Definitely spurious

I was doing a little translating work today in 2nd Thessalonians. I have been doing this for about 3 weeks now. The first week I was translating chapter 1. When I finished, I thought, "This content and tone are so different from 1st Thessalonians that it doesn't seem to be Paul writing this. It is too radically different." After translating chapter 2, I told my wife, "I don't think Paul wrote this letter. The content seems to match a slightly different time period." I told the same thing to a Bible class teacher. His comment was that he never had heard of Paul not writing that book.

Then I found the smoking gun in chapter 3. What I thought from the beginning came clear. It has to be a spurious letter addressed to groups of "orthodox" Christians warning them against the teachings of the gnostic groups. The same word meaning "we instruct you" appeared 4 times within a few running verses. Paul never did that. He was educated enough to vary his wording even when he felt strongly about a matter as he did in Galatians and in the two Timothy letters. But the crowning blow came when unique words started popping up. What are the chances in a small, 3-chapter letter that in the last chapter a word would surface that was unique in all 27 books of the New Testament (and all 66 books of the Old Testament [Septuagint])? What are the chances that a second word, unrelated in form, would surface? I was ready to declare spurious authorship at this point. But what are the chances that a third word would pop up...? 3 unique words in a matter of a few verses. One of the words was used as a variant in a Leviticus passage. And guess what manuscript tradition supported that variant? Right, Syrian and Alexandrian. The two gnostic capitals of the world. That was my smoking gun.

When at the end I had to translate, "I, Paul write this greeting with my own hand," it sounded too bogus. Sure enough, Paul did say the same in Colossians at the end, which some scholars are quick to point out that Paul did not write and in 1st Corinthians. As if someone was trying too hard to make 2nd Thessalonians authentic, he added, "which is my distinguishing mark in all my letters." Of course, that phrase doesn't appear in any of Paul's letters either.

So, "another one bites the dust" in the words of an old rock and roll song. This would be earth shattering to me if I had not already dealt with spurious books a long time ago in trying to figure out something about God's inspiration of writers of the Bible. But, now it just goes right along with God using people as they are, customs as they are, and time lapse as it is. But, I am glad to be able to classify 2nd Thessalonians in the spurious category.