The Bible: Is the Author God, Man or Both?

Sorry for the delay. I needed to take a few days off from the computer. It very clearly talks about WHEN and HOW the return of Christ will occur which is the point. Paul is telling them that those who have already died will be raised up before those who are still alive and all of them together will meet in the sky. This is addressed to "we who are alive". It is a very uncomplicated statement.and more: Paul says very clearly not only that it will be sudden and unexpected, but that these are things that the Thessalonians already know and should STILL expect. Like I said, He is doubling down! Thats not the point. As I laid out above, he also is making a claim about the proximity of events. THAT is the major difference between 1 and 2 Thessalonians.He is very clearly assuaging the doubts of the Thessalonians who are operating under the impression (that he affirms their prior knowledge of) that they will personally witness the return of Christ. Most importantly, is how Paul deals with this situation differently in 1 versus 2 Thessalonians.Lets move on to your quote from 2 Thessalonians. Which very much seems like a reference to 1 Thessalonians! At the very least, 2 Thessalonians is speaking very directly about a previous FALSE impression given to the Thessalonians about the nearness of the end times which it purports to correct.But why did you stop the quote there? Keep going! So he is DIRECLTY saying that the Thessalonians have false information available to them that he is trying to correct concerning the timing of the coming of the lord and the very first thing he says concerning the correction he is offering is about how it is conditioned upon world events!How much more contradictory can you get to "While people are saying, There is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman"?1 Thessalonians directly says that people will be lulled by peace. 2 Thessalonians says that first there will be conflict. I don't know how you could possibly come to this interpretation when the quote YOU pulled from 2 Thessalonians is referencing eschatology directly. The author is very specifically saying outright that he is talking about an alternative, correct accounting of the end times in contrast to some other information that the Thessalonians were currently relying on. Your own quote refutes you!But all of this is just to get you to reflect on this notion of context. When you say the word "context" you seem to mean, "the tool I use to create harmony when confronted with conflict." This is disingenuous.A true contextual approach to understanding some reflection of god in the text would take into account the fact that 1 and 2 Thessalonians are contradictory accounts of how early Christians perceived god. It would take into account the reasons for why early writers felt the need to lie about who they were to get their message out. Bear in mind, they didn't just take the name of Paul.

Sure if read with the mindset of a 21st century fundamentalist, but I don’t accept it as I believe it would be understood by a 1st century Jew. I realize that Luke wrote to a large degree for a Gentile audience but it was still written within a strong Jewish backdrop. Who knows what the ascension might have looked like but IMHO Luke never intended it to mean that Jesus moved on to some other physical location.Here is Stephen P Davis’s view as a Christian scholar: The Meaning of the AsensionOK. Here is Matthew 24: 29-31:

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29 "Immediately after the distress of those days " 'the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.' 30 "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

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Matthew in verse 29 is referring back to Isaiah 13:10. The quote from Isaiah is talking about the destruction of Babylon. The language in that verse is about large and violent political and social disruptions.In verse 30 Matthew is referencing Daniel 7. I’ll requote the relevant passage.

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9 "As I looked, "thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. 10 A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened. 11 "Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire. 12 (The other beasts had been stripped of their authority, but were allowed to live for a period of time.) 13 "In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

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Matthew 30 again is referring back to Daniel 7.When you read the first part of this quote it is obvious that this is not an earthly court. It is obviously a heavenly court that I agree is a symbolic vision. However that does not meant that there it isn’t meant to be taken as metaphoric.In that light it is obvious that the Son of Man has come into the presence of the Ancient of Days in this heavenly, not earthly, setting. The end of the passage is talks about the Kingdom that was established at that time which would be for all peoples and that would never pass away.In verse 31 Matthew is continuing the theme of verse 30 and also obliquely referring back to Exodus 19 with Yahweh speaking to Moses from a cloud, note the cloud reference again), and with Moses coming down the mountain presenting God to the Israelites. Here is part of that reference:

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16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, 19 and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder.

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Matthew has tied together these 3 passages of the Hebrew Scriptures to explain what is and has happened. Matthew was likely written around the time of or just after the 66-70 AD war. The first verse is about the horrendous suffering and destruction of the Jewish nation at the hands of the Romans which is what Jesus said would happen if they didn’t give up their revolutionary ways. In a sense also he is using this verse as a vindication of Christ’s message of love your enemy which at the time was meant a message of how they should deal with the Romans.He then by referring back to Daniel Matthew is saying that it is Jesus who was the Son of Man in Daniel’s vision and that the Kingdom of God, (or Kingdom of Heaven as Matthew writes), has been established for the world.In verse 31 he is now saying that God is speaking to them through Jesus and through the Kingdom itself. (Unfortunately the Kingdom is made up of very fallible humans and as a result we are left with a very muddles message. However the scriptural message is that God has given humans responsibility for the stewardship of the planet and so we are the best He has to work with. ) OK. My position is that if they were just mundane events then there would be no motivation for them to bother recording anything about the events in the first place. This is pretty much beside the main point we are discussing, but it is really interesting. He obviously abandoned the movement but I think it goes deeper than that. I see Judas as likely being something of a zealot and as a result would have seen Jesus as a threat to his revolutionary goals There were so many factions in the Jewish world at that time and it would have taken a huge change in the outlet of pretty much any Jew at that time to accept Jesus’ message of love, particularly when applied to the Romans. Personally I have some sympathy for his POV and could even see that he believed that he was acting like a patriot. Of course the whole issue of being paid for the betrayal muddies the whole situation. This is all conjecture, but by the time that the movement had actually grown some legs the world outside of the movement would have been more inclined to write about the followers of the movement than about Jesus Himself. The other thing to remember is that even today newspapers write about large scale political and violent events. A group of what were essentially pacifists wouldn’t be particularly noteworthy.As we have no record of the earliest Christian writings except for Luke’s reference to them at the beginning of his Gospel we will never know for sure about what Paul had access to. Paul doesn’t reference them but it seems to me that if he thought that some of what did exist was in error then he likely would have felt a need to correct any errors. As he didn’t reference them they maybe we can conclude that he accepted them and felt no need to reference them. A agree that we have no idea of what the sources were, but as Luke agrees to having many sources and as the other Gospels, with the possible exception of Mark, obviously use some of the same sources then I think it is a pretty safe assumption. Frankly, I feel particularly unqualified to discuss the existence or non-existence of the Q document. I am an avid reader of N T Wright and he is sceptical of the existence of Q although he isn’t adamant about that position. That is about as far as I can go. I agree, as I thought that I’d made clear, that There's nothing in Paul's experience that speaks of cognitive dissonance especially. I’d even go further and say that his desire would have been for Jesus to be dead and remain that way.As for the disciples I agree that their deeply held beliefs seem to have failed but I don’t agree that we have a clear understanding of what those deeply held beliefs were. There is certainly within the Gospels the idea that the disciples never really did seem to get their head around Christ’s message until after the events around the resurrection and ascension. Yes they believed Jesus was the Messiah but a messiah was supposed to establish Jewish rule and rebuild the Temple. They never seemed to be able to get their heads around the idea that this would be that the Messiah would rule and the Temple would be rebuilt but in a way for which they had little if any comprehension.My point is, if the whole narrative was born from the cognitive dissonance of the disciples we would be looking at a very different narrative and in my view a very short lived one. I think that is valid point, but I just disagree that a Gospel accounts that is put together of various sources decades after the event are going to have variations in things like timing and locations. I would be much more suspicious of accounts written under those circumstances that lined up completely. I think I have responded to all of your points, but if I missed something then let me know. I’m also not sure where the wilful ignorance comes, but I am of the opinion that once we accept the argument for theism that I outlined in the OP then I find my view the more plausible of the two, Having said that though our views are coloured by our positions prior to our having this dialogue.Cheers

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Here is Stephen P Davis’s view as a Christian scholar: The Meaning of the Asension

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...who claims that Jesus rose literally into the sky... Which rather undermines any claim that the text does not mean that....

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In that light it is obvious that the Son of Man has come into the presence of the Ancient of Days in this heavenly, not earthly, setting. The end of the passage is talks about the Kingdom that was established at that time which would be for all peoples and that would never pass away.

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In other wordes the court which condemns the Earthly and metaphorical beasts and which talks about a Kingdom to be established on Earth must be referring to literal events in heaven? That's hardly something that's clearly established...The rest is just a long winded way of it ignoring the inconvenient point that in Matthew the Son of Man's arrival is seen by the people of the Earth. So obviously it must be an arrival on Earth, not Heaven.

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OK. My position is that if they were just mundane events then there would be no motivation for them to bother recording anything about the events in the first place.

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Of course we have no direct records of the events, just greatly elaborated accounts, so to a very large degree you are agreeing with me.

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This is pretty much beside the main point we are discussing, but it is really interesting. He obviously abandoned the movement but I think it goes deeper than that. I see Judas as likely being something of a zealot and as a result would have seen Jesus as a threat to his revolutionary goals There were so many factions in the Jewish world at that time and it would have taken a huge change in the outlet of pretty much any Jew at that time to accept Jesus’ message of love, particularly when applied to the Romans. Personally I have some sympathy for his POV and could even see that he believed that he was acting like a patriot. Of course the whole issue of being paid for the betrayal muddies the whole situation.

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And that is even more speculative than my ideas. For a start as far as I know the only link between Judas and the zealots is the idea that Iscariot is a corruption of sicarius. And Jesus message, even in the Gospels is rather mixed (telling his Disciples to arm themselves, for instance). And if he had a known zealot as a lieutenant then the whole idea of Jesus' pacifism becomes even more questionable.

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As we have no record of the earliest Christian writings except for Luke’s reference to them at the beginning of his Gospel we will never know for sure about what Paul had access to. Paul doesn’t reference them but it seems to me that if he thought that some of what did exist was in error then he likely would have felt a need to correct any errors. As he didn’t reference them they maybe we can conclude that he accepted them and felt no need to reference them.

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Of course Paul would be highly likely to reference teachings of Jesus relating to any subject that he was talking about of he DID agree with them.... And if there was a significant body of teachings circulating I find it hard to believe that Paul would have objected to NONE of them. So it seems that the evidence suggests that there wasn't much at that time.

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Frankly, I feel particularly unqualified to discuss the existence or non-existence of the Q document. I am an avid reader of N T Wright and he is sceptical of the existence of Q although he isn’t adamant about that position. That is about as far as I can go.

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My position is a little skeptical too, because I don't find the argument that Luke would NOT have gone against Matthew entirely convincing any more. Not since I found that Luke's version of the Olivet Discourse disagrees quite sharply with Mark.However it is clear that replacing Q with Matthew does not INCREASE the number of sources used by Luke, so your argument really misses the issue.

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I agree, as I thought that I’d made clear, that There's nothing in Paul's experience that speaks of cognitive dissonance especially. I’d even go further and say that his desire would have been for Jesus to be dead and remain that way.

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I would say that that is an oversimplification. However I think it concedes the point at issue. Paul had a highly convincing experience that did not rely on a physical resurrection.

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I think that is valid point, but I just disagree that a Gospel accounts that is put together of various sources decades after the event are going to have variations in things like timing and locations. I would be much more suspicious of accounts written under those circumstances that lined up completely.

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I agree with the point but not the application. Luke seems quite determined to deny that there were any appearances in Galilee, while Matthew doesn't even hint at any post-resurrection appearances in Jerusalem at all (and Mark also implies that the appearances will be in Galilee). Galilee would be about a week's journey away, and I can't believe that if Jesus had appeared to the Disciples before they could leave and told them to remain in the vicinity of Jerusalem it would have been completely forgotten by the community that produced Matthew.

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I think I have responded to all of your points, but if I missed something then let me know. I’m also not sure where the wilful ignorance comes, but I am of the opinion that once we accept the argument for theism that I outlined in the OP then I find my view the more plausible of the two, Having said that though our views are coloured by our positions prior to our having this dialogue.

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The argument for theism is pretty poor, and doesn't give any credence to the idea that impressive events would be so poorly remembered. So I'd say that you've got three bad arguments there.

As I said earlier I believe that the point is to reassure them that those who have already died will be ok. As I said the goal of this is to reassure the Thessalonians. As far as the meeting in the sky is concerned it is just Paul painting an apocalyptic picture of what it will look like when Christ returns at the end of time as we know it. He isn’t talking about when that will happen. What Paul is doing is about the same thing as it would be for one of us trying to explain colour to someone who is blind. His reference to sky is to be understood symbolically. I think it is much more complex than that. Paul IMHO is paralleling two themes here. He is saying that they live in difficult times. He is saying that in their circumstances there is no peace and security in their day to day lives. He then goes on to say that they are day time people and that they should rise above the squabbles of the day and as he says in 5:8 they are to clothe themselves with the breast plate of faith and love, and the helmet of the hope of salvation. Throughout human history there have been those who have said that the end of the world is near and I suspect that will go on for thousands of years into the future. Sure there were those who thought that His return was imminent and they were concerned about those who had already died. Paul is simply reassuring them that there is no need to worry and to get on with things. I disagree. I’ll quote it again.

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Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, 2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.

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I already explained of how by the term Day of the Lord, in this case, he is referring to major political and social upheaval, specifically in this case in this case to the anticipated response by the Romans to militant Jewish nationalists.It is obvious that he can’t be referring to Christ’s return. They have obviously heard either by spirit, spoken word and/or letter that the Day of the Lord had already happened. If the Day of the Lord was understood as meaning the return of Christ then they wouldn’t have needed a letter to either tell them that it had happened or, for that matter, that it hadn’t happened. As to your last point I agree simply because it is talking about two distinctly different events.I see Paul saying that in times of peace they should be lulled into a false sense of security because there will still be conflict ahead in their turbulent world. In Thessalonians 2 Paul is saying that there will be conflict, meaning specifically the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem before Christ comes again. Beyond that time Paul doesn’t comment.Where we disagree, (I think) at this point is that the question of the immediate return of Jesus is a direct result of Paul’s first letter. I don’t see anything in the first letter that indicated any timing for the event. There was just an obvious concern for those who had already died.I agree that it is difficult as there seems to be no hard and fast understanding of the term Day of the Lord. It is sometimes used eschatologically, but it is also often used to denote cataclysmic events perpetrated by humans.It appears in Thessalonians 2 that there was now some more immediate speculation about circumstances because they had in one way or another received word that the Roman invasion of Jerusalem had begun and Paul was correcting the misinformation.In summary I’ll just say this. I think that in understanding the Gospels in modern times there has been a mistaken mixing of Jesus’ eschatological teaching and His political message to the Jews in particular and more generally to the Gentiles.He taught that the revolutionary ways of many Jews would only lead to destruction, and that the only way to solve the problem was by understanding that the war was not against Rome but against evil itself. He preached that the way of overcoming evil is through His message of love of neighbour, be it friend or foe. He taught that destruction was imminent and would happen within the life times of many that were hearing His message.His eschatological message was quite different. (No one will know the hour or the minute and He included Himself in that.) His eschatological message was for the world and forecast a future resurrected existence in which there will a great act of re-creation characterized by perfect love and justice for all.I apologise for this being somewhat disjointed as I’ve had to leave and come back to it several times.

Only in a very loose sense. Here is the pertinent section.

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But I am much inclined to think that Luke and the other New Testament writers who spoke of hell below and heaven above were speaking metaphorically. The same is largely true for us today. People still loosely talk of heaven "above" and hell "below" without being committed to any sort of outmoded cosmology. Luke himself strongly implies that something other than a literal "going up to heaven" is involved here, for clouds are mentioned in his Ascension account ("a cloud took him out of their sight" [Acts 1:9]), and clouds are biblical symbols of the presence of God (Exodus 19:9, Daniel 7:13, Mark 9:7).

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The Ascension of Jesus was primarily a change of state rather than a change of location. So I think what Luke was literally saying was that Jesus was passing from the presence of the disciples into the presence of God. Many Christians identify the cloud that Luke mentions with the Shekinah, the Old Testament sign of the glory of God (Exodus 19:16, 40:34-38). We see this sign of the presence of God at the tabernacle (Numbers 9:15), at Solomon's temple (II Chronicles 5:13), and at the transfiguration of Jesus (Mark 9:7). See also Matthew 26:64, where Jesus tells the high priest, "From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven" (cf. Revelation 1:7).

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the earth, and then kept moving until he got to heaven, as if heaven were located somewhere in space. The Ascension of Jesus was primarily a change of state rather than a change of location. Jesus changed in the Ascension from being present in the realm of space and time to being present in the realm of eternity, in the transcendent heavenly realm. I will merely add that philosophers and scientists alike, quite apart from theological considerations, have discussed models that involve passing from one space-time manifold to another, and such a concept seems to be coherent.13

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In Daniel 7 vs 2 Daniel said that in his vision by night the for winds of heaven were stirring up a great sea. (Sea was symbolic symbol of evil or hell.) He then goes on to say that the 4 beasts were coming out of the sea.
All of this is apocalyptic Jewish writing at its finest and when it talks about the throne of The Ancient of Days it can only be talking about a heavenly vision. It also does go on in verse 27 to say that all of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest one.....
In addition when you read the explanation for the vision from verse 15 on it is clear that this vision is something that will take place over a large span of time, whereas Daniel observed it all through this vision in a very short span of time. It is obvious that Daniel understood this vision as being a vision through the veil that separates God’s world from our own. Matthew did not IMHO mean it to be understood that way. Verse 30 starts off with saying that the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky which is Jewish apocalyptic and symbolic language for Jesus’ vindication as seen in His resurrection nd ascension. Not really. In the first place we have direct records in the Gospels which we can accept or reject and I don’t agree that they are greatly elaborated accounts. Jesus’ choice for disciples was a rather mixed bag which included a tax collector who had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. I see no reason for Him not to include a zealot. The idea was that hearts were to be changed and it looks as though Judas’ wasn’t. Presumably different churches would have different documents and Paul seems like the kinda guy who would like to have the message delivered in his words not someone else’s. He did, as we can see in my discussion with Jazzns correct correspondence in his 2nd letter to the Thessalonians but that didn’t seem to have anything directly to do with the teachings of Jesus. It is however a valid point. To be frank, I really didn’t have much of a point, but Luke does say that he has drawn on many sources. Sure, but even Paul writes that all that he is saying and doing is a waste of time if Jesus wasn’t resurrected. I get that and it is a good point. I just on balance find the evidence for the bodily resurrection as I have outlined it more compelling. Life is a funny thing. It is all about perceptions. You and I can look at the same books and experience the same world through similar cultures and yet come to diametrically opposed conclusions. I see theism as being the only truly plausible conclusion to come to for the reasons that you find totally unconvincing. The whole Christian story just makes so much sense of my life and the world as I experience it. I certainly have many questions but I have extremely little doubt of the truth of the essential tenets Christianity. I know that you are equally convinced of yours.I’ll be sure to look you up in the next life and we can compare notes as to who was right and who was wrong over some brew or whatever we’ll be drinking then.

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Only in a very loose sense. Here is the pertinent section.

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In fact a large part of the article is dedicated to arguing that the event occurred as Luke describes it. Davis doesn't argue that the text is symbolic - he argues that the event was symbolic. You cannot have read the article without realising that. So not in a "loose sense" at all. Davis directly claims that Luke's account must be taken as literally true.The next point concerning Daniel goes nowhere, making no point to be answered.

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Matthew did not IMHO mean it to be understood that way. Verse 30 starts off with saying that the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky which is Jewish apocalyptic and symbolic language for Jesus’ vindication as seen in His resurrection nd ascension.

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I think that you are confusing Jewish and Christian thought here. And I note that you offer nothing to support your opinion either.

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Not really. In the first place we have direct records in the Gospels which we can accept or reject and I don’t agree that they are greatly elaborated accounts.

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Since it is well-known that all the Gospels were written decades after the fact and only the last written, John, is even plausibly written by someone who was there, to call them "direct accounts" seems extremely dubious. And your argument against elaboration seems to be that none of the actual appearances were anything more than unimportant details anyway....

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Jesus’ choice for disciples was a rather mixed bag which included a tax collector who had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. I see no reason for Him not to include a zealot. The idea was that hearts were to be changed and it looks as though Judas’ wasn’t.

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A tax collector (especially in the Roman system where they were freelance contractors) need not have a strong commitment to maintaining the system (in fact, so long as he could afford it, he could have done a lot to mitigate the worse parts of the system). This does not compare to someone with a strong religious devotion to expelling the Romans...

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Presumably different churches would have different documents and Paul seems like the kinda guy who would like to have the message delivered in his words not someone else’s. He did, as we can see in my discussion with Jazzns correct correspondence in his 2nd letter to the Thessalonians but that didn’t seem to have anything directly to do with the teachings of Jesus. It is however a valid point.

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Referring to documents to back up his words wouldn't stop him using his own words. So this argument doesn't make much of a case.

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To be frank, I really didn’t have much of a point, but Luke does say that he has drawn on many sources.

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Unles you wish to count Matthew as more sources than Q, Luke's claim has no relevance to the existence of Q at all.

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Sure, but even Paul writes that all that he is saying and doing is a waste of time if Jesus wasn’t resurrected.

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Which tells us at most that Paul believed in some resurrection.

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I get that and it is a good point. I just on balance find the evidence for the bodily resurrection as I have outlined it more compelling.

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If all the evidence can be better explained without invoking miracles - and it can - how can you have compelling evidence for a miracle?

The main point wasn't about the imagery, it was about the specificity and the quote concerning "we who are alive". I'll note that you are doing here exactly what I talked about at the end of my last post concerning context. It is not a tool for creating harmony. Context is far more important in how it illuminates the differences and reasons for differences in the text.Even if you are pious, it doesn't serve you to try to weave these justifications. For example, look at how someone like Bruce Metzger approached it. For him, the higher criticism was illuminating. I almost took a position similar to his before I found other reasons to toss the faith. Why does everything have to be congruent? Aren't you making a more nuanced faith more inaccessible by this? You are completely ignoring the "thief in the night" and "sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman". This means something and if you take it ... in context ... you see that Paul is clearly talking about eschatology. Which is why some anonymous forger wrote 2 Thessalonians. Because Paul clearly was one of those who said that the end of the world is near and he was wrong.Why can't we just take the plain reading and just realize that Paul was wrong? Why is that in and of itself so controversial to you? Would that, if it were true, reduce the character of god revealed in his writings?Moving on ... lets stop splitting up 2 Thessalonian: Please answer these questionsWhat is the "letter seeming to be from us"? What is Paul trying to refute with this letter? This is important.What of this context makes you believe this is about the revolt? What other than your apriori commitment to place this letter at the time of Paul gives any indication that this is about the politics of Paul's time?"Paul" here says that "the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth"; but the revolt was crushed. This was not written at the time of Paul. This was written with knowledge of other apocalyptic literature that came after Paul. This is not Paul! No its not obvious at all. The people of the day were already trying to say that the kingdom of god had already come in some spiritual sense. It is the very common and predictable response to a failure of an end times prophecy. The most recent case was that crazy guy in California (was it last year) who spent all that money on advertising. When the day came, they just claimed it was spiritual.Paul in 1 Thessalonians does not shy away from the concern over the late return, he doubles down on the prediction. By the time 2 Thessalonians come around, its been far too long to make excuses and thus you have the apocalyptic conditioning. In this case yes they might have needed a letter because there was already a movement to water down the definition of the kingdom of god since ... you know ... he didn't come. Says you. I have not seen anything to convince me that they are talking about different events or that any contemporary event is tied to 2 Thessalonians. Well, you are going to have to come up with more evidence that Paul is talking about the revolt in 2 Thessalonians. This is especially considering the fact that it was written afterward and that the Romans won. That doesn't exactly jive with what is written. "Paul" says Jesus will kill them. Reality was different. Either "Paul" is not talking about that event or your 'Day of the Lord' re-interpretation is wrong. Either way it is illuminating of the fact that 2 Thessalonians was not the real Paul.As for the times of peace. Paul says that some people WILL be lulled into a sense of peace which will be rudely interrupted by the return of Christ. He is obviously talking about the suddenness of the return in 1 Thessalonians. Other than the "we who are alive" and "like a thief in the night"?Don't forget the nature of the event. There is a contradiction in the nature too. And you are missing the reason for the concern. The reason the Thessalonians are worried is that they though Jesus should have been back by now like he promised.Paul in 1 Thessalonians is making excuses for the failure of Jesus."Paul" 2 Thessalonians is making excuses for the failure of the real Paul. That sounds very convenient. Can you support this?

Hi Paul. Sorry to be so slow getting back to you. It’s been busy lately and for Jazzns I will reply to you as soon as I can. If Jesus literally moved from an existing from this universe or dimension into another one it is something that they would have had no language for. They go back to Daniel to come up with words that would give meaning to what happened. They have Jesus literally moving up into the cloud which represents the presence of the Glory of God so that it has both literal and symbolic meaning. Of course not. Jesus was Jewish who lived and taught while understanding His life and teachings in a Jewish context. The language in the NT is lifted right out of the OT. I should just have said records rather than direct records. My point though that we do have records of the events that would have been taken from earlier accounts as Luke mentions that would have been from eye witnesses. As I said we can choose what it is that we will believe about the records we have. Matthew would have had a strong financial interest in maintain the status quo. With Judas I don’t see it being a religious devotion but a nationalistic devotion. One point of the message of Jesus is that He was reaching out to everyone and it would be consistent with what He taught that He would have a revolutionary amongst His disciples.The NT is clear that they were talking about a bodily resurrection. NT Wright is considered by many to be the finest NT scholar we have today. Here is what he has to say on the subject.
Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian OriginsI disagree with your premise. I have read the debates between N T Wright and the people like Crossan and Borg and the Crossan/Borg position, (although not completely the same), is basically based on the idea that we know from human experience that once people die they stay dead. In other words we know at the outset that a physical resurrection is impossible so then any other explanation has to be better.Frankly, assuming these guys are theists, (or more likely deists), then presumably they believe that we are the result of a greater intelligence. This then means that at some point we would require a miraculous event to get things rolling. Why then would they deny any possibility of another miraculous event?If we accept the possibility that it is possible for God to intervene in this way then the bodily resurrection of Jesus fits much more plausibly into the accounts that we have than any other explanation IMHO.

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If Jesus literally moved from an existing from this universe or dimension into another one it is something that they would have had no language for. They go back to Daniel to come up with words that would give meaning to what happened. They have Jesus literally moving up into the cloud which represents the presence of the Glory of God so that it has both literal and symbolic meaning.

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Which really doesn't change the fact that your source argued that the event literally happened as described. Think on that while you wonder how it is possible for two people to look at the same evidence and come to differing conclusions. Sometimes it's the case that one of them only thinks he's looking at the evidence, and is missing something quite obvious,

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Of course not. Jesus was Jewish who lived and taught while understanding His life and teachings in a Jewish context. The language in the NT is lifted right out of the OT.

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Of course we aren't talking about Jesus or simple copying language - we're talking about the interpretation of that language by Christians writing decades after Jesus died. I hope that you can concede that the Jews in general would not have been thinking of Jesus specifically!

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I should just have said records rather than direct records. My point though that we do have records of the events that would have been taken from earlier accounts as Luke mentions that would have been from eye witnesses. As I said we can choose what it is that we will believe about the records we have.

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Of course the absence of direct records was the point, so really you should just have agreed. And since we don't know the sources of Luke other than Mark and maybe Q or Matthew it's questionable whether any of them were first hand (Mark and Matthew are almost certainly not). In fact what we are told in Luke makes it seem as if the documents he refers to are other attempts to compile the story, and it could easily be that all were second hand, or further removed from the events.

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Matthew would have had a strong financial interest in maintain the status quo.

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If this "Matthew" even existed and if he cared about money that much he probably wouldn't be among Jesus' followers at all. Whiuch rather proves my point.

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With Judas I don’t see it being a religious devotion but a nationalistic devotion. One point of the message of Jesus is that He was reaching out to everyone and it would be consistent with what He taught that He would have a revolutionary amongst His disciples.

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I would be very surprised if there were many dedicated Jewish nationalists in those days who did NOT have a religious devotion to it. The Judaic religion is strongly nationalistic, even today. Moreover it does seem odd that if Jesus was opposed to the zealots that he would have one as a trusted lieutenant - more than a mere follower. Or that the Gospels don't make more of it - the Gospels are far more pro-Roman so showing Jesus opposing Judas belief in violent revolution would have been very much in keeping with their agenda. Instead we can't even be sure that Judas was a zealot at all. It looks to me far more as if the Gospels are downplaying the violent side of Jesus' ministry.

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The NT is clear that they were talking about a bodily resurrection. NT Wright is considered by many to be the finest NT scholar we have today. Here is what he has to say on the subject.

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As I've already pointed out, Paul is not at all clear that the post-resurrection experiences are anything more than visions and the Gospels don't present a straightforward bodily resurrection either.

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I disagree with your premise.

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And yet you cannot refute my argument. Indeed your approach accounts for the evidence by making excuses to discount the bulk of it ! Clearly it is true that I can explain the evidence better than you.

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. I have read the debates between N T Wright and the people like Crossan and Borg and the Crossan/Borg position, (although not completely the same), is basically based on the idea that we know from human experience that once people die they stay dead. In other words we know at the outset that a physical resurrection is impossible so then any other explanation has to be better.

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However, my explanation is better than yours EVEN WITHOUT THIS CONSIDERATION. I can explain why we see such strong differences between the accounts of the post-resurrection appearances we see in the Gospels. Why Paul says so little about the post-resurrection appearances. Why Jesus mysteriously comes and goes all the time in those stories. All you can do is try to explain these points away. None of them are expected given your view - and in the first case especially you don't even have a good excuse.

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If we accept the possibility that it is possible for God to intervene in this way then the bodily resurrection of Jesus fits much more plausibly into the accounts that we have than any other explanation IMHO.

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Since your argument relies on effectively ignoring a very large part of those accounts it seems rather clear that your opinion is untrue.

And this article shows you what cognitive dissonance is really like and how people suffering from it rewrite the past in their minds.

Thats the guy I was thinking of. I couldn't remember his name.Time and time again we have people who try to predict doom and when they fail that either.1. Set a new date
2. Claim it was spiritualCamping did both. Paul never set a date that we know of nor do we know the direct fallout of the fact that Jesus didn't return in his lifetime. What we do have is later authors making excuses and redefining the circumstances of the return.

Hi JazznsSorry to be so slow replying but I just haven't had the time. I don't disagree with that. Frankly if the 2nd book, assuming it was written by Paul, is trying to explain away the fact that Jesus hadn't returned again then I would be fine with that. I'm just not convinced that it is the case. As far as your last statement is concerned you are probably right, but I wasn't trying to make the point in order to prove it's accuracy. My point is only to try and understand what Paul meant by what he wrote. Well I'd say yes and no. If you go back another verse Paul writes that "there are those who are saying peace and security and then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labour pains.......".They lived in turbulent dangerous times. Paul is writing about the destruction of war.Paul then goes on to say though that they are sons of light and that and as he says in verse 9 that they are not destined for wrath but that that they are destined for salvation and so they should not live in fear. IMHO what is plain reading for us in the 21st century does not give clearly the same understanding as it would a 1st century Thessalonian. I agree that even if what you said is correct it would not diminish the character of God. As I said, I am just trying to understand Paul’s point as he intended to have it understood. We have no indication who it is from but Paul is saying that it should be disregarded as the revolt in Judea hasn’t begun let alone the destruction of Jerusalem. In verse two Paul says that the Day of the Lord hasn’t yet happened and that they should disregard any letter or message that has told them otherwise. If the term Day of the Lord was referring to the final return of Christ they would have hardly needed a letter from Paul to tell them that.The Day of the Lord is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. That is not going to happen until the rebellion has commenced. As Paul says from your quote:

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For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

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Jesus’ political message was that the way to defeat the Romans was through His message of changing Roman hearts by loving them, by turning the other cheek and going the extra mile. He told them that the coming revolution was going to bring about their destruction. I believe that His whole message is that it isn’t our enemies be they Roman or anyone else that is the real enemy, but that the enemy is evil itself and the only way to defeat evil is through His message of love, forgiveness, mercy, truth justice etc.The man of lawlessness would be referring to the Roman emperor in all likelihood. Not that long after the death and resurrection of Jesus the Roman emperor Gaius Caligula believed himself to be in some sense divine. He was angry with the Jews anyway and had a huge statue of himself placed in the Temple in Jerusalem. If he hadn’t been murdered in AD 41 there Roman-Jewish war would likely have begun 25 years earlier.I believe that Paul saw this as important because Jesus had taught that these things would happen before He came again and of course He also taught that no one except the Father knew the hour or the minute. (Thankfully for us it has been a good many minutes and hours. ) I know that the authorship of this letter is controversial but personally I believe that it was written by Paul. In order to better understand the NT from a non-Christian perspective I have a great book compiled by the Jewish NT scholar utilizing her own work in collaboration with other Jewish scholars. The book is entitled The Jewish Annotated New Testament and I recommend it. It seems that the authorship question seems largely to be based on the understanding of the meaning of the letter. If you are correct in your understanding then it probably wasn’t written by Paul. If however my understanding is correct, ( the scholar that I primarily use for this understanding is again N T Wright), then it is fairly safe to assume that the writer actually is Paul. People still say today that the Kingdom of God has already come. That is actually the essence of the Gospel message but as Jesus says, it is not a kingdom of this world. It is a Kingdom for this world that is meant to bring Christ’s message of truth, peace, forgiveness and love to the world in anticipation of the time when time itself comes to an end. This has nothing to do with the failure of the end times prophesy. I recommend N T Wright’s newest book How God Became King, or Scot Mcknight’s book The King Jesus Gospel. As I have already said, it is my view that the we who are alive ‘ part is written to alleviate the concern for loved ones who had already died and to reassure them that their position would be no different than anyone who was still alive whenever it is that Christ returns. The thief in the night is about the coming destruction that will result from the coming rebellion. Well in one sense he did come back with the resurrection but also as to the time of final judgement He said that no one knows the hour or the minute. Any idea that the time was imminent would have been from their own speculation. For reasons I have already given I disagree. Essentially The Day of the Lord was used to indicate God’s judgement on Israel for the times they failed to follow Yahweh. As a result it was used to indicate destruction at the hands of their enemies or it could mean God’s final judgement. Here is an example where it is clearly being used to indicate the former from Zachariah 14:

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1 A day of the LORD is coming when your plunder will be divided among you. 2 I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city

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The idea that the Day of the Lord could be used to denote the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem by the Romans is that it would be the result of not following the non-violent teachings of Jesus.

Essentially he is saying that it could have been that way or it could just be them doing their best to put into words something they had no language for.
As for the last statement, I have to admit I have had difficulty understanding how you can keep missing the obvious. In a sense this goes to the heart of my understanding of the NT accounts. Yes the books of the NT are either specific letters or as in the case of the Gospels they are compilations of earlier writings and oral accounts put together to form a complete narrative. Yes, there would have been interpretation of what it all meant and there would be disagreement.I’ll engage in a little cognitive dissonance for a minute and assume that deep down you do really believe in the resurrection of Jesus, and so we’ll look at the NT in light of that.We read through the Gospels and see consistently that the disciples just didn’t get it. We have them arguing over who is going to sit at His right and left hand where they clearly have the idea that Jesus is going to lead them in a successful revolution with the help of Yahweh. There are times when they seem to be getting it but in a sense they are projecting on to Jesus their own aspirations.In the end Jesus goes to the cross and they see the whole movement coming to a crashing halt as so many previous movements had done. But then comes the resurrection. What now? There has been no revolution but they now see Jesus as being vindicated by the one Jesus called Father. Now they have to go back into the history and the readings and sort out what it all meant. They have to sort out what it means to their own lives. We don’t know what Jesus told them other than what is left to us.Initially there didn’t seem to be a great need to write about things as the eye witnesses would still have been around, but as the years passed it became obvious that they would require the stories to be documented. In these stories they would be influenced by their own understanding of what was to be understood about the meaning of the resurrection was and what message it was that Jesus taught and how they were to react to it. I’m sure there are some stories that were distorted with the result that there are inconsistencies in the various accounts. As I’ve said before I would be far more distrustful of stories that were completely congruous.Things haven’t changed today. Just as our knowledge of the natural world continues to grow it is my belief that through good scholarship our knowledge of what Christ’s life meant for the world continues to grow. Just as modern scientists build their knowledge on the findings and even the errors of their predecessors, modern theological scholars build on the work of their predecessors. Yes All we can do is speculate. I certainly agree that Jewish religious belief would have been very much tied in with their nationalistic aspirations.I don’t agree that there was a violent side to His ministry unless you are talking about knocking around a few tables. He did agree that His message would result in divisions even in families. I guess it would be like someone in Holland in 1942 telling his family and neighbours that the way to defeat the Nazis was to love them. There just might have been some serious discussion around that idea.Our thoughts on Judas are mere speculation but I think that there would be a strong likelihood that He viewed Jesus as someone who would be a thorn in the side of the revolutionaries. Of course maybe he was just being mercenary. Obviously Paul believed in a resurrection. Also obviously we have to understand what Paul means by resurrection. Here is what N T Wright has to say on the subject from a talk he gave recently.

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1. Resurrection in the First Century

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We begin with the central meaning of resurrection in the first century. After generations of confusion we must reaffirm that the Greek word anastasis and its cognates really do refer to a new bodily life given to a human body that had been dead. Anastasis was not a clever or metaphorical way of speaking of a ‘spiritual’ or ‘non-bodily’ survival of death. The ancient Greeks and Romans had plenty of ways of speaking of such a thing, and anastasis was not one of them. Some people still suggest that when the first disciples said that Jesus had been raised from the dead what they really meant was that his cause, his kingdom-agenda, would continue, or that they had a sense of his continuing presence with them, forgiving them their failures and encouraging them to carry on with his work. Well, they did indeed believe his kingdom-agenda was going on, and they did believe he had reconstituted them to carry that work forward; but the reason they believed both of those things was because they really did believe he had been bodily raised from the dead, leaving an empty tomb behind him. This was not, as is sometimes suggested, a mere ‘resuscitation’, a return to exactly the same sort of bodily life as before; but nor was it a translation into a non-bodily mode. When Paul describes the resurrection body as ‘spiritual’, the word he uses does not mean ‘a body composed of spirit’, but ‘a body animated by spirit’ — or, in this case, by God’s spirit.[2]

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I have argued elsewhere that we cannot understand the historical rise of the early Christian movement unless we take as basic their belief that Jesus really was raised in this bodily sense. Of course, one might say that they were mistaken; but I have also argued that the best reason for the rise of that belief is that it really did happen. The other explanations — that the disciples were the victims of a delusion, that one or more of them saw a vision of Jesus such as has often been reported by people after someone they love has died, and so on — simply do not hold water historically. To mention only the last of these: such visions were as well known in the ancient world as they are today, and the meaning of a vision like that was not that the person was suddenly alive again, but rather that they were indeed well and truly dead.

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But I want to move on from that argument. This is not only because I and others have made the case at some length already. It is also because it is easy to be distracted by the question ‘but did it happen?’ from the question ‘but what does it mean?’ As we consider Jesus our contemporary, the event remains vital but the meaning is all-important. We in the church have often downgraded the meaning into terms of private spirituality or the hope of heaven; but it goes far deeper and wider than that.

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The question ‘But did it happen?’ was the question asked by the Enlightenment, not only about the resurrection but about a great deal besides. Some devout Christians have shied away from this question, believing with Proverbs 26.4 that if you answer a fool according to his folly you will be a fool yourself. In this instance, I have taken the opposite view, based on Proverbs 26.5, that you must answer the fool according to his folly, otherwise he will be wise in his own eyes. It remains enormously important that we investigate the historical origins of Christianity. As the Holy Father himself has insisted, what actually happened in the first century matters, because we are not Gnostics: we believe in a God who came into the very stuff and substance of our flesh and blood and died a real death. Yes, and rose again three days later.

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My argument, however, is not that we can somehow ‘prove’ the resurrection of Jesus according to some neutral, objective canon of plausibility. That would, indeed, be to capitulate to the folly of the Enlightenment. My argument, rather, is that we can, by historical investigation, reveal the folly of all the other explanations that are sometimes given for how Christianity got going in the first place. This forces us back to the much larger question, which of course the Enlightenment did not want to face: might it after all be the case that the closed worldview of some modern science is incorrect, and that the world is after all created by and loved by a God who is not distant, detached and unable to act within the world, but rather by a creator who remains mysteriously present and active within the world in a thousand ways, some of them dramatic and unexpected?

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I have often used as an illustration the idea of a college or school being given a wonderful painting by an old member. The painting is so magnificent that it must be displayed, but there is nowhere in the present college buildings that will do it justice. Eventually the college decides to pull down some of its main buildings and rebuild them with this picture as the central feature. Then, in doing so, they discover that several things nobody really liked about the college the way it used to be — the layout, the architecture, the inconvenient rooms — were solved in the new arrangement. The gift was rightly given to the college, but the college, in order to accept it, had itself to be transformed. That, I suggest, is what happens with the resurrection. You can’t fit it (of course) into the modernist worldview of the European Enlightenment. But, when you dismantle the eighteenth-century Deism which insists on God and the world being utterly separate, and when you demolish the pseudo-scientific prejudice which says that the space-time world is a closed continuum of cause and effect, you find that not only will the resurrection of Jesus make excellent sense; it will address, and help you solve, all kinds of other things about the modern worldview which have caused, and still cause, problems. We might, for a start, look at the modern western systems of democracy and finance . . .

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But to return to the first century. Many Jews (not all) believed in bodily resurrection as the ultimate destiny of all God’s people, perhaps of all people. They clearly meant bodily resurrection, as we see (for instance) in II Maccabees 7. But it won’t do simply to say that the early Christians, being devout Jews, reached for that category in their grief after the death of Jesus. The early Christian view of resurrection is utterly Jewish, but significantly different from anything we find in pre-Christian Judaism. There, ‘resurrection’ was something that was supposed to happen to everyone at the end, not to one person in the middle of history. Nor had anyone prior to the early Christians formulated the idea that resurrection might mean the transformation of a human body so that it was now still firmly a human body but also beyond the reach of corruption, decay and death. Nor was there in early Christianity, as there was in Judaism, a spectrum of belief about life after death. They all believed in resurrection — that is, in a two-stage post mortem reality: that those who belonged to Jesus would die, would then rest ‘in the hand of God’ (Wisdom 3.1), and would then at a later stage be raised. In some of my writings I have referred to the first stage as ‘life after death’, and to the second as ‘life after life after death’.

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One of the most striking differences between Christian belief and pre-Christian Jewish belief is that nobody expected the Messiah to be raised from the dead — for the obvious reason that nobody expected the Messiah to be killed in the first place. We have evidence for plenty of messianic or would-be messianic movements in the century or so either side of Jesus. They routinely ended with the violent death of the founder. When that happened, his followers faced a choice: give up the movement, or find yourself a new leader. We have evidence of both. Going around saying your leader had been raised from the dead was not an option. Except in the case of the followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

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I conclude from all this — which could of course be spelled out at much more length — that we can only understand early Christianity as a movement that emerges from within first-century Judaism, but that it is so unlike anything else we know in first-century Judaism (and the unliknesses bear no resemblance to anything in the pagan world) that we are forced to ask what caused these mutations. The only plausible answer is that they were caused by the actual bodily resurrection, into a transformed physicality, of Jesus himself. Put that in place, and everything is explained. Take it away, and everything remains puzzling and confused. Of course, there is a cost. One cannot simply say, ‘Well, it looks as though Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead’ and carry on with business as usual. If it happened, it means that a new world has been born. That, ultimately, is the good news of Easter, the good news which the rationalism of the Enlightenment has tried to screen out and which the church, tragically, has often forgotten as well. But to address this we need to move to the next section of this lecture.

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Here is the link to the whole talk.
‘Christ is Risen from the Dead, the First Fruits of Those who have Died’It is not that I’m ignoring them. I do however understand that the accounts are written by fallible humans doing their best to convey the truth of what happened.Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

Interesting article and there is no doubt it happens. The question of course is that what happened to the disciples.I just don't think that the argument for it being the case holds up. I don't see it as something that they would have imagined to be the case, or even something that they would have desired to have happen.I also believe that if it was a case of cognitive dissonance that the eventual narratives would read very differently. For example it wouldn't show the disciples as being such dolts and for that matter in showing Peter, one of their primary spokesmen, as behaving so cowardly.

NO worries. Thanks for replying at all. Our conversations always force me to think harder. But don't you agree that the interpretation of authorship and the resulting interpretation of content are linked? The reason you must interpret Paul the way you are seems to be because you are accepting genuine authorship first. Especially considering that you seem to be capable of looking past the apparent contradiction, it seems odd that you would be so defensive of original authorship. There are 7 "undisputed" epistles from which you can derive a lot of theology, rather good theology in my opinion. I happen to think that the world would have been a better place had Marcion won the debate. (I know Marcion accepted certain disputable works of Paul but the ones he rejected help a whole lot.)If you really believe in the message of Paul, wouldn't you want that message to be the authentic one?The point I am trying to make is, this seems to be common throughout modern Christianity. There is quite a bit of convoluted theology surrounding issues that more simply explained by the banal facts of how these books came to be. You haven't shown that at all (more on that below where it is addressed) and I have not read anyone who agrees with you. It seem like quite a stretch to say that Paul in 1 Thes. is not talking about the return of Christ. So when he says he is talking about the coming kingdom of god, why don't you believe him? Why do you take him to mean something else just so that it harmonizes with other unrelated works that he is unlikely to have written? I also asked you to support this claim and you haven't. Paul could not have been talking about the revolt in 2 Thes. because it was written after the revolt. I haven't seen anything compelling from you to the effect that we should believe that Paul is talking about the revolt. All he is saying is that it hasn't happen yet. Even if it is symbolic you have no evidence that he is talking about the revolt! This is a huge stretch.You are also ignoring what I said regarding what people were doing. We have notions that people WERE claiming that the kingdom of god was present. People were already modernizing, twisting, making different excuses. "Paul" had reason to reassure them that the real kingdom of god, not some metaphor for current events, was still going to occur in the future.You are the one who making this more complicated that it needs to be and the big question for me is still why? To what ends? What does it gain you not to just follow the easy road. The way your going we have to accept not only that Paul is not talking plainly about the kingdom of god, but that what it really references is a revolt for which it is doubtful if that is even possible giving the timing of things. Except for that whole, "we who are alive" and back in Luke "this generation will not pass". People REALLY believed that Jesus would be returning in their lifetime. And THEY were not the ones misinterpreting things. Not all of the issues of authenticity rest on the conflict over parousia. Admittedly this is the least clear cut of the disputed epistles but there are other issues such as the more advanced Christology, the apocalyptic nature, and differences in style in 2 Thes. I am willing to go down that path but I think you are missing the point which is that Paul in 2 Thes. has direct cause to refer to the kingdom of god in its literal sense. Thats the point I am trying to make. Your argument that it must be a metaphor for current events rests on this notion that Paul can't possibly be talking about parousia. I can't keep straight which epistle you think is referring to the revolt. In this case you seem to be saying that 1 Thes. is also referring to the revolt and not the return. Is that true? Which is perfectly fine if you believe Paul in 1 Thes. The real Paul was down with what Jesus said about his return. It only becomes a problem when you start reading "Paul" in 2 Thes. But Paul doesn't just use the phrase "the day of the lord". He also says: The "day of the lord" clearly is "concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ". It right there, in the same sentence. I don't know how it is possible for you to be separating them in your head. And AGAIN, I don't see to what purpose you could possibly be served by doing so.Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.