2 Thessalonians as a Forgery

1. One reason that the argument for the inauthenticity of 2 Thessalonians has not always been convincing is that critics have often used a wide range of arguments, some of which are not particularly strong. For example, some have argued that the letter lacks Paul’s customary warmth, or that it does not focus on the cross, or that it does not employ the diatribe style. These arguments are easily dismissed, and can make the overall case for inauthenticity appear weaker. A better approach is to focus on the strongest arguments for inauthenticity. These include the close parallels between 2 Thessalonians and 1 Thessalonians, which suggest that the author of the second letter used the first as a model, and the substantive differences between the two letters in the passage where the parallels evaporate. When these arguments are considered together, it becomes clear that 2 Thessalonians was likely written by someone who was not Paul, but who was attempting to authorize their own non-Pauline views in the apostle’s name. This conclusion is further supported by differences in the author’s style, as well as other features of the letter. Overall, there are compelling reasons to believe that 2 Thessalonians is a forgery.

The Relationship to 1 Thessalonians

Over a century ago, Wrede showed that there are many significant parallels between 1 and 2 Thessalonians, which operate on various levels. These parallels have been confirmed and strengthened by later scholars such as Krenz. However, rather than indicating that Paul wrote both letters, these parallels suggest that a later author was imitating Paul’s style and wording. One of the easiest places to imitate the style and wording of a letter is in its beginning and ending, and in these respects, the two Thessalonian letters are virtually identical. For example, the three named authors are the same in each letter, and they are not further identified apart from their names. This is unusual, as Paul is usually described with an epithet such as “apostle” or “prisoner for Christ” in his other letters. Additionally, both letters refer to the church as comprising the people of a place (e.g. “of the Thessalonians”) rather than naming the city in which they live (e.g. “the church of God which is in Corinth”), which is unique among Paul’s letters. Furthermore, the closing of the letters is also similar, with a nine-word sequence of verbatim agreement. Other agreements can be found throughout the letters, sometimes at the simple level of phrasing. For instance, there are instances where the wording is found only in these two letters in the entire Pauline corpus. However, this does not necessarily mean that 2 Thessalonians is “obviously Pauline,” as some interpreters have suggested. It is easy for a copyist to take over words from another letter, and this is likely what happened in the case of 2 Thessalonians.

1. There are several striking verbal parallels between 1 and 2 Thessalonians, which are found nowhere else in the Pauline corpus. For instance, certain phrases and words appear only in these two letters, such as “call and sanctification” and the root word “perfect.” Additionally, the structure and layout of the two letters are similar, with both containing two thanksgivings and an eschatological section. It is unlikely that Paul would have remembered the exact wording of his earlier letter to the point of creating verbatim agreements, especially considering that he wrote 2 Thessalonians just a few weeks later. It is more likely that a copyist took over words and phrases from 1 Thessalonians in order to make 2 Thessalonians sound like a Pauline letter. This is supported by the fact that there are no such extensive “borrowings” in other letters written by Paul to the same community within a short period of time, such as 1 and 2 Corinthians. Furthermore, the style and theology of 2 Thessalonians differ from those of 1 Thessalonians, which is not how Paul typically wrote his letters. This suggests that a forger was attempting to provide a Pauline feel to the letter, but was not successful in replicating the apostle’s style and theology. Overall, the extensive verbal parallels, the similarities in structure and layout, and the differences in style and theology all point to the conclusion that 2 Thessalonians is a forgery.

Issues of Style

Lionel Trilling’s argument about the writing style in the Deutero-Paulines (a group of letters in the New Testament that are traditionally attributed to the apostle Paul but are now considered by many scholars to be forgeries) is flawed. Trilling claimed that the writing style in these letters is different from Paul’s known writings, but the author argues that Trilling offered no basis for comparison with Paul’s known writings. The author then goes on to discuss the issue of secretaries and how it is often suggested that differences in writing style within Paul’s corpus (the collection of his writings) could be explained by the use of secretaries. The author argues that this idea is based on little to no evidence and that it is often used as a “panacea” for all authorial doubts. The author then discusses a study by Darryl Schmidt, who showed that the letter of 2 Thessalonians (which is one of the Deutero-Paulines) differs stylistically from Paul’s undisputed letters. The author provides three examples of how Schmidt demonstrated this difference in style.

The Theology of 2 Thessalonians

Jewett’s claim that “there is scarcely enough time between Paul’s death and C.E 100 for a forgery to gain credence” is not supported by evidence of ancient practices of forgery. In fact, numerous ancient authors complained about forgeries circulated in their own names, even within their own lifetimes. For example, Martial, Galen, and Apuleius all dealt with forgeries circulating in their own names. Therefore, it is possible that a forgery of 2 Thessalonians could have gained credence within 40 years of Paul’s death. Additionally, the argument that 2 Thessalonians would have been rejected by the Thessalonians as inauthentic because it contradicts 1 Thessalonians assumes that the letter was actually sent to Thessalonica, which is not necessarily the case for a forgery. Finally, the argument that there is no historical context for 2 Thessalonians after Paul’s lifetime because apocalyptic fervor had died out is not supported by the continued prevalence of apocalyptic beliefs in early Christianity, as evidenced by texts like Didache 16 and the book of Revelation.

2 Thessalonians as a Counterforgery

There is disagreement among exegetes about the meaning and significance of the phrase “as by us” in 2 Thessalonians 2:2. Some interpret it as referring to a letter that “really did” come from Paul, while others interpret it as referring to a letter that appeared to be from Paul, but was not actually written by him. The latter interpretation is supported by the author’s use of the word in 2:2, which suggests that the letter was not actually from Paul. This interpretation is further supported by the author’s reference to a letter in 2:15 that is affirmed as being “ours” and containing correct teachings. This reference to a previous letter appears to be a reference to 1 Thessalonians, which contradicts the false teachings of the letter mentioned in 2:2.

The main reasons for thinking 2 Thess in particular is a forgery are summarized by Maarten J. J. Menken (Catholic Theological University, Utrecht, The Netherlands) in his excellent monograph 2 Thessalonians (1994). I have quoted some key passages from pp29-40:

1. The eschatologies of 1 and 2 Thessalonians differ in that in the first letter Christ is expected to come soon and suddenly, whereas in the second letter it is added that his coming will be preceded by other events. The introduction of this peculiar ‘timetable’ of the events of the end of history in 2 Thessalonians 2.1–12 and the problem which gave rise to it (2.2) distinguish the eschatology of the epistle not only from that of 1 Thessalonians, but also from that of other Pauline letters (see 1 Cor. 15.22–53; 2 Cor. 5.1–5). Another distinctive feature of 2 Thessalonians is the heavy emphasis upon God’s punishing judgment on unbelievers in 1.6, 8–9; 2.10–12.
2. From 1 Thessalonians, one gets the impression of a warm, personal relationship between Paul and the Christian community at Thessalonica, which he founded a few months before he wrote to them from Corinth (cf. 1 Thess. 2.17–3.10; Acts 18.1–5). … The tone of 2 Thessalonians is much more formal and distant. The thanksgivings of this letter are not actual thanksgivings as in 1 Thessalonians 1.2 and 2.13 (‘We thank God’; cf. also 3.9), but expressions of the obligation to give thanks (‘We are bound to thank God’, 2 Thess. 1.3; 2.13). The remarks about the Christian life of the community (1.3–5, 11–12; 2.13–17; 3.1–5, 13–16) do not sound negative, but they lack the personal touch one meets in the first letter, and the Paul of 2 Thessalonians has apparently rather more to criticize in the congregation than the Paul of 1 Thessalonians (see 2 Thess. 2.1–2; 3.6–12).
3. W. Trilling has drawn attention to a series of stylistic phenomena that distinguish 2 Thessalonians from Paul’s usual style (Trilling 1972:48–65). In 2 Thessalonians, there is a relatively large number of parallelisms (see, e.g., 1.10; 2.8, 12), and a relative lack of antithetic wordings and of triadic formulae (such as those found in 1 Thess. 2.10). Wordings in the letter are at times somewhat ‘overdone’, such as the excessive use of ‘all’, ‘every’ (see, e.g., 3.16: ‘…at all times in all ways…with you all’), or the coupling of substantives (see, e.g., 2.8: ‘the manifestation of his coming’; 2.13: ‘in sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth’). There is a certain ‘poverty of expression’ in 2 Thessalonians: many words and phrases are used more than once in the short letter (see, e.g., ‘oppressions’, ‘oppress’, ‘oppression’, ‘oppressed’, in 1.4, 6, 7, or the fourfold use of ‘command’ in 3.4, 6, 10, 12). D. D. Schmidt has recently investigated some aspects of the style of 2 Thessalonians with the help of a computer (Schmidt 1990); he observed that on several points the style of 2 Thessalonians is akin to that of Ephesians and Colossians, two letters that are also considered by many scholars to have been written by others than Paul himself. His most significant observation is that the syntactical complexity of sentences is relatively high in 2 Thessalonians. The most striking example of this complexity is the passage 2 Thessalonians 1.3–12, which is, in fact, one long sentence (see the translation; in Greek, the words in 1.11 translated as ‘to this end’ introduce a subordinate clause).
4. Of the various possibilities of reading 2 Thessalonians 2.2, the last one, in which we supposed that a post-Pauline author aims at a wrong interpretation of a part of 1 Thessalonians, is clearly the least problematical. It has also the advantage that it explains why the author of 2 Thessalonians chose precisely 1 Thessalonians as the model for his own letter…
5. Verse 3.17 can be considered then as an indication against Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians only in so far as the emphasis on authenticity is somewhat too heavy.
6. …it is evident that there is a very large degree of agreement between 1 and 2 Thessalonians; almost all parts of 2 Thessalonians have parallels in 1 Thessalonians, with the notable exception of the eschatological passage 2 Thessalonians 2.1–12. Especially striking are the similarities between the prescripts 2 Thessalonians 1.1–2 and 1 Thessalonians 1.1, and between the passages 2 Thessalonians 3.8 and 1 Thessalonians 2.9: in these instances, a longer sequence of words is almost entirely identical in the two letters. There are of course several points of agreement which are not very impressive when taken in isolation, but one should pay attention to the cumulative impact of major and minor similarities. It should also be pointed out that the large majority of the similarities cannot simply be explained by a similarity of subject-matter; such a similarity would not in itself lead to identical expressions and phrases. There is also similarity between 1 and 2 Thessalonians as regards the sequence of the various parts of the letter. … There is only one explanation for all these similarities: between 1 and 2 Thessalonians there is a relationship of literary dependence: the author of one letter wrote it making use of the other letter. He had the other letter, so to say, on his desk. And because 2 Thessalonians is anyhow the later one of the two letters, it means that 2 Thessalonians is literarily dependent upon 1 Thessalonians.

It is generally accepted in Pauline scholarship that only seven of the thirteen letters written under the apostle Paul’s name were actually written by him. This agreement is reverberated by researchers like Gombis and Dunn, with Raymond Brown explicitly naming the credible letters as being I Thessalonians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, I and II Corinthians, and Romans. Scholars disagree about which of the remaining six letters is the author. This indicates that although they may have been written in Paul’s name, no one can agree on whether he was the actual author.

History and Reasons for Questioning the Authenticity of 2 Thessalonians

A few current researchers concur with Ehrman that 2 Thessalonians was not composed by Paul yet by a partner or supporter after his demise. Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Vincent Smiles, Udo Schnelle, Eugene Boring, and Joseph Kelly are among the scholars. “The best understanding of 2 Thessalonians […] is to see it as a deliberate imitation of 1 Thessalonians, updating the apostle’s thought,” Norman Perrin makes the observation. This claim is based on Perrin’s hypothesis that, at the time, prayer typically regarded God the Father rather than Jesus as the ultimate judge.

1. 
   Oxford Annotated Bible, page 1721, Michael David Coogan, Marc Zvi Brettler, Carol Ann Newsom, Pheme Perkins: Significant differences between Ephesians and the letters ascribed to Paul with certainty (Rom, 1 Cor, 2 Cor, Gal, Phil, 1 Thess, Philem) raise questions about the identity of its author. Many important terms in Ephesians are not used by Paul elsewhere (e.g., “heavenly places,” “dividing wall,” “fellow citizen”), and some of Paul’s characteristic terms and emphases are given new meaning (e.g., “church” as a universal rather than a local community) or are absent (e.g., “the Jews,” “justification”). In addition, the verbose rhetorical style of Ephesians, especially the use of complex, long sentences (many of which have been divided in the NRSV), is not characteristic of Paul. Theological differences are also evident, especially the letter’s emphasis on the experience of salvation in the present (1.3–12; 2.4–10) and the use of Greco-Roman household rules for ethical teaching (5.22–6.9); see further the Introduction to Colossians. A majority of scholars therefore hold that Ephesians is pseudonymous, written by a Jewish-Christian admirer of Paul who sought to apply Paul’s thought to the situation of the church in the late first century, although some scholars hold that Paul composed this letter at the end of his career while imprisoned in Rome (see 3.1; 4.1). This latter position attributes different theological emphases to developments in Paul’s thinking and the particulars of the situation addressed.