John Dominic Crossan in In Search of Paul writes “Recall what has already been said about Roman imperial theology, the emperor cult, and especially Thessalonica under Claudius as Paul arrived at that city for the first time. Piety engendered Victory, and she engendered Peace in both Roman theology and Thessalonian history. Against that background, one of the most striking aspects of 1 Thessalonians is the number of Pauline terms that were religio-political in a world where those two aspects of power were never separate at any depth. We often hear those words today in English as distinctively novel or even uniquely Christian, but first century ears would have heard them very differently in their original Greek. They were expressions absolutely guaranteed to prick up Romanized ears and raise Romanized eyebrows. And, when they were heard, they would have engendered serious suspicion about Pauline intentions.”
John Dominic Crossan in In Search of Paul writes “Recall what has already been said about Roman imperial theology, the emperor cult, and especially Thessalonica under Claudius as Paul arrived at that city for the first time. Piety engendered Victory, and she engendered Peace in both Roman theology and Thessalonian history. Against that background, one of the most striking aspects of 1 Thessalonians is the number of Pauline terms that were religio-political in a world where those two aspects of power were never separate at any depth. We often hear those words today in English as distinctively novel or even uniquely Christian, but first century ears would have heard them very differently in their original Greek. They were expressions absolutely guaranteed to prick up Romanized ears and raise Romanized eyebrows. And, when they were heard, they would have engendered serious suspicion about Pauline intentions.”
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