1 thessalonians: introduction - a select, annotated bibliography

A list of even the best material on 1 Thessalonians would run into hundreds of items. Here's a selection and brief description of some of my favourites for my own study of the letter.

Commentaries

Best, Ernest. A Commentary on the First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1987. Repr. of Black’s New Testament Commentaries. London: A & C Black. Harper’s New Testament Commentaries. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
Nearly thirty-five years on, Best is still one of the best. If only he were around to update his work in light of recent discussions.

Bruce, F. F. 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Word Biblical Commentary 45. Waco, Tex.: Word, 1982.
Classic Bruce: consistently careful, complete, and conservative.

Elias, Jacob W. 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Believers Church Bible Commentary. Waterloo, Ont.; Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1995.
Though this one is probably not among anyone else's top picks, it should be. A very sane look at the exegetical issues with a level eye toward the appropriate application of the letter's message.

Green, Gene L. The Letters to the Thessalonians. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.
Green's commentary is worth its price just for the introduction alone, with its extensive discussion of the city of Thessalonica within the region of Macedonia.

Holmes, Michael W. 1 and 2 Thessalonians. NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.
Like all those in this series, Holmes' commentary majors on application of the text; but his exegesis, while not thorough, is solid.

Malherbe, Abraham. The Letters to the Thessalonians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 2000.
This is the best commentary currently available. Attentive to both historic and current interpretation and exegetically sound. As one would expect from Malherbe in light of his previous work, this commentary is excellent in setting 1 Thessalonians within its Hellenistic context, but less so in considering the Jewish facets of Paul's thought.

Marshall, I. Howard. 1 and 2 Thessalonians. New Century Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; London: Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1983.
Classic Marshall: consistently careful, complete, and conservative.

Richard, Earl J. First and Second Thessalonians. Sacra Pagina 11. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1995.
Many useful insights, but idiosyncratic in many of his conclusions. Holds to a complex literary background to 1 Thessalonians, with the letter being a composite of several others.

Wanamaker, Charles A. The Epistles to the Thessalonians: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Exeter: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990.
A solid and important commentary, but Wanamaker's perspective on the order of the letters (2 Thessalonians written before 1 Thessalonians) at times gets in the way.

Witherington, Ben, III. 1 and 2 Thessalonians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2006.
This one's hot off the press, so I haven't had time to work through it yet. A glance indicates that it will be useful in much the same way as Witherington's other commentaries: good on setting the letter in its social and rhetorical context.

Others could be mentioned, including those by Martin, Morris, Smith, and Williams, but these are the ones that have been most helpful to me thus far.

Ones to watch for: Karl Donfried, International Critical Commentary; Victor Furnish, Abingdon New Testament Commentary; Helmut Koester, Hermeneia; Jeffrey Weima, Baker Exegetical Commentary.

Highlights in other languages: Béda Rigaux' Les Épîtres aux Thessaloniciens, though 50 years old, is an amazingly thorough commentary; Traugott Holtz' Der erste Brief an die Thessalonicher is my pick in German, but I'll readily confess I haven't interacted with German commentaries much beyond the scope of my dissertation passage.

Monographs and Edited Collections

Collins, Raymond F. Studies on the First Letter to the Thessalonians. Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium 66. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1984.
A collection of articles by one of the deans of Thessalonians scholarship.

Collins, Raymond F., ed. The Thessalonian Correspondence. Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium 87. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1990.
A collection of articles by many top scholars, with more than twenty focused on 1 Thessalonians.

Donfried, Karl P. Paul, Thessalonica, and Early Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; London: T&T Clark, 2002.
A collection of articles by another dean of Thessalonians scholarship.

Donfried, Karl P., and Johannes Beutler, eds. The Thessalonians Debate: Methodological Discord or Methodological Synthesis? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.
A collection of articles coming out of an SNTS seminar in the late 1990s, focused especially around issues related to 1 Thessalonians 2.

Nicholl, Colin R. From Hope to Despair in Thessalonica: Situating 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 126. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
A thorough contextual analysis of the Thessalonian letters, with conclusions very similar to those I have articulated.

Still, Todd D. Conflict at Thessalonica: A Pauline Church and Its Neighbours. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 183. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999.
A thorough analysis of the opposition in Thessalonia, with conclusions very similar to those I have articulated.

There are many others that could be mentioned, including important works by Ascough, Donfried, Jewett, Malherbe, Smith, and so on, but these are the ones that have been especially helpful for me to this point.

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