Morna Hooker Part 3 – 2 Thessalonians

Thought I'd forgotten, did you? Ha! No, I was just waiting til you'd let your guard down before hitting you with the next installment of Hookerian wisdom. Boom! Here we go:

2 Thessalonians closely resembles 1 Thessalonians in both its format and its topic, but its actual teaching is substantially different – so much so that some have argued that the two letters actually contradict one another. The structure is very similar; the themes are the same; it sounds like Paul: but is it written by Paul or someone deliberately imitating him (these arguments go on and on in New Testament studies, because, let’s face it, how can you really prove it one way or another?). If the two letters are contradictory, then perhaps that could mean that it wasn’t written by Paul, or maybe by Paul after he had changed his mind; or maybe the two letters actually don’t contradict each other after all.

If 2 Thessalonians was written by an imitator, they were being pretty cheeky: warning the letter’s recipients not to be alarmed by letters falsely claiming to come from Paul (2:2) and saying that parts of the letter were written by Paul’s own hand (3:17). Is it by a Paul who has changed his mind? Also tricky: 2;5 says, ‘Don't you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things?’ suggesting that Paul at least thinks he’s being consistent. Maybe they’re not inconsistent after all. 2 Thessalonians emphasises the wrath of God more than 1 Thessalonians (1:8-10), but then the writer of 1 Thessalonians clearly took God’s wrath seriously too. Perhaps the two letters are not contradictory, but simply have different emphases.

The beginning of chapter 2 makes it clear that there’s some kind of rumour circulating in the Thessalonian community: it looks like people are worried that they’ve missed the return of Jesus. Paul (let’s just assume he did write it for the sake of ease) tells them to chill out: various things have to happen before Jesus will return. He seems to have some sort of eschatological timetable in mind, and this is one of the contrasts with 1 Thessalonians, where the day of the Lord comes suddenly, and we need to be on our guard. Perhaps 1 Thessalonians got them a bit overexcited and now Paul is trying to calm them down? It’s not unprecedented to talk both about the immanence of the Day of the Lord and also the idea that various things need to happen first: a similar tension can be found in, for example, Mark 13.

I'm afraid that, brief though it is, that's all I have to offer you on this particular epistle. More on other letters later, though I'd just like to point out that most of the above is about whether Paul really wrote 2 Thessalonians, rather than interesting commentary on the letter itself, and this, dear readers, is largely why I moved away from biblical studies in my theological journeyings: because I just don't care that much, even when taught by someone as sharp, funny, and eccentrically wonderful as Morna Hooker.

Photo Credit: Lawrence OP on Flicker