DESCRIPTION

Charles A. Wanamaker, in The Epistles to the Thessalonians incorporates a social science approach to the study of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, taking into full account the social context that gave rise to Paul's correspondence.

While Wanamaker in no way ignores traditional historical-critical, linguistic, literary, and certainly not theological approaches to writing a commentary-and in fact at several points he makes a significant contribution to the questions raised by traditional exegesis-he nonetheless goes beyond previous commentaries on the Thessalonian correspondence by taking seriously the social dimensions both of Christianity at Thessalonica and of the texts of 1 and 2 Thessalonians themselves.

In blending traditional exegetical methods with this newer approach, Wannamaker seeks to understand Pauline Christianity at Thessalonica as a socio-religious movement in the first-century Greco-Roman world and attempts to grasp the social character and functions of Paul's letters within this context.