Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 63:4 (Dec 2020)
Article: Were The Thessalonians “Meddling In Divine Matters”? A Rereading Of 2 Thessalonians 3:11
Author: Gary Steven Shogren

JETS 63:4 (December 2020) p. 703

Were The Thessalonians “Meddling In Divine Matters”? A Rereading Of 2 Thessalonians 3:11

Gary S. Shogren

Gary S. Shogren is Professor of NT at Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Abstract: According to 2 Thess 3:11, some were not working (from ἐργάζομαι) but “meddling” (its compound περιεργάζομαι). The principal lexicons, versions, and secondary literature agree: περιεργάζομαι is a reference to meddling in other people’s business. Because this “horizontal” or “social” interpretation of the verb has so much to commend it, scholars have not given attention to another attested use of the περιεργάζομαι word group, which is prying or trespassing in divine matters. A search for the word group using TLG reveals a broader semantic range, which may be relevant for this text. If the epistle is charging people with trespassing in that which concerns God alone, it might be referring to their calculations of the date of the Day of the Lord.

Key words: Thessalonians, περιεργάζομαι, περίεργος, eschatology, patristics, Judaism

Second Thessalonians 3:11 contains a play on words: some Thessalonians were not “working” (from ἐργάζομαι) but “meddling” (from its compound περιεργάζομαι). While meddling is usually taken to mean “meddling in other people’s business,” there is evidence that it might mean “meddling in divine matters” and therefore is a reference to calculating the time of the Day of the Lord.

I. Epistolary Context

Μηδὲν ἐργαζομένους ἀλλὰ περιεργαζομένους is a figura etymologica, wherein two words with the same root are employed adjacently for effect.1 Despite claims to the contrary, the specific pairing “not working but meddling” does not seem to have been common—I could locate only two pre-Christian examples—and thus it was not a conventional wordplay which the Thessalonians would have recognized.2 No

JETS 63:4 (December 2020) p. 704

explanation is proffered for the Thessalonians’ behavior; we are merely informed ...