First Epistle to the Thessalonians

Light iron-age reading The Bible

Gabbin' with God

Old / New Testament Apocrypha Annotated Bible

Analysis

Apocalyptic literature Horizontal reading Examples of God personally killing people

Woo

Dr. Bronner's Soap James Ussher Jose Luis de Jesús

Figures

Noah Nephilim Judas Iscariot v - t - e

“”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.

—Thes. 4:16-17

First 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 Thessaloniki) 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 Acts 17:1-9. The letter was probably written from Corinth, shortly after he left.

See also

• RationalWiki:Annotated Bible/1 Thessalonians