Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Notes on 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:15; 3:8 from M. Eugene Boring, I & II Thessalonians: A Commentary (2015)

From:


M. Eugene Boring, I & II Thessalonians: A Commentary (The New Testament Library; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015)  


On Oral Tradition/παραδοσις

 

The church was founded on the Pauline kerygma, the message proclaimed by Paul and Silvanus that the Thessalonian converts heard as “the word of God” (1 Thess 2:13). . . . The new converts only knew what Paul and his coworkers had taught them . . .  (p. 22)

 

Boring’s translation of 1 Thess 2:13:

 

And this is in fact why we constantly give thanks to God, namely, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a merely human word but as what it truly is, the word of God, which continues to work among you believers. (p. 92)

 

The word “merely” does not appear in the Greek text. It is appropriate here because Paul has made a point of stating that the word the Thessalonians heard was the human word of the missionaries, which he contrasts with the word of God they accepted; cf. Also 1:5, where the contrast with mere human word and the power of God’s word is explicit.

 

The term energeitai, here taken as a middle, could theoretically be possible, “it is made to be effective” [i.e., by God],” but this is not Pauline usage. The subject here is logos (word), thought of as sent by God, but working powerfully and effectively. Paul is thinking along the lines of Isa 55:11. (p. 93)

 

2 Thess 2:15

 

The author of 2 Thessalonians concentrates this Pauline exhortation into a charge to stand fast to the tradition. . . . Colossians, too, commends the churches for continuing faithfulness to the truth of the Pauline gospel that they had not learned directly from Paul (Col 2;1) but that had come to them via one of his followers, in which they are to “continue securely established and steadfast,” not “shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard,” “just as you were taught” (NRSV: Col 1:5-7, 23; 2:7, hence rejecting “human tradition,” 2:8). The author of Colossians cites traditional material that had been handed along and around in the oral tradition (e.g., 1:15-20; 3:18-4:1), and he encourages his readers to attend not only to his letter but also to other Pauline letters in circulation (4:16). (p. 286; note contrast between human and divine tradition)

 

2 Thess 3:6:

 

Boring’s translation:

 

Now we command you, brothers and sisters, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to keep your distance from any brother whose way of life is not in line with the tradition they received from us. (p. 295)

 

Note about “they [received]”:

 

Though most MSS reads parelabete (you received), corresponding to the second-personal plurals of vv. 1, 4, 7, 13, 14, 15, this instance of the third-person plural (and in the unusual dialectical form parelabosan instead of parelabon) is found in A* A 0278 33. As the more difficult reading and the reading that best explains the other readings, parelabosan (they received) is more likely original. The author’s point: the “disorderly” received the apostolic tradition as did the Pauline churches in general, but they are not following it. (p. 295)

 

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