Once again, The Smart Fool at r/AcademicBiblical fails the first half

The Smart Fool, mentioned in these pages before, is once again not smart. He cites this essay by Paul Foster in favor of the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians. Problems? Sure. First, Nero redivivus was first mentioned in the reign of Diocletion, not Trajan. Also given that the alleged Neronic persecution of Christians didn't happen, it can't be that early, for this person to be Nero. Rather, it does seem to be a prima facie evidence of trying to explain away a delay in the parousia after the destruction of the temple. Indeed, one wonders if the author had perhaps a passing familiarity with the "little apocalypse" in Mark. Reading the whole of 2 Thessalonians 2, we have little idea who "the restrainer" is supposed to be, even less than the man of lawlessness, who is discussed by me in depth here. To me, it seems pretty clear that the time period before "the restrainer" is removed is NOT supposed to be brief. Beyond that, contra Foster, I noted that the man of lawlessness seems to at least pretend to arise from among the faithful. He is NOT, at a minimum, The Beast of Revelation, and writing anything that even leaves open the possibility that he is such, is bad exegesis.

2 Thessalonians 3, even more, seems to warn against expecting an imminent parousia. The readers are warned not to be idle, but "sober," although this doesn't use that exact word. The mindset in this sense halfway, or more, approaches the Pastorals.

The first part of 2 Thessalonians 2, before the man of lawlessness is introduced, warns again about expecting an imminent eschaton.

And, while 1 Thessalonians 4 doesn't say "it's tomorrow," the end of the chapter is laden with immanence, even, like John 21, referring to those still alive. Chapter 5 continues that.

Foster concludes with this in defense of 2 Thessalonians' authenticity in the face of all that:

The issue matters because if the authenticity of 2Thessalonians is estab-lished, then it allows a larger and richer range of material that provides insight into the apostle’s thought. Many of the debates surrounding the nature of Paul’s thought in Romans as being coherent, consistent, or otherwise, may be elucidated through the perspectives provided in 2Thessalonians in relation to eschatology. These developments reveal Paul to be capable of maturation in his theological conceptions, adaptable and responsive to pressing pastoral situations, and simul-taneously a robust defender of his core theological convictions.

I don't buy that. Some degree of immanence seems clear in not only 1 Thessalonians, but the other six authentic Pauline epistles, enough that Foster has much more explanatory burden left on WHY 2 Thessalonians is different if authentic.

==

And, I find out why he believes this shit. He's a conservative evangelical apologist, per this comment citing favorably Dale Allison. And ugh, he's also now a moderator. That means that site sucks more canal water.

 

Why Nero couldn’t have been persecuting Christians for the fire of Rome

Even assuming that Rome had a number of Christians besides those mentioned in Paul’s letter to the group there, by AD 64, the entire city is unlikely to have had more than 200. (The whole world likely had no more than 1,500 or so; the Book of Acts and Paul’s letters paint a success story that just ain’t so.)

On a fairly conservative, but not extremely conservative estimate, Rome had a population of 500,000. Two hundred people, given the lack of electronic communications, newspapers, etc. would stand out even less in a city of 500,000 than they do today.

Now, the Roman historian Tacitus does mention a disturbance about a certain Χρήστος, but several observations need to be made. First, this is NOT the same as the Greek Χριςτός. The first Greek word means “excellent” or similar. It is nowhere used in the Greek New Testament, nor the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Instead, it was an epithet used about Greek Olympian divinities in general and Apollo in general. (Sidebar: nearly 200 years, Constantine would have a sun-struck vision that, had he not had a Christian mother, he probably instead would have interpreted as a vision of Apollo[or perhaps Mithras] instead; his first post-conversion coinage shows a beardless, Apollonian Jesus.)

Let’s say that Tacitus was unfamiliar enough with Judaism and with this nuance of Greek vocabulary that he used the wrong word. That, then, would mean he wasn’t familiar with Judaism in general, nor disputes among Jewish “sects.” He may have known enough to be familiar with the basic concept of the Messiah, the Christ, and that was, and thought Χρήστος was the right word.

In other words, he could be talking about a general dispute between Jews about the Messiah, and not about Yeshua bar-Yusuf at all. Second, he places this disturbance in the imperium of Claudius, not Nero. So, it could in no way be connected to any disturbance that caught Nero’s eye.

Between the likely generic Jewish dispute of Tacitus’ account and the small number of Christians at the time of Nero, and assuming Christians took to heart Paul’s “submit to the governing authorities” command of Romans 13, there seems to be no reason Christians were blamed for the fires.

Ergo, perhaps they weren’t blamed. Detailed accounts of this alleged persecution are found only in Christian writings, and not in any early ones. Clement of Rome nowhere mentions them in his epistle to Christians in Corinth, though it would have been an excellent example of steadfastness to pass on.

Update, May 26, 2024: A person at r/AcademicBiblical, in chat with me about a main comment of hers there, where she claims that 1 Clement, stripped of legendary accretions, is about Peter and Paul being killed by fellow Christians, nonetheless, in response to me, claims that the Tacitus is not an interpolation. 

I offered as a sidebar the Option B, that, if genuine by Tacitus, it's still a double-bankshot smear, projecting back from his own interactions with Christians, of what was a non-event, so that he could smear Nero even more than Christians.

As for said person's claims rejecting the interpolation idea? They note that the Correspondence of Paul and Seneca mentions the Great Fire earlier. Two counterpoints: First, on a late dating, only about 20 years earlier. So, it's in the same milieu, even if earlier. Second, the 11th letter of said correspondence is generally believed to be by a second forger than most other letters. Severus himself?

Said person does reject an actual persecution, so they're solid there.

So, perhaps there was no Neronian persecution of Christians, even one just limited to Rome.