First Epistle to the Thessalonians
The First Epistle to the Thessalonians[a] is a Pauline epistle of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle, and is addressed to the church in Thessalonica, in modern-day Greece. It is likely among the first of Paul's letters, probably written by the end of AD 52,[3] in the reign of Claudius although some scholars believe the Epistle to the Galatians may have been written by AD 48.[4] The original language is Koine Greek.
Background and audience[edit]
Thessalonica is a city on the Thermaic Gulf, which at the time of Paul was within the Roman Empire. Paul visited Thessalonica and preached to the local population, winning converts who became a Christian community.[5] There is debate as to whether or not Paul's converts were originally Jewish. The Acts of the Apostles describes Paul preaching in a Jewish synagogue and persuading people who were already Jewish that Jesus was the Messiah,[6] but in 1 Thessalonians itself Paul says that the converts had turned from idols, suggesting that they were not Jewish before Paul arrived.[5][7]
Most New Testament scholars believe Paul wrote this letter from Corinth only months after he left Thessalonica,[5] although information appended to this work in many early manuscripts (e.g., Codices Alexandrinus, Mosquensis, and Angelicus) state that Paul wrote it in Athens[8] after Timothy had returned from Macedonia with news of the state of the church in Thessalonica.[9][10]
The original manuscript of this letter is lost, as are over a century of copies. The text of the surviving manuscripts varies. The oldest surviving manuscripts that contain some or all of this book include:
Composition[edit]
Date[edit]
It is widely agreed that 1 Thessalonians is one of the first books of the New Testament to be written, and the earliest extant Christian text.[5] A majority of modern New Testament scholars date 1 Thessalonians to 49–51 AD,[11] during Paul's 18-month stay in Corinth coinciding with his second missionary journey.[12] A minority of scholars who do not recognize the historicity of Acts date it in the early 40s AD. The Delphi Inscription dates Gallio's proconsulship of Achaia to 51-52 AD, and Acts 18:12-17 mentions Gallio, toward the end of Paul's stay in Corinth.
1 Thessalonians does not focus on justification by faith or questions of Jewish–Gentile relations, themes that are covered in all other letters. Because of this, some scholars see this as an indication that this letter was written before the Epistle to the Galatians, where Paul's positions on these matters were formed and elucidated.[3]
