First Epistle to the Thessalonians

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 'The First Epistle to the Thessalonians is a New Testament Biblical text. This is one of the authentic letters of Paul, and possibly the first he wrote. It is generally dated around the middle of the first century CE, maybe around 52 CE, and is thus most likely the earliest Christian writing which survives to the present time.

One of the only real questions of interest answered by Thessalonians was "What happens to Joe, who has died before Jesus has returned". Of course, two thousand years later, there are billions of "Joes" and Paul's answer that "the new coming will be soon" has turned out to be bullshit, along with the rest of his ideas about the second coming.

The doctrine of the rapture is usually cited to 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 even though no word like "rapture" is used.

The Thessalonians were in Thessalonica (modern-day ) in northeast Greece. According to the traditional account, Paul visited there in his second voyage, around 49-52 CE, and seems to have made quite a few converts before being forced to leave in a hurry; it is described in. The letter was probably written from Corinth, shortly after he left.