1 Thessalonians 2:15: prejudice against the Jews?

by behemot 20 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    I think it is anachronistic to use the term "anti-semitic" (with all its implications of Christian and later racial anti-semitism) for what could better be regarded as anti-Judean polemic. This better fits with the meaning of Ioudaioi in first-century Greek and the nature of Gentile prejudice against Jews (i.e. those strange people from that backward province). Yet there is here an ambiguity -- does Ioudaioi include those people in the diaspora who were of Judean descent or does it only include those who were citizens of Judea? From the point of view of most Gentiles, there wasn't a difference -- they were all Judeans if they followed the Judean way of life and/or were of Judean descent. From the point of view of diaspora Jews, one could view himself or herself as a Judean in this sense, or one could define oneself instead as an Israelite or of the "seed of Abraham", or one could define oneself as a Roman citizen (in the case of those who were free). Paul was not a Judean in the sense of being a citizen of Judea, and he is depicted in Acts 22:25-28 as strategically declaring himself as a Roman (Rhómaios) who was a citizen (politeian) by birth (gegennémai), whereas in Romans 1:11 he defines himself as an Israelite (egó Israelités eimi) rather than as a Judean. It is in terms of the binary contrast between Gentiles (those not of the circumcision) and those who were "Jews" (= Judeans) "by nature" (i.e. through descent and through circumcision) that Paul declares himself a "Jew". So in Galatians 2:15 he referred to himself and other Jewish Christians as "we Judeans by nature" (hémeis phusei Ioudaioi); he was not here defining Judeans as those who live in Judea.

    With respect to the passage in 1 Thessalonians, it is worthwhile to observe two things. The use of the term Ioudaioi in v. 14 does indeed appear to refer to Judeans as those belonging to the province of Judea because (1) it follows the reference in the same verse to Christians who were living "in Judea" (en té Ioudaia), and (2) these Ioudaioi that caused suffering to those Christians "in Judea" are parallel to the "fellow countrymen" (idión sumphuleton) of the Christians in Thessalonika (humeis). This parallel would imply that the Ioudaioi are similarly fellow countrymen of the Christians living "in Judea". So I don't think the author is using the term here in an ethnic sense as in Galatians 2:15 and there isn't the kind of ethnic anti-semitism latent in later Christian citations of 1 Thessalonians 2:15 in subsequent anti-Jewish polemic (particularly in the meme of the Jews being "Christ killers", which has this verse as one point of departure). The reference is to persecution of Judean Christians at the hands of their own countrymen. But it is also significant to observe that the author's reference to the Judeans "who killed Jesus and the prophets" (apokteinantón Iésoun kai tous prophétas) is allusive of the inner-Jewish polemic in 1 Kings 19:10 (cited also in Romans 11:3) and Nehemiah 9:26-27, where the "sons of Israel" are described as having "killed your prophets" (tous prophetés sou apekteinan). In Deuteronomistic ideology, the nation as a whole is held guilty for the sins of those who killed the prophets (hence it was punished and went into exile at the hands of the Babylonians) and a similar idea is found in Jeremiah 26:15 in which the prophet says: "If you put me to death, you will bring the guilt of innocent blood on yourselves and on this city and on those who live in it". The handwashing ritual in Deuteronomy 21:6-8, intended to absolve the nation of the guilt of innocent blood ("Set not the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel"), is utilized in the Matthean trial scene with Pontius Pilate (Matthew 27:24-25) to pin the guilt of executing an innocent man (Jesus) on the people of Jerusalem who declare: "His blood be upon us (to haima autou eph' hémas) and on our children". This scene is foreshadowed in Matthew 23:29-38, which refers to the city of Jerusalem as "you who kill the prophets (apokteinousa tous prophetés) and stone those sent to you" and the Pharisees as "the children of those who murdered the prophets (phoneusantón tous prophetés) ... upon you will come all the innocent blood (elthé eph' humas pan haima dikaion) shed on the earth", which would result in the coming destruction of Jerusalem and its temple (23:38-24:2). There is a very similar background and concept on the passage in 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 and I believe it shares the same polemic. It is a traditional inner-Jewish polemic (molded on that found in the OT) that regards the city of Jerusalem and the nation of Judea as sharing guilt for the killing of Jesus and the persecution of the apostles, just as they previously shared in the same guilt in the killing of the OT prophets. There is a clear difference between this kind of polemic and later Christian polemic (in place already in the second century AD) that generalized this guilt to all ethnic Jews.

    On the other hand, the statement in 1 Thessalonians 2:13 goes further than Matthew by resonating also with Gentile anti-Judean polemic. The statement that the Judeans "are hostile to all men" is paralleled by Tacitus' charge (in Historiae 5.5) that the Judeans "regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred of enemies" (adversus omnes alios hostile odium), and it is generally recognized this accusation was a commonplace among Gentiles (cf. Tacitus, Annals 15.44, Juvenal, Satyricon 14.103-104, Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historia 34-35.1.1-5, Josephus, Contra Apionem, 2.148, Antiquities 4.137-38, 8.117, 11.212, 13.245, 16.42), which represents a Gentile interpretation of Jewish ritual purity with respect to fellowship with non-Jews (see especially Josephus, Contra Apionem 2.258 regarding Jews "not wishing to share fellowship with those who choose to live according to a different way of life"). There is an interesting Christian reinterpretation of this charge however in 1 Thessalonians 2:15. The Judeans responsible for persecuting the Christians in Judea were interfering with the Christian mission to the Gentiles, thereby standing in the way of their salvation. They were "hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved". In light of the resistance that Paul faced from Torah-observant Jewish-Christians (as reported in Galatians and Acts), particularly those affiliated with James the Just who pressed for circumcision and the maintenance of ritual separation from uncircumcised Gentile Christians, it appears that this passage in 1 Thessalonians has an inner-Christian polemic as well by treating these Jewish-Christians as simply "Judeans" and not those belonging to the "churches of Christ in Judea". The fact that this passage adapts a Gentile charge against Jews that specifically had ritual separation as its focus fits very well with the conflict that the Pauline churches faced with Jewish-Christians that insisted on ritual separation with uncircumcised Gentile Christians (cf. later Ebionite writings like the Ascents of James and the Epistula Petri which portrayed Paul as an "enemy" apostate from the Law).

    Finally it is worth noting that some scholars regard 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16 as a deutero-Pauline interpolation into the text of 1 Thessalonians (cf. Pearson, HTR 1971 and Schmidt, JBL 1983). The evidence is not conclusive, but there are a number of suggestive clues: (1) The personal message from Paul about his last visit to Thessalonika in v. 17 picks up from his description of his visit in v. 11-12, with the section in v. 13-16 being a parenthetical digression, (2) the portion of the letter from 2:1 onward is the main body of the letter, following an opening thanksgiving in 1:2-10, but the section in v. 13-16 is an unexpected second thanksgiving that imitates the language and thought of the first thanksgiving in roughly the same order (eukharistoumen tó theó peri panton humon || hémeis eukharistoumen tó theó in 1:2, 2:13; adialeiptós || adialeiptós in 1:3, 2:13; ergou tés pisteós || energeitai ... tois pisteuousin 1:3, 2:13; euaggelion hémón en logó || logon theou in 1:5, 2:13; kathós aléthós || kathós oidate in 1:5, 2:13; dexamenoi ton logon || edekasthe logon in 1:6, 2:13; mimétai egenéthéte || mimétai egenéthéte in 1:6, 2:14; en thlipsei || hémas ekdióxantón in 1:6, 2:15; en té Makedonia kai Akhaia || en té Ioudaia in 1:8, 2:14; ekhein hémas lalein || kóluontón hémas ... lalésai in 1:8, 2:16, tés orgés tés erkhomenés || ephthasen hé orgé in 1:10, 2:16), with both thanksgivings ending in an eschatological climax with a reference to the coming "wrath" of God, (3) this second thanksgiving has marks of a non-Pauline syntax and style (e.g. kai as a connector of two main clauses being found nowhere else in 1 Thessalonians, the unusual position of vocative adelphoi in v. 14 between constituents of another noun phrase, the unique splitting up of "Lord Jesus" with a participle in v. 15, etc.), (4) although Paul elsewhere can have some rather strident rhetoric against his Jewish-Christian adversaries (Galatians 5:12 comes to mind, where Paul wishes that those insisting on circumcision for Gentiles would castrate themselves), he nowhere holds the Jews/Judeans/Judaizers responsible for the death of Jesus which he instead obliquely attributes to the "rulers of this age" in 1 Corinthians 2:8, (5) the eschatological climax in v. 16 appears to be allusive of several extracanonical writings (pros ekplérósin tón hamartión ... pros telos || eis to anaplérósai tas hamartias ... eis telos in 2 Maccabees 6:14-15, 1 Thessalonians 2:16; ephthasen de autous hé orgé tou theou eis telos || ephthasen de ep' autous hé orgé eis telos, Testament of Levi 6:11, 1 Thessalonians 2:16), and (6) the aorist ephthasen in v. 16 should be taken as alluding to an event that was already past and the phrase eis telos highlights the finality of this "wrath" against the Judeans which has already taken place. It is possible that the author has simply kept the aorist from its source in the Testament of Levi, but in its present context it may best be interpreted as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. The same recompense is specified in Matthew 23-24 for those who "killed the prophets," and as already mentioned there is a close similarity between the polemic found in Matthew and 1 Thessalonians 2:15-16. This is probably the strongest argument for the interpolation hypothesis, but the evidence supporting this proposal is imho less conclusive than in other suspected instances of interpolation in Paul.

  • JosephMalik
    JosephMalik

    Mary,

    I am not taking sides mind you. Just relating what the scriptures taught the Faith was doing at the time. And from this we can determine what we should be doing. Rutherford did not understand scripture and neither does anyone else in the WT system. Their doctrine is so warped and evil that in many ways what they call Christendom does better. But you will not find any denomination with the truth as far as I know today. Some come pretty close but that same closed mindset exists in them. Few realize that our Lord will determine who belongs to Him and not us. That is what the faithful/evil slave is all about and that is why our Lord said: Joh 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. And also there is: Joh 15:19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. And finally: 2Th 2:13 But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Exactly who such chosen ones are is something our Lord will reveal at His coming but the "truth" and not organization of some such affiliation will be a determining factor. They do not want you thinking in such terms since they cannot control you if you do. This is why I do not subscribe to any Church or doctrine but research such things that I can support for myself. It I prove to be a failure at such a time then it will be my own fault. This is the only way I can function in the midst of such confusion found everywhere in all literature.

    Joseph

    P.S. You know that today Christians debating with Christians such as we do here is very close to what Paul was doing in the Synagogues in his day where non-Christian and Christian Jews mixed together. We mix together with differing views as they did then and hash them out leaving the recipients or readers to make up their own minds.

    JM

  • behemot
    behemot

    Leolaia, you hit the nail on the head as usual. Thank you for the well informed piece of info.

    Behemot

  • behemot
    behemot

    Leolaia ... just a couple of questions on the references you mention:

    Tacitus , Annals 15.44, Juvenal, Satyricon 14.103-104 , Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historia 34-35.1.1-5, Josephus, Contra Apionem, 2.148, Antiquities 4.137-38, 8.117, 11.212, 13.245, 16.42

    Tacitus, Annals 15.44: doesn't it refer to Christians (not the Jews) as guilty of "hatred against mankind"?

    Juvenal, Satyricon: maybe you meant Satires? (Petronius is the author of Satyricon)

    Testament of Levi 6:11, 1 Thessalonians 2:16

    I tried to find out the quote from the Testament of Levi but I found out the book has only 5 (five) chapters. Can you please provide the text?

    Thanks, Behemot

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    Thanks for the correction about Juvenal, Saturae is what it should have been. That's what happens when you type quickly without double-checking!

    Yes, the Annals reference is the famous one about Christians; bear in mind that cf. is "compare" and signifies related material of varying relevance. In this case, the Christian slander is derivative of the older Jewish one.

    The Testament of Levi reference I'll look up in the morning.

  • Mary
    Mary

    Thank you Leolaia for your, as usual, fantastic summary.

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia
    I tried to find out the quote from the Testament of Levi but I found out the book has only 5 (five) chapters. Can you please provide the text?

    I'm not sure why you thought the book had only five chapters; it actually has 19. Perhaps you tried looking it up in an edition of the original Aramaic version of the Testament of Levi? What I cited was from an interesting retelling of Levi and Simeon's sacking of the city of Shechem from Genesis 34 that has a number of similarities with the extended passage in 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 (which possibly hints at the Roman sacking of Jerusalem in AD 70):

    Testament of Levi 6:4-11: "And I killed (aneilon) Shechem first and Simeon killed Hamor. And after that the brothers came and smote the city with the edge of the sword (epataxan tén polin en stomati rhomphaias). And father heard it and was wroth and grieved, in that they had received the circumcision and had died after that, and in his blessings he did otherwise...But I saw that God's sentence upon Shechem was for evil because they wished to do to Sarah also as they did to Dinah our sister; but the Lord hindered (ekólusen) them. And in the same way they had persecuted Abraham (houtós edióxan Abraam) our father while he was a stranger and trampled the flocks against him while they were big with young and maltreated very seriously (sphodra aikisanto) Jeblae his home-born slave. And in the same way they did to all strangers (kaige houtos epoioun pantas tous xenous), taking their wives with force and banishing them (xenélatountes autous). So the wrath of God had come to them at last (ephthasen de autous hé orgé tou theou eis telos)".

    2 Maccabees 6:14-15: "In the case of the other nations the Master waits patiently for them to heap their sins to the limit (pros ekplérósin tón hamartión) before he punishes them, but with us he has decided to deal differently, rather than have to punish us later (pros telos), when our sins come to a head (aphikomenón hémón tón hamartión)".

    1 Thessalonians 2:14-16: "You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches [in Judea] suffered (epathete) from the Jews, who killed (apokteinantón) the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out (ekdióxantón). They displease God and are hostile to all men (pasin anthrópois enantión) in their effort to hinder (kóluontón) us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they have always heaped up their sins to the limit (eis to anaplérósai tas hamartias). The wrath of God had come upon them at last (ephthasen de ep' autous hé orgé tou theou eis telos)".

    The conclusion in Testament of Levi 6:11 forms an inclusio with the reference of God's judgment on Shechem in v. 8 and it is virtually identical to the wording in the climax in 1 Thessalonians 2:16. There is some uncertainty about the originality of this sentence in the Testament of Levi since the Greek Testaments contain Christian interpolations, but generally these interpolations are found in the eschatological sections and not in the "autobiographical" passages. Moreover the wording in the sentence is reflected in the phraseology found elsewhere in the Testaments: (1) the phrase "wrath of the Lord" (hé orgé kuriou) occurs in Testament of Reuben 4:4 (in another "autobiographical" passage), (2) ephthasen + epi occurs also in Testament of Naphtali 6:9 (in another "autobiographical" passage), and phthanein appears elsewhere in Testament of Naphtali 5:3, 7, (3) the reference of "wrath" coming "upon them" (ep' autous) as in 1 Thessalonians 2:16 is similar to Judah's statement that "we came upon them with wrath" (epélthomen oun ep' autous meta thumou) in Testament of Judah 7:7 (in an "autobiographical" section), although it uses different vocabulary, and (4) the use of eis telos to refer to the finality of God's judgment also occurs in Testament of Levi 5:6 (pataxai autous eis telos, "smite them utterly", which follows the angel's command to Levi to "execute vengeance on Shechem", 5:3), and the phrase alone may be found in Testament of Dan 6:5 (eis telos kakón, "to utter evil") as well. So the language in the sentence paralleled in 1 Thessalonians 2:16 favors the originiality of the sentence in the work, as opposed to being borrowed from Paul.

    What is particularly fascinating about this story of Levi's execution of judgment on Shechem is the number of resonances it has with the underlying thought of 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16. These may be spelled out as follows: (1) the story in both Testament of Levi 6 and Genesis 34 concerns ritual separation of the sons of Jacob and the uncircumcised Gentiles with respect to marriage, and the sons of Hamor must circumcise themselves in order for the sons of Jacob to settle with them and "become one people" (Genesis 34:16); this resonates with the insistance of the "Judeans" on circumcising Gentiles in order for them to enter the Christian community....hence 1 Thessalonians 2:15 portrays such Judeans as "hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles", presumably on account of standards of ritual purity, (2) the sons of Hamor are presented as longtime persecutors of the patriarchs, just as the "Judeans" are depicted in 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15 as longtime persecutors of the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles, (3) the sons of Hamor specifically displayed a lack of hospitality to the sons of Jacob, persecuting Abraham when he was a stranger, trampling his flocks and maltreating his slave, "and in the same way they did to all strangers (pantas xenous)", whereas the Judeans in 1 Thessalonians 2:15 are "hostile to all men (pasin anthrópois)", and the Gentile belief of the misanthropy of the Judeans was rooted especially in a perceived lack of hospitality to non-Judeans, (4) both passages have some similar word choices, e.g. ekólusen || kóluontón, edióxan || ekdióxantón, in addition to the verbatim concluding sentence, (5) the "wrath of God" that comes upon the sons of Hamor is the smiting of their city with the edge of the sword (Testament of Levi 6:5), and as argued above, the "wrath of God" in 1 Thessalonians 2:16 that has already come upon the Judeans in a final, decisive way, is best understood as a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70; the same thing is mentioned in Matthew 23-24 as what God's sentence on Jerusalem would be for their "killing of the prophets" (a phrase that connects 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 to Matthew 23 as well as to OT references to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem as the consequence for the Judah's "killing of the prophets").

    So all this is understandable if the author of 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16 saw a parallel between what happened to the Judeans (who behaved similarly to Shechem and his brother) and what happened to the sons of Hamor and borrowed a sentence from this story ("The wrath of God has come upon them at last") to characterize the execution of God's judgment on the Judeans.

  • XJW4EVR
    XJW4EVR
    Doesn't this statement reflect an anti-semitic attitude on the part of the writer?

    This does not follow logically. If a white person reports on some dastardly deed commited by another white person does that mean the reporter is anti-white?

    (Edited because this makes more sense as I thought about it more).

  • behemot
    behemot
    I'm not sure why you thought the book had only five chapters; it actually has 19. Perhaps you tried looking it up in an edition of the original Aramaic version of the Testament of Levi ?

    Leolaia ... I loked it up here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/fbe/fbe272.htm

    Anyway, thank you for your summary. Comprehensive as always.

    XJW4EWR:

    This does not follow logically. If a white person reports on some dastardly deed commited by another white person does that mean the reporter is anti-white?

    We're not talking here of someone reporting on some bad deed committed by another single person, but of someone making broad statements slandering a whole group of people and labelling them as haters of mankind. I see a difference here.

    Behemot

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia
    Leolaia ... I loked it up here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/fbe/fbe272.htm

    Ah, I see...in that edition the versification puts the relevant passage at 3:3-9. Go figure.

    We're not talking here of someone reporting on some bad deed committed by another single person , but of someone making broad statements slandering a whole group of people and labelling them as haters of mankind.

    True, but I think it misses somewhat XJW4EVR's intended point, which partially recognizes the inner-Jewish nature of the polemic in the text. XJW4EVR uses a racial analogy, which is misleading but based on the initial characterization in the OP of the polemic as "anti-semitic", but the point is that the author is supposedly a member of the group he is criticizing. The actual situation was much more complex. We don't know for sure who the author was. If the author was Paul, he was Judean in an ethnic sense but not in a national sense and the polemic in the text is a traditional inner-Jewish criticism that goes back to the OT and which is then hardly anti-semitic but which at the same time is anti-Judean, i.e. against the people of Judea proper (in exactly the same way the OT prophets condemned the nations of Israel and Judah, or the city of Jerusalem). At the same time, the text appropriates a Gentile anti-Judean slander that was originally ethnically based (i.e. it has in view the entire Jewish people) but this slander is reinterpreted in a way that effects an inner-Christian polemic in targeting those Judean Christians who stood in the way of Gentile evangelism (by simultaneously casting them in odious light and excluding them from the "churches in Judea"). If the writer was not Paul, we don't know if he was Gentile or a Jew -- although I suspect from the nature of the polemic that the author was probably a Hellenistic Jew from the diaspora like Paul -- who endeavored to support the mission to the Gentiles, who viewed ritual separation negatively, but who also was drawing from a very traditional OT prophetic tradition and who saw himself as allied with some Judeans (the "churches in Judea") and as vehemently opposed to other Judeans he was in conflict with. The negative attitude towards Judeans is not too far removed from Josephus who viewed Judea as justly punished in AD 70 by the Romans for its sins. Josephus however I don't think would have dreamed of turning the slander of misanthropy on its head to criticize other Jews; he expended considerable amounts of energy in his works to dismiss this myth.

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