Paul --- The Wrath to Come

[Blood]

So you're argument for "interpolation" is that 1 The 2:16 is in the present tense, while all other references to the "wrath" are in future tense?

There is not only the present perfect tense of the last sentence. The εἰς τἐλος at the end of the paragraph can as well be translated as ‘completely’ of ‘for ever’, making reference to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple probable. But most of all there is the issue of collective guilt of ‘the Jews’ as a people for the death of Jesus, and the punishment for that alleged crime through the near-annihilation of the Jewish nation.

See also 2Thess 2:3-5 that stages Titus as the man of lawlessness, the son of perdition.

Tenses are handled very strangely in all the Pauline epistles. The writer(s) often leave the reader in a total fog as to dates, times, etc. I wouldn't put too much trust in citing something as an interpolation because the tenses of one vague allusion didn't agree with other letters' vague allusions.

[iskander]

So you're argument for "interpolation" is that 1 The 2:16 is in the present tense, while all other references to the "wrath" are in future tense?

There is not only the present perfect tense of the last sentence. The εἰς τἐλος at the end of the paragraph can as well be translated as ‘completely’ of ‘for ever’, making reference to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple probable. But most of all there is the issue of collective guilt of ‘the Jews’ as a people for the death of Jesus, and the punishment for that alleged crime through the near-annihilation of the Jewish nation.

See also 2Thess 2:3-5 that stages Titus as the man of lawlessness, the son of perdition.

http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo ... rashi=true

Isa 13.9
9.Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel with wrath and burning anger, to make the land desolate, and its sinners He shall destroy from it
There is plenty of " wrath " in the OT long before 70 AD

[lsayre]

I thought that the Marcionite God of Paul was not a god of wrath. Would the God of wrath in Paul's letters be the God of the OT? Or might Pauline references to wrath be interpolations? Or are letters referencing wrath of sudo-Pauline authorship?

[davidbrainerd]

I thought that the Marcionite God of Paul was not a god of wrath. Would the God of wrath in Paul's letters be the God of the OT?

Could be. They are presumably OT references. Jesus is not mentioned as being the executioner of the wrath....except the one below:

Or might Pauline references to wrath be interpolations? Or are letters referencing wrath of sudo-Pauline authorship?

The one having Jesus taking vengeance in flaming fire (2 Thess 1) is probably interpolation (assuming the epistle itself to be genuine...which I doubt in the extreme).

[davidbrainerd]

I don't believe things are as simple as that. 1 Thess 2:16 does not speak of the wrath to come, but about God's wrath which has already come. 1 Thess 2:14-16 is a post-70 interpolation, in contradiction with the future wrath which Paul frequently mentions in his original pre-70 writings (see the OP above).

I believe we should try to understand the main current of Paul's writings, and this main current is fundamentally oriented to the future: the wrath to come, the future day of the Lord, the future coming of the Christ, impending distress, groaning in travail, hoping and waiting.

So you're argument for "interpolation" is that 1 The 2:16 is in the present tense, while all other references to the "wrath" are in future tense?

Not just 16 but 14-16 would be the interpolation.

"For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus:" if Galatians is authentic, this is not. Paul loves his independence and how the Jerusalem "whatever they ares" "added nothing to me" but he taught his churches to be followers or imitators of the churches in Judea? Come on.

"for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost."

There is no way to seperate off verse 16 here, the entirety of 15 is there only to justify 16 so both fall together.

[Ben C. Smith]

I don't believe things are as simple as that. 1 Thess 2:16 does not speak of the wrath to come, but about God's wrath which has already come. 1 Thess 2:14-16 is a post-70 interpolation, in contradiction with the future wrath which Paul frequently mentions in his original pre-70 writings (see the OP above).

I believe we should try to understand the main current of Paul's writings, and this main current is fundamentally oriented to the future: the wrath to come, the future day of the Lord, the future coming of the Christ, impending distress, groaning in travail, hoping and waiting.

So you're argument for "interpolation" is that 1 The 2:16 is in the present tense, while all other references to the "wrath" are in future tense?

Not just 16 but 14-16 would be the interpolation.

"For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus:" if Galatians is authentic, this is not. Paul loves his independence and how the Jerusalem "whatever they ares" "added nothing to me" but he taught his churches to be followers or imitators of the churches in Judea? Come on.

Some would argue that 1 Thessalonians preceded Galatians, so Paul was still fine with cooperating with the Judean churches and the Jerusalem church, finding it counterproductive to do so only after the fallout described in Galatians. (I have no horse in this race; I am just passing on a reconstruction I have seen before, one which finds development in the epistles instead of a static state of affairs.)

[davidbrainerd]

Some would argue that 1 Thessalonians preceded Galatians, so Paul was still fine with cooperating with the Judean churches and the Jerusalem church, finding it counterproductive to do so only after the fallout described in Galatians. (I have no horse in this race; I am just passing on a reconstruction I have seen before, one which finds development in the epistles instead of a static state of affairs.)

I see development too. A Paul with no interest in Matt 24 type escatology to one who is being harmonized to it by the Thessalonian letters.

[John2]

David wrote:

For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus:" if Galatians is authentic, this is not. Paul loves his independence and how the Jerusalem "whatever they ares" "added nothing to me" but he taught his churches to be followers or imitators of the churches in Judea? Come on.

My impression is that Paul means that the Galatians were imitators of the churches in Judea in the sense of suffering from their own people like the Judean churches suffered from Jews.

1 Thess. 2:14:

For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews ...

As for 2:15-16, it explicates the suffering of the churches mentioned in 2:14:

... who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.

This suffering is in keeping with what Paul says in 2 Cor. 11:22-26 (and Paul's own persecution of the churches prior to his conversion):

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones ... I have been in danger ... from my fellow Jews ...

Regarding the "wrath of God" part, I suppose it depends on when Paul died and when the letter was written. I think 1 Thess. could be genuine and (going against the consensus) one of Paul's last letters given its concern with believers who have died in 4:13-26, perhaps as late as c. 66 CE (around the time that Josephus' Saulus is last mentioned, who is arguably Paul, as per Eisenman), which could explain the "wrath of God" part.

[Blood]

So you're argument for "interpolation" is that 1 The 2:16 is in the present tense, while all other references to the "wrath" are in future tense?

There is not only the present perfect tense of the last sentence. The εἰς τἐλος at the end of the paragraph can as well be translated as ‘completely’ of ‘for ever’, making reference to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple probable. But most of all there is the issue of collective guilt of ‘the Jews’ as a people for the death of Jesus, and the punishment for that alleged crime through the near-annihilation of the Jewish nation.

See also 2Thess 2:3-5 that stages Titus as the man of lawlessness, the son of perdition.

http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo ... rashi=true

Isa 13.9
9.Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel with wrath and burning anger, to make the land desolate, and its sinners He shall destroy from it
There is plenty of " wrath " in the OT long before 70 AD

Good point. The Pauline writers could have simply been imitating the literary styles of the LXX; no real or imagined "wrath of God" was necessary.

[DCHindley]

According to BibleWorks 8, the word ὀργή ("orgē," and yes, it is the word from which we get "orgy" and "orgasm," which literally refers to a "natural impulse or propension: one's temper, temperament, disposition, nature," often translated anger, wrath, indignation) occurs in some grammatical form some 339 times in he NT and the Greek Lxx translation(s) of the Hebrew (including Apocrypha), 63 times in the OT Greek Pseudepigrapha, and 70 times in Philo.

In the NT, it occurs once each in Matthew, Mark & John, twice in Luke, eleven times in Romans, three times in Ephesians, twice in Colossians, three times in 1 Thessalonians, once in 1 Timothy, twice in Hebrews, twice in James, and six times in Revelation.

The Greek word ὀργή should not be confused with θυμός (thumos, 1. a strong passion of soul or mind wrath, rage; used for divine, satanic, and human wrath; 2. in contrast with ὀργή as settled indignation, θ. is used of anger that boils up and subsides again, swelling up of anger, hot temper, angry outburst)

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Mark 3:5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

Luke 3:7 He said therefore to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Luke 21:23 Alas for those who are with child and for those who give suck in those days! For great distress shall be upon the earth and wrath upon this people;

John 3:36 He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.

In the Paulines, which I have studied in detail for a long while now, I have bracketed verses or parts of verses that contain the word orgē that I feel are the additions of an editor who had reworked some letters that originally had nothing to do with Jesus Christ. So, here I see two uses of the same Greek word, but meant in differing senses. The writer of the original letters was thinking of the "Day of the LORD" when he rights all the wrongs inflicted upon the people Israel by the other nations. The Editor, in contrast, used the word to allude to the wrath of God which directed the destruction of the Judean nation and temple by the Romans.

Romans 1:18 [For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth.]

Romans 2:5 But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

Romans 2:8 but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.

Romans 3:5 [But if our wickedness serves to show the justice of God, what shall we say?] That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.)

Romans 4:15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

Romans 5:9 [Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood], much more shall we be saved [by him] from the wrath of God.

Romans 9:22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction,

Romans 12:19 [Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."]

Romans 13:4 [for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer.]

Romans 13:5 [Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience.]

Ephesians 2:3 Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Ephesians 4:31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice,

Ephesians 5:6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

Colossians 3:6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming.

Colossians 3:8 But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth.

1 Thessalonians 1:10 [and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus] who delivers us from the wrath to come.

1 Thessalonians 2:16 [by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved -- so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God's wrath has come upon them at last!]

1 Thessalonians 5:9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation [through our Lord Jesus Christ,]

1 Timothy 2:8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling;

The bracketing must stop here as I have not made an in-depth study of Hebrews.

Hebrews 3:11 As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall never enter my rest.'"

Hebrews 4:3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, "As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall never enter my rest,'" although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.

Now, to return to our regular programming:

James 1:19 Know this, my beloved brethren. Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger,

James 1:20 for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.

Revelation 6:16 calling to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb;

Revelation 6:17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand before it?"

Revelation 11:18 The nations raged, but thy wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, for rewarding thy servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear thy name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth."

Revelation 14:10 he also shall drink the wine of God's wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and he shall be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

Revelation 16:19 The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered great Babylon, to make her drain the cup of the fury of his wrath.

Revelation 19:15 From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

DCH