Recent scholarship on 1 Thessalonians

Like all Paul's letters, 1 Thessalonians has received much scholarly attention in recent decades. Since historical-critical interests drive much of this scholarly exertion, the question of origins remains the pervasive concern. Karl Donfried, a prominent Thessalonians scholar, articulates well the question motivating much contemporary scholarship on 1 Thessalonians: ‘What was Thessalonica like when Paul first visited and established a Christian community there and what impact does this information have for understanding 1 and 2 Thessalonians?’

There have been a variety of answers to this question. To anchor ourselves somewhere within the sea of conference papers, arguments, counter-arguments and monographs provoked by 1 Thessalonians we shall focus on three seminal and prominent essays. When each of these essays appeared it moved the argument on significantly and inspired other scholars to adopt new lines of approach in understanding the original context of delivery and reception of 1 Thessalonians. As we shall see, the three essays – by Karl Donfried,John Barclay and Abraham Malherbe – have come to act as nodal points within 1 Thessalonians scholarship.

Karl Donfried's signal essay of 1985, ‘The Cults of Thessalonica and the Thessalonian Correspondence’, did not of course arise from a scholarly vacuum. Donfried's argument, that attention to the religious and civic cults prominent in first-century Thessalonica assists in understanding the letter's ethical and eschatological admonitions, is substantiated only with the help of archaeological discoveries made earlier in the century.