the imitation hypothesis 217
all these observations require an explanation:43 how is it possible
that a letter writer of the first century ce broke with the conventions of
his time? how is it possible that paul with his weaver-background sud-
denly decides to write a letter that shows an unusually high amount—for
him—of terms with legal connotations in his dealings with community
matters? of course one could suggest that paul “had a bad day” or had
spent a couple of days with friends from a scribal bureau (for the sake of
an example) and was influenced by their choice of language. But by tak-
ing documentary papyri, individual style, and letter conventions seriously,
I rather suggest that 2 Thessalonians was not written by paul but by an
author who tried to imitate paul, even to the extent of his individual style,
but who occasionally exaggerated and thereby failed.
all the above mentioned particularities can be plausibly explained and
understood by suggesting that an author other than paul aimed to adopt
and imitate paul’s thoughts and phrases and to present them as genuinely
pauline.44 In his attempt to imitate paul, the author broke—more likely
subconsciously than consciously—with conventions of his time. The
observations made above allow for the deduction that in his attempt to
imitate paul, the author of 2 Thessalonians overlooked the fact that paul’s
individual style still remained within the typical ways of how to write a
letter in the first century ce. while paul is a skilled letter writer, able to
present conventions in his individual style and to form ideas for his own
purpose within these boundaries, the author of 2 Thessalonians exagger-
ates and thereby fails. Both these observations, the author’s exaggeration
in the imitation of paul and his breaking with epistolary conventions as
shown in documentary papyri, lead to the conclusion that 2 Thessalonians
is a pseudepigraphic writing.
as part of this hypothesis, one could also argue that pseudepigraphy
may be strongly suspected wherever common and well-known words,
43 an explanation is in order regardless of whether one thinks that paul was the
author or not, cf. hans-Josef klauck, Die antike Briefliteratur und das Neue Testament: Ein
Lehr- und Arbeitsbuch (uTB 2022; paderborn: f. schöningh, 1998), 300. glenn s. holland,
“ ‘a letter supposedly from us’: a contribution to the discussion about the authorship of
2 Thessalonians,” in raymond f. collins (ed.), The Thessalonian Correspondence (BeTl 87;
leuven: university press, 1990), 402, states that “the authorship of 2 Thessalonians is a truly
open question. whatever position one takes on the question must be substantiated, both
by the mustering of evidence in favor of that position and the refutation of the arguments
against it.”
44 cf. Trilling, Der zweite Brief an die Thessalonicher, 23; daryl d. schmidt, “The syn-
tactical style of 2 Thessalonians: how pauline is It?” in collins (ed.), The Thessalonian
Correspondence, 388.