Paul and "the Jews" in 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16

In 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16, Paul wrote what appears to be the most virulent anti-Semitic expression of the New Testament. This text is so extreme, not to mention inconsistent with some of Paul’s other letters, that scholars have questioned whether it is original to the letter, not perhaps an interpolation by a later editor, yet the evidence points to the verses’ authenticity. Here is the ESV translation of the text:

For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, ¹⁵ who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind ¹⁶ by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!

What follows is a concise response from my postsupersessionist perspective. I’ve listed some key references at the end.

Firstly, there are good reasons to narrow the target of Paul’s attack to a small sub-group of the Jewish people at the time:

• The word that the New Testament uses for “Jew” can equally be translated as “Judean.” Use of people in the Diaspora, “Jew” is an appropriate translation, but when the setting is Jerusalem, “Judean” is generally better, differentiating Jews of Judea from Jews of the Diaspora. (At least the ESV translators inserted a footnote after verse 14 make mention of some ambiguity around the meaning of “the Jews”: “The Greek word Ioudaioi can refer to Jewish religious leaders and others under their influence, who opposed the Christian faith in that time.”)
• This comma between verses 14 and 15 is so critical that much research has been done on it. Why? Because by its inclusion, the text implies that all the Jews (at least of that era) were guilty of murdering Jesus and the prophets, but without the comma, the “who” restricts that guilt to specific Jews—those who committed such acts themselves.
• The comma simply cannot be justified, since it’s clear that Paul did not intend to condemn all the Jewish people. (Note that the punctuation was only inserted several centuries later.) 1 Thessalonians 2:14 shows that Paul is referring to the Judean Jews in particular; he is concerned about the churches in Judea. Moreover, Paul often used articular participles to restrict the application of a general term (here, “the Jews”) to a subset of that group. In all six times Paul used participles with the definite article from the start of the letter up to 2:15, he was denoting a sub-group of the broader group by that name. It’s good, therefore, to note that the NIV omits the comma, unlike most English translations.
• Tōn apokteinantōn (in v15), typically translated as “who killed” could reasonably be translated “those who killed.” Examples of such use of the definite article are easy to find, e.g. in Romans 1:32, hoi prassontes: “those who do.”
• Not only that, but Acts 21 tells us that myriads of Jews in Jerusalem were believers, so he didn't mean all Judean Jews.
• Some scholars have made a plausible case that “the prophets” referred to those of Jesus’ followers who had already been martyred. While, in no way would that alleviate the gravity of the offence, it would clearly restrict the blame to a minority group of Ioudaioi within the general population of Ioudaioi.

For all these reasons, the phrase is better translated to indicate a particular group of guilty individuals rather than the entire Jewish population:

“from those [particular] Judean Jews who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets”.

Aside from that vital information, there are other mitigating factors to consider:

• Paul was writing as a Jew who practised a messianic form of Judaism. He had not converted to another religion. This much is clear from the New Testament, as confirmed by modern scholarship.
• Paul wasn’t standing apart from the Jewish people, pointing fingers at them, but he was standing as a representative of one Jewish sect critiquing others. It was very common to do so then even as it is today. There are many examples in Jewish and non-Jewish writings of the period in which members of a society make scathing attacks on other members, yet without meaning to attack all the people.
• Paul’s main purpose was to comfort and encourage the Thessalonian believers, not to vilify the Jews. He wanted to remind the Thessalonian believers who were being persecuted by their own people that the churches in Judea knew what that felt like. In fact, Judean believers had had it worse. God’s faithful people tend to get persecuted by their own people. Paul himself had suffered at the hands of his kinsmen. But we know from his other writings that Paul loved the Jewish people dearly – and so does the LORD.  The Thessalonian church was not alone in being persecuted by their countrymen.
• His forceful comments were a common rhetoric device. Both Jewish and non-Jewish writers of the time also used it. His critique is similar to that of the prophets and other Jewish writers of the time, like the Qumran community, who did not write off the people of Israel but sought their repentance, lashing out at those among them who hindered God's eschatological work. Likewise, Paul saw Judean opponents of the gospel as blocking God's purpose of saving the nations.
• On Jesus’ similar words about Jerusalemites, “who kill the prophets”: these were a lament, not a curse, and ended with confirmation that its people will repent and that Jesus will return to them.
• Ultimately, the wrath of God (v16) comes (aorist tense) on those particular Jews. The temporal sense of the verb is uncertain. Perhaps Paul thought the downturn of fortunes of Judean Jews in the late forties signalled the soon return of Messiah. Or perhaps he was expecting a worse outcome for them in the future. In any case, we should not be surprised that, inasmuch as the guilty are judged, those not guilty (the majority of the Jewish people) of the particular offence Paul mentioned are not judged for it.
• Finally, the purpose of Paul in mentioning the judgement of those particular Jews who were guilty of killing Jesus and the prophets was simply to encourage the believers in Thessalonica: their own persecutors would face God’s wrath. Paul wasn’t developing some doctrine of anti-Semitism.

All told, the evidence in this very superficial study is more than adequate to challenge the tradition Christian reading of 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16. What’s the problem with this text? Paul is not the problem. His writing is not the problem. Rather, it is the translation of his text, its reading, and application by Christians that is the problem! And the evidence for this gets stronger the more closely one studies the literature. (See the readings listed below; I didn't use them all but found Brown very useful.)

Recommended Reading

Bockmuehl, Markus N A. “1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 and the Church in Jerusalem.” Tyndale Bulletin 52, no. 1 (2001): 1–31.

Brown, Dave. “Documentary Study of 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16,” n.d. https://www.academia.edu/9256736/Documentary_Study_of_1_Thessalonians_2_14-16.

Dickieson, Brenton DG. “Antisemitism and the Judaistic Paul: A Study of I Thessalonians 2:14-16 in Light of Paul’s Social and Rhetorical Contexts and the Contemporary Question of Antisemitism,” n.d. http://place.asburyseminary.edu/trendissertations/4126.

Gilliard, Frank D. “Paul and the Killing of the Prophets in 1 Thess. 2:15.” Novum Testamentum 36, no. 3 (1994): 259.

Gilliard, Frank D. “The Problem of the Antisemitic Comma Between 1 Thessalonians 2.14 and 15.” New Testament Studies 35, no. 04 (1989):481–502.

Lowe, Malcolm F. “Who Were the ΙΟΥΔΑΙΟΙ?” Novum Testamentum 18, no. 2 (1976): 101–30.

What's in a word: διακρίνω (diakrino) - doubt, discrimination or distinction?

Bible translators have a tough job. In fact, in some ways they can never win. There is just no 1:1 mapping between words and phrases of one language and those of another. Bill Mounce, an expert in biblical Greek who was on the Translation Oversight Committee of the ESV, offers a brilliant lecture on this in his free course, Greek for the Rest of Us. (Go to www.teknia.com, create an account and then look for lecture 1b of this course.) Mounce emphasises,

All translations are interpretive

and goes on to explain that all translators are biased. Bible publishers have to decide in advance what kind of translation they are aiming for.

For example, do they want to use gender-inclusive language? If so, they might translate "your sons" as "your sons and daughters", since that appears to be what is meant in many places of the text (because men were representative of the whole population). Today we no longer see men as representing the general population so it may make more sense to say "your sons and daughters" in a modern English translation. Translators constantly have to wrestle with the issue of whether to interpret words or meanings, and we should not be quick to accuse them of deliberately mistranslating certain texts. If they translate those same texts differently, then other people will be clamouring against them. The only way to win is for every Christian to become thoroughly competent in the biblical languages -- and that ain't gonna happen!

With that background in place I do want to raise a challenging question for the translators of several modern translations, the English Standard Version (ESV, 2001) in particular. It seems to me that they have imposed their theology on a word in Acts 11:12, theology that they probably drew out of other parts of the Bible.

Great New Testament resources online

I recently discovered the new (2010) Lexham English Bible (LEB, New Testament only) which I am very excited about, not least of all because of everything that comes with it. And, like the best things in life, it's free (in electronic format, including PDF and e-Sword).

You can find the LEB at http://www.lexhamenglishbible.com/. Here's what I like about it:

• from a quick scan, it looks a great translation to modern English. See the "About" page on the LEB website for some examples. I noticed the translators are amongst the few to dare to change the traditional "For God so loved the world..." in John 3:16. (See my post on this not-so-good interpretation here: http://templeswallow.blogspot.com/2011/02/what-do-john-316-and-romans-1126-have.html.)
• the LEB is based on good source material: the latest (27th) edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament (GNT), or NA27;
• and, like the New English Translation (NET), it's free. Here's a quote from the licence agreement: "You can give away the Lexham English Bible, but you can't sell it on its own."

I found the LEB in PDF format through a search engine, but there is currently no link to the PDF format (only to the other formats), so I am putting a copy here for you: Lexham English Bible in PDF. It's 2.7MB.

Things get better when you follow the link from the LEB downloads page to the website of the Society for Biblical Literature (SBL) to get the LEB Reverse Interlinear (woohoo!) - that's an interlinear Bible which uses the English word order. The English text is from the LEB and the Greek is from the SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT). It also gives the transliteration for those who don't read Greek, and the Strong's number for each word. Every English word is linked to the original Greek, so you can see where it's coming from. Here's what it looks like (click on it for detail):

Any biblical Greek student has got to be excited about this!

Now that we're onto the SBL website, let me point out some of its great treasures:

1. the SBLGNT is free in various electronic formats (including PDF), and it has critical apparatus to let you know where every word is coming from (i.e. which manuscript compilation);
2. the reverse interlinear New Testament (mentioned above);
3. a fantastic Greek-English 'glossary' as an appendix to the reverse interlinear. Click here for the Strongs Greek-English Glossary.
4. SBL Hebrew keyboard drivers. The one called SIL is the best thing since sliced bread! It's terrific because it matches the Hebrew letters and vowel points logically to the letters of our alphabet. For example, if you want a dalet you press D, and for a lamed you press L. The silent letters aleph and ayin take silent characters (> and < respectively), and the vowels also make sense: press I for a chiriq, O for a cholam, and so on.
5. Book reviews (free e-mail subscription) - a great way to keep abreast of books published;
6. SBL academic journal (not free);
7. SBL Greek and Hebrew fonts.

What do John 3:16 and Romans 11:26 have in common?

What do John 3:16 and Romans 11:26 have in common? Most Christians are familiar with John 3:16 which in the NIV reads,

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 11:26 in the NIV reads,

And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
   “The deliverer will come from Zion;
    he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.

Look only at the words to see what is in common; don't worry about anything else. There is one very innocent little word these two verses share in most English translations, including this 1994 NIV: "so". It seems a rather insignificant word. But now look at the 2010 NIV for the latter verse (emphasis added):

and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written:
   “The deliverer will come from Zion;
   he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.

The NIV has changed. So what? Who gives a houtos? Let's take a closer look at the word so which just changed to in this way.

The Greek word here is οὕτως (houtos) which is an adverb meaning "in this manner". Sometimes the word "so" is used for this in English. For example, "Do it like so" means "Do it in this manner." The correct reading of John 3:16 should therefore begin, "For in this manner God loved the world..." In what manner? The answer comes from the previous two verses! In the same manner that Moses lifted up on a pole the serpent in the wilderness and everyone who looked to it was saved from the serpents (see Numbers 21:8-9), God would have Jesus lifted up on a cross, and everyone who looks to him will be saved from his sins.

So (no pun intended), John 3:16 is not saying that God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son. It is saying that God loved the world so! (in the manner described in verses 14-15), giving his one and only Son in the same way. Yet the overwhelming majority of English translations continue with the traditional "For God so loved..." which is misleading to modern English speakers. The LEB and NET are two examples of modern translations that have forsaken the "so", producing "For in this way God loved..." and "For this is the way God loved..." respectively.

How do we apply this to Romans 11:26? We saw above that the 2010 NIV has made the change to "in this way" here, though not in John 3:16. Paul is arguing that the manner in which all Israel will be saved is through the partial hardening of Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in (into the Kingdom of God, that is, verse 25). I am not going to expound the scripture here, but the nutshell version is that the church in Rome was not to boast over Jews who didn't believe in Jesus and therefore had not entered into the Kingdom (verses 17-22). He says that God is able to restore Israel (bringing them to faith in Jesus), and that this will happen through the fullness of the Gentiles coming in (verses 23-25).

It is sad to see so many English Bibles using the word so when in this manner is clearly a better translation. One little word can make a world of difference!