews" in early Christian times needs to be realigned.

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

“Is it a Letter? Is it a letter at all? I think not.”

—After Reich-Ranicki’s parody of Hape Kerkeling

“Test everything; hold fast to what is good.”

—1 Thessalonians 5:12

1.1 The Two Letters to Thessalonica

The first letter to the church in Thessalonica is a peculiar writing; the more often one reads it, the stranger it appears. The following study is the fruit of a multi-year reading process; it seeks to invite readers into what may turn out to be an adventurous journey: through the idiosyncrasies of this first, and then also the second letter to Thessalonica. This also involves trying out a new proposal about the relationship between the two letters. That relationship presents a profile unique within the New Testament. We need only recall that, ever since William Wrede’s pioneering work¹ and its precursors, 2 Thessalonians has been widely assumed to be a pseudepigraphical writing that copies and at the same time modifies 1 Thessalonians, a genuine letter of Paul. This would mean that, decades after the genuine correspondence, someone took up the pen to communicate further news, in a new situation but with almost the same means, apparently to the same church, though now most likely made up of considerably younger (?) members. Perhaps it is this long hiatus separating the two letters that lets many English-speaking interpreters maintain the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians.² But a text with “false” information about authorship is not uncommon in the New Testament canon; quite the contrary. Of its twenty-seven writings, only seven letters of Paul are currently considered unquestionably authentic, meaning that the person named in the prescript is indeed the author of the writing insofar as such an indication can be found therein. Most others are said to be anonymous or pseudonymous writings.³

So when this study reopens the discussion of the “inauthenticity” of the first letter to the Thessalonians as well, it is not a revolutionary claim within the framework of the whole New Testament. But, given the current scholarly status of 1 Thessalonians, such an undertaking evokes accusations of lèse majesté and impertinent sacrilege.⁴ That is because this brief letter is generally considered Paul’s first, and as such the oldest New Testament text. The high esteem accorded this text has risen phenomenally among New Testament scholars in recent decades.⁵ This first written apostolic statement is said to be an “experiment in Christian writing,”⁶ that is to say, the prototype of the entire genre of apostolic letters. Accordingly, Paul here invents the form best suited for his own communication with his churches. His subsequent, thematically more sublime letters then build on this primal form and in a sense develop from it. Thus 1 Thessalonians constitutes the basis for Pauline exegesis,⁷ and for that of the entire New Testament and church history. “The oldest written document of Christianity lies before us in 1 Thessalonians; we stand at the beginning of (earliest) Christianity’s literary history.”⁸

Yet a critical examination still raises doubts about the historical classification of 1 Thessalonians. Among other questions, my study asks whether 1 Thessalonians is an early letter of Paul, a letter of Paul, and, finally, a letter at all. The following unusual features of the text give rise to these questions:

•the nearly pervasive structuring of authorship in the first person plural, which departs from the usual pattern;

•the extremely anti-Jewish passage in 2:14–16, which raises the question whether it can be regarded as an interpolation within the text;

•the fact that chapters 1–3 speak only of events that took place very shortly before the letter was written,⁹ all aspects of which would be known to the congregation and be fresh in their memory, something the authors also acknowledge frequently;

•the fact that, on closer analysis, the material situation of this epistolary communication is obscure;

•finally, for example, the passage in 4:13–17 concerning the resurrection of the dead, which culminates in a reception like that for an ancient ruler rather than in the eschatological victory of Jesus over the power of death.

These and other questions posed to the text have led me to a new interpretation of the most important parts of 1 Thessalonians, which makes up the principal section of this study. But because the two epistles to Thessalonica are canonically linked, and because I have become convinced that only an interpretation of both together in terms of their interrelatedness (which becomes apparent when the two letters are read together) can best do justice to the unique character of each writing, the final chapter proposes a new answer, based on their content, to the question of their relationship to each other.

1.2 The Dimensions of Early Christian Social History

Social-historical exegesis of New Testament texts must attend fundamentally to three dimensions of life in early Christian congregations that also represent the potential areas of social conflict. These are bundled together and addressed in Galatians 3:28. For me that text is a constant reminder of this social-historical “trinity”;¹⁰ it is a hermeneutical summons to take into account the three focal points of early Christian times. It reminds us that in the congregations women and men, Jews and non-Jews, free and non-free, and therefore also poor and non-poor human beings tried to shape life together in a new way. The areas of conflict that emerged as a result are implicitly and explicitly present in every New Testament text. Social-historical exegesis, as a matter of principle, has to keep these three conflict levels in mind at all times. Methodologically speaking, feminist exegesis of the New Testament oriented to liberation theology has developed this most thoroughly by centering its attention on the life and work of Jewish and non-Jewish early Christian women.¹¹

However, when analyzing a text it is appropriate to determine the foci of one’s primary examination of those three social dimensions in accordance with its situation. In the case of the letters to Thessalonica and the description of their individual characteristics and interrelatedness, I judge the appropriate focus to be on the Jewish/non-Jewish dimension in the question of the common life of people of pagan and Jewish origin in the Christian congregations. The basis for a new, overall view of these texts is to be found here.

Hence in this case the feminist dimension does recede into the background somewhat, although a feminist perspective is still presupposed in principle. Several sections of feminist reflection, as well as corresponding aspects, will be presented in some of the detailed exegetical examinations. To date, feminist interpretations of 1 Thessalonians have been based on the traditional understanding of the letter, which this study seeks to alter fundamentally. A new view of the two Thessalonian letters, together with their relationship, will be forged through the analysis of their Jewish-Christian dimension (see below), and not in the first instance through a feminist analysis such as has been both possible for and fundamental to the exegesis of 1 Corinthians.¹² It has been lamented on several occasions that the two letters to the Thessalonians yield only meager clues about the existence of women and their lives in the congregations of that city.¹³ In my view this is closely related to the pseudepigraphical character of the text.

Only the reference to σκεῡος (vessel) in 1 Thessalonians 4:4 might throw a bit of light on real women, in the context of the topic of sexuality and, possibly, of marriage. Non-feminist exegesis to a large extent has read “vessel” here as a “euphemism” for women.¹⁴ This requires feminist critique, particularly in view of the relevant history of reception.¹⁵ Several variants of the second classic rendering have more recently been proposed for σκεῡος: “body”¹⁶ (as in the Greek perception of the body as the “vessel” of the soul)¹⁷ or also as a term for the male member.¹⁸ As I see it, the phrase τὸ ἑαυτοῡ σκεῡος κτᾶσθαι means to say that one ought to keep watch on one’s own body in a dangerous sexual sphere and keep it holy, in the sense of practicing abstinence.¹⁹ There were many impressive contrary positions on this subject in Greco-Roman cities, given the omnipresent prostitution. In view of its androcentric nature, this admonition is presumably addressed primarily to men, but it may also have been understood in the course of its reception as an ethical exhortation to women. A critical feminist history of the interpretation of 1 Thessalonians 4:4 would indeed be a welcome contribution in future.²⁰

1.3 Jewish-Christian Social History

What contours do the letters to the congregation in Thessalonica reveal for the relationship between Jewish and non-Jewish people inside and outside the congregation? How do these fit into the current models of early Christian history?

Moreover, what does “Jewish” or “Christian” mean? Here it is essential to point out the preliminary nature of these concepts and, especially, the lack of precision in the predicate “Christian” in general in many exegetical and historical treatises.²¹ It is astonishing how little attention is generally paid to the dubious nature of current concepts. While it is still possible lexically to fix the term “Jew” unambiguously to some extent in the New Testament,²² the situation becomes utterly sketchy when it comes to the presumed counterpart: “Christian.” This fact alone, and the corresponding...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Foreword to the English Edition
• 1 INTRODUCTION
• 2 “THE JEWS” AS ENEMIES: 1 THESSALONIANS 2:14–16
• 3 THE COMPOSITION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO THE COMMUNITY AT THESSALONICA
• 4 SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF RESEARCH AND DISCUSSION CONCERNING THE AUTHENTICITY OF 1 THESSALONIANS
• 5 THE FUTURE OF THE GREEK GENTILE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY: 1 THESSALONIANS 4:13–5:11
• 6 JUDGMENT IN SECOND THESSALONIANS: THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE TWO LETTERS
• 7 SUMMARY: THESES
• Bibliography
• Index1
• Index
• Copyright