Steven Carr

1 Thessalonians 2

14For you, brothers, became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, 15who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men 16in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.

When did the Jews drive Paul out? Surely he was able to go to the Temple almost up to the end.

What did Paul mean by saying that the wrath of God has come upon them 'at last'?

Did Paul really regard the Jews as heaping up their sins 'to the limit'?

judge

The are probably some clues in THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. by Flavius Josephus

Steven Carr

I wonder why Paul used the past tense 'has come' , to describe events which happened after his death.

Toto

In this 5 page thread:

1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 is an Interpolation

Vinne argued strenuously that the passage was not an interpolation, a position that disagrees (as I recall) with much of liberal scholarship, which prefers to see those verses as inserted after the destruction of the Temple.

This is, or course, the only concrete reference in Paul's epistles to Jesus' death at the hands of earthly persons, so it is a highly contested passage.

Stephen Carr participated in that thread. I do not recall offhand if the issue of when the Christians were kicked out of the Jewish synagogues was raised there. That would argue for dating the interpolation to the end of the first century at least, unless, of course, you think that Paul was still alive then.

Steven Carr

I thought this happened about 85 AD.

Josephus does say that 20,000 Jews trampled themselves to death during the rule of Cumanus.

This is frankly unbelievable. Even the worst panics in the Hajj did not kill so many, and there are a lot more people there.

So I doubt if Paul thinks that that was God's wrath.

But Paul does seem very hostile to Jesus's fellow religionists in this passage.