Abstract
Prof. Nicklas’ landmark commentary represents the pinnacle of critical German New Testament scholarship. This volume is an excellent addition to the prestigious Meyers Kritisch-Exegetischer Kommentar series, and will be a standard work on 2 Thessalonians for many decades to come.
Nicklas interprets the letter as a pseudepigraphical writing, composed by an author who exhibited familiarity with Pauline thought and had a specific acquaintance with 1 Thessalonians. According to Nicklas, the letter responds to a crisis precipitated by a group that announced that the Day of the Lord had already come (2 Thess 2.2). The author of this letter is seen as invoking Pauline thought and applying it to this new challenging situation. In response, Nicklas argues that the author engages in a strategy of redefinition. However, the concern is not to correct ideas about the future, but rather to explain the nature of the present. In particular, the sufferings that are being experienced by Christ believers in the present are seen as demonstrating that the righteous judgment of God is still to come, and has not already arrived.
The commentary section of this volume (pp. 67–199) is extremely helpful and insightful. Nicklas brings some new and clarifying suggestions to several of the more difficult passages in the epistle. Perhaps one could have wished for a little more interaction with recent English language scholarship, such a Jeffrey Weima’s large scale commentary on 1–2 Thessalonians (2014), and the more recent discussions about the authorship of the letter. However, this remains a magisterial commentary that will be widely and frequently consulted with great profit by all its readers.