The near Parousia. By 50 C.E. Paul was well aware of the death of
believers; there is no indication that this was ever a theological problem for
him. He expected to be alive himself, but by the time he writes to the
Corinthians a few years later, he already considered this something of an
exception (1 Cor 15:18, 51). He would later reckon with the possibility that he
too would die before the Parousia. By the time he writes 2 Corinthians, he
still thinks of the same two groups, believers still alive and those who have
died, but no longer places himself among the living (1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 4:14).
But in 50 C.E, as he writes 1 Thessalonians, he still assumes he will be among
that number, “when the saints go marching in.” (M. Eugene Boring, I & II
Thessalonians: A Commentary [The New Testament Library; Louisville, Ky.:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2015], 159)