the lead of a number of scholars who accept the general accounts of Luke’s narrative understanding that, while he had his own theological interests, he was still intending to convey the history of the earliest church. See Keener 2012.
12. Luke does mention certain Thessalonian believers who cross paths with Paul, namely, Aristarchus and Secundus (20:4; cf. 27:2).
13. See Dunn 2009: 560–61; Runesson et al. 2008: 121.
14. See especially Ascough 2003: 202–3.
15. See Gaventa 1998: 20; Ascough 2015: 9. Richard Ascough argues that Luke’s account in Acts 17 about the first converts to Christianity in Thessalonica being Jews and god-fearers cannot be harmonized with the impression from 1 Thessalonians. He explains: “The natural understanding of this text is that these initial adherents in Thessalonike were not Jewish or even Jewish sympathizers. They were, in fact, non-Jews who worshipped one or more of the many deities in the Greek and Roman pantheon, if not also a few local gods alongside them. The Thessalonian Christ group is thus a Gentile group at its core” (9).
16. Still 1999: 70–71.
17. See Cohick 2009: 187. Bruce Winter also notes a mid-first century AD inscription in honor of the civic patroness Junia Theodora of Corinth; see Winter 1994: 46.
18. See Nestor 2012: 64–65; cf. Witherington 2006: 43.
19. Boring 2012: 210.
20. See Ascough 2000: 311–28; 2003: 186-90; 2010: 53.
21. See Ascough 2003: 186.
22. One commentator of which I am aware, Linda M. Bridges, has taken up Ascough’s proposal and integrated this theory into her commentary; see Bridges 2008.
23. Trozzo 2012: 41.
24. Trozzo points out that Paul’s associate Priscilla herself was a female tent-maker (p. 42), perhaps even co-participant in a guild with her husband Aquila; see Keller 2010: 3; see also Johnson 1992: 322.
25. Trozzo 2012: 43.
26. Johnson-DeBaufre 2010: 99.
27. Johnson-DeBaufre 2010: 100.
28. See Trebilco 2012: 24–25; Horrell 2001: 299–303; Horrell 2005a: 406.
29. Marshall 1984: 4; in relation especially to gleaning from Acts 17:1–10a.
30. For methodology on historical reconstruction, see Barclay 1987; Gupta 2012.
31. Esler 2001: 1200; see also Barclay 1993: 512–30.
32. See Johnson 1999: 282.
33. So Barclay 1993: 514; cf. Witherington 2006: 37
34. On the meaning of symphyletēs in Paul’s time, see Taylor 2002: 784–801. Taylor explains that, while symphyletēs once carried the meaning of blood relation (i.e., ethnic association), it eventually expanded in meaning to cover administrative, military, and political connections. Those who work with a narrower (ethnic) meaning for symphyletēs, Taylor urges, are drawing from a very limited pool of occurrences.
35. See Donfried 2002: 200–206.
36. So Wanamaker: “Such a remark [in 1 Thess 1:9] would seem inappropriate if the majority of his Gentile converts had already turned their backs on pagan religious practices by affiliating with the Jewish synagogue” (1990: 7).
37. Fredriksen 2015: 183–84. Furthermore, Fredriksen notes: “this shifting synagogue population of interested outsiders would have provided Paul with the bulk of his target audience: active pagans who were nonetheless interested to some degree in the Jewish god, and who had some sort of familiarity, through listening, with the Bible” (again 184–85); see also Dunn 2009: 563.
38. Cohen 2006: 47; see also Cohen 1999: 171.
39. E.g., Witherington 2006: 49; cf. Wanamaker 1990: 7.
40. See E. Johnson 2012: 144–45.
41. F. Matera argues much the same for how Paul identifies the Philippian church; see Matera 1999: 122; cf. Cambell 2006: 59–60; cf. Richardson 1969: 200.
42. See Malina 2003: 359.
43. See esp LXX Neh 10:1; also Josephus Ant. Passim.
44. I believe the translation “faith” is best justified when Paul clearly appears to be using pistis in reference to trust that goes against natural senses, “believing the unbelievable,” so to speak; see 2 Cor 5:7. For similar argumentation regarding the best translation of pistis in 1–2 Thessalonians, see Andy Johnson 2016, forthcoming on pistis in 1:3.
45. See Pobee 1985: 114; Donfried 1997: 221–23; Witherington 2006: 139; L. T. Johnson 1999: 285, Donfried and Marshall 1993: 28, and Gorman 2004: 150 are open to this possibility as well; see also Gorman 2015.
46. For a discussion of the scholarly debate related to whether Paul was being defensive or not in 2:1–12, see 50–52.
47. Holmes 1998: 22.
48.
