In my previous post I started to talk about why scholars recognize that 2 Thessalonians is (or appears to be) by a different author than 1 Thessalonians.   There are actually lots of reasons, as I will show in subsequent posts, but for now I’m simply giving my discussion as found in my trade book Forged, written for a non-scholarly audience.   Here is my full discussion in that context of the authorship of 2 Thessalonians.   As you’ll see, it’s short and to the point.  The scholarly discussion is much longer and involved, and I’ll be giving that in subsequent posts.

***********************************************************

Paul himself thought the end was coming in his lifetime.  Nowhere is this more clear than in one of the letters we are sure he wrote, 1 Thessalonians.   Paul wrote the Christians in Thessalonica because some of them had become disturbed over the death of a number of their fellow believers.  When he converted these people, Paul had taught them that the end of the age was imminent, that they were soon to enter the Kingdom when Jesus returned.  But members of the congregation had died before it happened.  Had they lost out on their heavenly reward?  Paul writes to assure the survivors that no, even those who have died will be brought into the kingdom.  In fact when Jesus returns in glory on the clouds of heaven, “the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air” (4:17).  Read the verse carefully: Paul expects to be one of the ones who will still be alive when it happens.

He goes on to say that…

THE REST OF THIS POST IS FOR MEMBERS ONLY.  If you don’t belong yet, GET WITH IT!!!