Two weeks ago I “promised” my wife, “this won’t take long.” This is more in-depth than planned, with generous endnotes for the source-hungry. Take time to read and think, look some things up. If what follows is disconcerting, welcome to reading the New Testament in the world of its initial audience, instead of ours. In doing so, we gain a deeper, multi-dimensional and more complete picture of the context of Paul’s messages.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://spectrummagazine.org/article/ben-holdsworth/2012/07/17/thessalonian-letters-greco-roman-context