Second Epistle to the Thessalonians

Scholars who support its authenticity view it as having been written around 51–52 AD, shortly after the First Epistle. Those who see it as a later composition assign a date of around 80–115 AD.

The original text was written in Koine Greek.

Composition

Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians [...]

— First verse of the epistle (King James version)

The authenticity of this epistle is still in dispute. James D. G. Dunn finds a “roughly even split among critical commentators on Colossians and 2 Thessalonians.” A survey of 111 scholars from the British New Testament Conference in 2011 found 63 in favor of authenticity, while 13 rejected Pauline authorship and 35 felt uncertain. Even assuming that it is authentic, this epistle was not sent by Paul alone, but by three people: Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy.

As Professor Ernest Best, New Testament scholar, explains the problem:

[I]f we only possessed Second Thessalonians few scholars would doubt that Paul wrote it; but when Second Thessalonians is put alongside First Thessalonians then doubts appear. There is a great dissimilarity between the two; this is not only one of words, small phrases and concepts but extends to the total structure of the two letters which is in addition different from what is taken to be the standard Pauline form. At the same time the second letter is alleged to be less intimate and personal in tone than the first, and in some of its teaching, particularly in relation to eschatology, to conflict with the first.

— Ernest Best, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians

The structures of the two letters (to which Best refers) include opening greetings (1 Thessalonians 1:1a, 2 Thessalonians 1:1–2) and closing benedictions (1 Thessalonians 5:28, 2 Thessalonians 3:16d–18) which frame two, balancing, sections (AA'). In 2 Thessalonians these begin with similar successions of nine Greek words, at 1:3 and 2:13. The opening letter section (1:3–2:12) itself comprises two halves, 1:3–12 (where the introductory piece, A, is 1:3–5; the first development, B, is 1:6–10; and the paralleling and concluding development, B', is 1:11–12) and 2:1–12 (with pieces: A 2:1–4, B 2:5–7, B' 2:8–12).

The second, balancing, letter section (2:13–3:16c) also comprises two halves: 2:13–3:5 (with pieces: A 2:13–14, B 2:15–17, B' 3:1–5) and 3:6–16c (with pieces: A 3:6–9, B 3:10–12, B' 3:13-16c). Of the twelve pieces in 2 Thessalonians, seven begin with 'brother' introductions. Of the eighteen pieces in 1 Thessalonians, fourteen begin with 'brother' introductions. In both letters, the sections balance in size and focus, and in many details. In 2 Thessalonians, in 2:5 and 3:10, for example, there is a structural balance of the use of "when I was with you..." and "when we were with you...".

Support for authenticity

One piece of evidence for the authenticity of the epistle is that it was included in Marcion's canon and the Muratorian fragment. It was also mentioned by name by Irenaeus, and quoted by Ignatius, Justin, and Polycarp.

George Milligan argued that a church which possessed an authentic letter of Paul would be unlikely to accept a fake addressed to them. This argument was similarly supported by Colin Nicholl, who has put forward a substantial argument for the authenticity of Second Thessalonians. He points out that "the pseudonymous view is [...] more vulnerable than most of its advocates conceded. [...] The lack of consensus regarding a date and destination [...] reflects a dilemma for this position: on the one hand, the date needs to be early enough for the letter to have been accepted as Pauline [...] [on] the other hand, the date and destination need to be such that the author could be confident that no contemporary of 1 Thessalonians [...] could have exposed 2 Thessalonians as a [...] forgery."

Another scholar who argues for the authenticity of this letter is Jerome Murphy-O'Connor. Admitting that there are stylistic problems between 2 Thessalonians and 1 Thessalonians, he argues that part of the problem is due to the composite nature of 2 Thessalonians. Murphy-O'Connor, along with many others scholars, argues that the current text of 2 Thessalonians is the product of merging two or more authentic letters of Paul. Once the text of this interpolated letter is removed and the two letters compared, Murphy-O'Connor asserts that this objection is "drastically weakened", and concludes, "The arguments against the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians are so weak that it is preferable to accept the traditional ascription of the letter to Paul."

Those who believe Paul was the author of 2 Thessalonians also note how Paul drew attention to the authenticity of the letter by signing it himself: "I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, which is how I write in every letter." Bruce Metzger writes, "Paul calls attention to his signature, which was added by his own hand as a token of genuineness to every letter of his (3:17)." While some draw attention to this verse as an excessive attempt of a forging author to convince his readers of authenticity, a parallel stock phrase has been noted by some in the authentic Galatians 6:11. A parallel has also been noted among Cyprian where he stresses in his 9th epistle, under potential fears of the circulation of a forged letter, that examination of the style of the signature should be used in order to authenticate the letter: "examine whether both the writing and the signature are yours and write back to us what the matter is in truth."

Other scholars who hold to authenticity include Gregory Beale, Gene L. Green, Ivor H. Jones, Leon Morris, Ben Witherington III, Paul Foster, Tom Wright, and Kretzmann. According to Leon Morris in 1986, the majority of current scholars at that time still held to Paul's authorship of 2 Thessalonians.

Opposition to authenticity

At least as early as 1798, when Johann Ernst Christian Schmidt published his opinion, Paul's authorship of this epistle was questioned. More recent challenges to this traditional belief came from scholars such as William Wrede in 1903 and Alfred Loisy in 1933, who challenged the traditional view of the authorship.

Regarding Nicholl's argument for authenticity, on the one hand, it is worth noting that at least some forged Pauline letters were written well after a date modern scholars might deem early enough for the letter to be considered Pauline, such as the Third Epistle to the Corinthians, estimated to have been written around 160-170 CE; forgers were not forced to write close in time to the writers they imitated. On the other hand, it is not clear that a forger would need to ensure his writing was not contemporaneous with 1 Thessalonians if he was not actually writing the letter to Thessalonica; furthermore, if Nicholls is correct in believing 2 Thessalonians to be authentic, then Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:2 provides evidence that forgeries in his name already existed in his own lifetime, discrediting his argument that forgers would take care to write far enough apart in time to ensure contemporaries could not denounce the forgery.

In his book Forged, New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman puts forward some of the most common arguments against the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians. For example, he argues that the views concerning the Second Coming of Christ expressed in 2 Thessalonians differ so strikingly from those found in 1 Thessalonians that they cannot be written by the same author.

Several modern scholars agree with Ehrman that 2 Thessalonians was not written by Paul but by an associate or disciple after his death. Scholars include Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Vincent Smiles, Udo Schnelle, Eugene Boring, and Joseph Kelly. Norman Perrin observes, "The best understanding of 2 Thessalonians [...] is to see it as a deliberate imitation of 1 Thessalonians, updating the apostle's thought." Perrin bases this claim on his hypothesis that prayer at the time usually treated God the Father as ultimate judge, rather than Jesus.

Daryl Schmidt performed a detailed syntactical comparison between 2 Thess and other disputed letters attributed to Paul in comparison to his undisputed letters and concluded that 2 Thess is highly unlikely to have been written by Paul. Among the undisputed letters, there are five embedded clauses at four layers of embeddedness in the longest sentence in the opening thanksgiving section of the Letter to the Romans, six clauses at four layers in 1 Corinthians, five clauses at three levels in 2 Corinthians, six clauses at one level in Philippians, and ten clauses at five levels in 1 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians, in contrast, has an uncharacteristic twenty-two clauses at fifteen levels of embeddedness in the equivalent section. Schmidt demonstrates similar anomalies in 2 Thess' structures of genitive constructions in non-phrase strings, and its frequent reliance on coordinating and subordinating constructions, and concludes that — in combination with other evidence — it is highly unlikely to have been written by Paul.