Working through the mystery

I have been enamored of late by a group of writings found at Nag Hammadi. They are referred to as pseudipigraphia sometimes, the gnostic gospels sometimes, the New Testament apocrypha sometimes. I had previously written about my doubts of the Pauline authorship of 2nd Thessalonians. It's one thing to prove that someone didn't write something, but it is entirely different to say who did write the book or to what time period and group of people a writing belongs. So if Paul didn't write it, who did? That question can't be answered because the time period that apparently the book belongs to is a time period that produced the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Gospel of Phillip, the Gospel of Truth, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Apocalypse of Abraham, the books of Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, the Secret Book of John, and on the list goes on. Of course, none of the people used in the titles of these books wrote the books. So, it would be impossible to know who wrote a book purported to have come from Paul.

The books mentioned above were produced by those in the gnostic camp of Christians. 2nd Thessalonians seems to have been written to combat the philosophies represented by these books. Thus, the writer refers to a "man of recklessness" (usually translated "lawlessness") and a "rebellion" which must happen before Christ establishes himself firmly in Chritstians' minds and hearts. The book also refers to "handed down instruction" so as to offset the gnostic teachings of seeing the mysteries of Christ as revealed to each believer. The book could have come from Rome since that was the seat of "handed down instruction" and been aimed against any number of teachers, like Valentinus, who might have come from Alexandria, the seat of gnosticism.