2. Critical Approaches to 1 Thessalonians 4.13–18

Traditional scholarship on 1 Thess 4.16–17 has focused on one of several issues: the situation at Thessaloniki that necessitated this statement, the relationship of this passage to Pauline thought about the resurrection in general, and the intellectual context of the passage.Footnote ² As with all of Paul's epistles, the situation at Thessaloniki and the occasion for the writing of the letter are frequently treated as the hermeneutical keys for its understanding. The precise dating of the letter is debated, but the occasion of the letter is just as opaque.Footnote ³ Assuming the integrity of the letter, a number of scholars have argued that chs. 4–5, the parenetic section of the letter, contain Paul's message. Among the concerns that plagued the young Thessalonian community, the issue of the fate of ‘those who have fallen asleep’ (4.13–18) is one of preeminent importance. Members of the community have died and those who are left are thrown into crisis. The motivation in writing this section of the letter is to correct and to console the Thessalonians in their grief.Footnote ⁴

For those interested in Pauline theology, 4.13–18 has raised questions about the development of Paul's thinking on the afterlife. 1 Thessalonians 4 can be read as conceptually discordant with the image of bodily transformation articulated in 1 Corinthians 15.Footnote ⁵ Whereas in 1 Thessalonians 4 the dead are raised and the living gathered together in the clouds, in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul is clear that the dead will be transformed ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ (1 Cor 15.52).Footnote ⁶ 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15 are not outright contradictory, but they presuppose very different interests and expectations. One way to reconcile the differences between these texts is to posit stages in the development of Paul's thought about the eschaton. Lüdemann, for instance, outlines three stages in Paul's thinking related to the delay of the parousia.Footnote ⁷ This perspective on Pauline eschatology has led to the characterization of 4.16–17 as an interim solution. An undeveloped teaching about the resurrection is employed here, it is argued, as part of an effort to console a distraught fledgling community. Yet, although Paul's letters are always purposeful (even if they are not always occasional), this does not render his theology ad hoc. The notion of the Day of the Lord employed in 1 Thess 4.16–17, even if it does not represent Paul's final statement on the matter, may yet articulate a sophisticated theory of eschatological deliverance.

3. The Cultural and Intellectual Background of 1 Thessalonians 4.16–17

In 4.17 Paul states that ‘Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever’ (ἔπειτα ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες οἱ περιλειπόμενοι ἅμα σύν αὐτοῖς ἁρπαγησόμεθα ἐν νεϕέλαις εἰς ἀπάντησιν τοῦ κυρίου εἰς ἀέρα καὶ οὕτως πάντοτε σὺν κυρίῳ ἐσόμεθα). Given the importance of being ‘caught up in the clouds’ for the development of ideas about the Day of the Lord among members of the Jesus movement, a great deal of attention has been paid to the religious and cultural background to the image.

The eschatological and heavenly focus of the passage has led many to examine scriptural portraits and contemporary eschatological expectations about the end-times. The description of the Son of Man in Daniel 7 has featured prominently in discussions of 1 Thessalonians 4.Footnote ⁸ The references to the descent of the Lord, the cry of command, the trumpet sound, and the archangel's call resonate with descriptions of the Son of Man's descent to earth on clouds at the end of the age (Dan 7.13). The use of a similar notion in Mark 13.26 and 14.62 has led some to conclude that Paul was drawing upon a traditional saying about the eschaton that may have been derived from Jesus himself.Footnote ⁹

In both Dan 7.13 and Mark 13.26, the clouds serve as a mode of transport rather than a final destination for the resurrected. Slavonic Enoch uses similar mechanics for the heavenly ascent of Enoch.Footnote ¹⁰ That clouds could serve as a mode of transportation for individuals is clear. Whether or not this is the case for 1 Thessalonians, however, is ambiguous. Paul merely states that they will be together with Christ forever. There has been considerable scholarly resistance to the idea that the clouds are the destination of the risen. Marshall, for example, states, ‘it is improbable that this permanent union takes place in the air or in heaven’.Footnote ¹¹ Gordon Fee aptly remarks, ‘Christians tend not to be satisfied with leaving them “in the air”, as it were’.Footnote ¹² Yet, as Fee goes on to note, Paul only twice identifies the final location of believers as being heaven (2 Cor 5.1 and perhaps Col 1.5). Paul is not interested, Fee says, in eschatological geography. Fee may be correct, but—in the meantime—the situation in 1 Thessalonians remains ambiguous.

Given the taut literary connection that reliance upon dominical sayings and Dan 7.13 demands, some have elected for a more general apocalyptic background for 1 Thess 4.16–17.Footnote ¹³ If Paul does here adapt apocalyptic Jewish perspectives on the end of days, he would seem to be reversing the traditional view of those left alive at the eschaton.Footnote ¹⁴ Whereas a number of apocalyptic texts stress the privileged status of the final generation, Paul is clear to emphasize that there is no advantage for those who survive to the end.Footnote ¹⁵

The significance of meeting ‘in the air’ has likewise drawn a great deal of attention. Some have argued that first-century Judaism viewed the air as the dwelling place of demons.Footnote ¹⁶ Ephesians 2.2 describes Satan as the ‘ruler of the kingdom in the air’. In this instance the reunion ‘in the air’ would serve to designate Christ as regnant over evil forces. Certainly this reading has some merit to it, but the spatial contrast in 1 Thess 4.16–17 is between the earth and the air. The opening of the earth and releasing of the dead from Sheol has rendered the ground treacherous. The air is, by comparison, a place of safety. If there is an echo of the traditional evil forces that occupy the air then it is ironic that in the eschatological reversal their dwelling has become the place of safety.

In Paul and his World, Helmut Koester has observed that παρουσία, the technical terminology used to describe the eschatological coming of Jesus in 1 Thess 2.19; 3.13; 4.15, and 5.23, is not used in pre-Christian apocalyptic literature.Footnote ¹⁷ Building on the work of Petersen, Koester notes that if there is a technical antecedent for the use of this term in 1 Thessalonians it is in the description of the arrival of a king or emperor.Footnote ¹⁸ From this Koester argues that Paul describes the coming of the Lord like a king or Caesar in order to stress the need for community preparedness.Footnote ¹⁹ The scene of reunion with Christ is also painted with imperial strokes. Paul uses ἀπάντησις, a technical term for the act of going out to meet a dignitary or monarch from another city, to describe meeting the Lord in the clouds in v. 17.Footnote ²⁰ In Koester's reading, therefore, the parousia casts the Thessalonian community as a united delegation from a city that goes out to greet the visiting emperor. In short, ‘it is not possible to understand this passage as a statement about the ‘rapture’ of the believers into heaven'.Footnote ²¹ This is good military etiquette.

The connection between imperial language and imagery and 4.13–18 is certainly illuminating, but perhaps we have been too quick to dismiss apocalyptic and eschatological analogues for the scene.Footnote ²² Readers of 1 Thessalonians have often remarked upon the somewhat midrashic quality of the text.Footnote ²³ A closer examination of rabbinic texts pertaining to the Day of the Lord will reveal that there were traditions in which the righteous escaped judgment and destruction in Sheol by flying and being borne aloft by clouds.

4. Rabbinic Texts about Flying and the Day of the Lord

It should be noted at the outset that dating rabbinic traditions is notoriously difficult. Although we may be able to date the texts in which invididual interpretations are found, these texts are anthologies, thematically organized collections of originally independent, earlier (sometimes considerably earlier) midrashim.Footnote ²⁴ To say that Midrash Tehillim (to take an example from the discussion below) dates to the ninth century ce, then, is not to say that the material contained therein is of equally late date; the bulk of the individual midrashim are from much earlier.Footnote ²⁵ Moreover, even the original form of an individual midrash cannot provide a precise date for the concepts exploited; it is safe to say that the fixing of a concept in a midrashic form represents the end of a lengthy process of oral development. Thus when we draw parallels between Paul and various midrashim, what we are talking about is the plausibility of Paul's familiarity with the concepts—not the texts themselves—inherent in the rabbinic interpretation.

These parallels occur in two major strands. The first is connected with Isa 60.8: ‘Who are these who fly like a cloud, like doves to their cotes?’ According to the usual scholarly understanding of this verse, the white clouds and doves are likened to the white sails of the ships bringing the far-flung Israelites back from the diaspora (Isa 60.9).Footnote ²⁶ Although part of a larger prophetic unit that is clearly eschatological, this verse in its original context is no more than a metaphor and a simile, with little import: no one was actually imagined to be flying.Footnote ²⁷ In rabbinic treatments, however, the meaning of this verse is dramatically expanded. In accord with the standard midrashic hermeneutic, Isa 60.8 was read not as the first part of a comparison with the sails of ships, but rather as a meaningful independent unit.Footnote ²⁸ What the rabbis retained from the biblical context was the connection between ‘flying as a cloud’ and the eschaton; the novelty of the midrashic treatment is the literality with which this prophetic statement was now understood. The words ‘who are these that fly like a cloud?’ are taken to mean precisely what they say: there were those—to be defined by the interpreter—who actually flew, or will actually fly, like a cloud. In addition, in the rabbinic period we find a much more developed eschatology, one that had been influenced both by the restoration eschatology typical of Isaiah 60, for instance, and also by the apocalyptic tendencies of later biblical and post-biblical writings.Footnote ²⁹ Thus for the rabbis ‘flying as a cloud’ from Isa 60.8 was connected not just with the restoration of the Temple, but with the entire concept of the world to come, the eschatological era that will follow the Day of Yahweh.

These two new features—the developed eschatology and the literal reading of the verse—are present to a greater or lesser degree in a range of midrashic discourses on Isa 60.8. In the Mekhilta, in a list of ways in which God's means of ‘smiting’ (punishment) are the same as his means of ‘healing’, we read: ‘When he exiled Israel, he did not exile them except by means of clouds, as it is said: “Alas! Yahweh in his anger has beclouded [fair Zion]” (Lam 2.1); and when he assembles them, he will not assemble them except by means of clouds, as it is said: “Who are these who fly like a cloud?” (Isa 60.8)’ (Mekhilta Beshallaḥ 6).Footnote ³⁰ Although both the eschatological and the literal features of the interpretation are somewhat muted here, they may be understood by analogy with a similar midrash in which these features are more clearly present. In Midrash Tehillim, we find commentary on a verse from Qohelet: ‘ “What has been is what will be” (Qoh 1.9). This verse is explicated: “Just as the Holy One, blessed be he, lifted Israel in clouds of glory and surrounded them and bore them, as it is said, ‘I lifted you on eagles’ wings” (Exod 19.4), thus he will do to them in the future, as it is said, “Who are these who fly like a cloud?”' (Midrash Tehillim 48.4).Footnote ³¹ In both midrashim an analogy is drawn between an act of God in the past involving clouds and the restoration of Israel in the eschatological era. No longer are we dealing with ships, but rather with the Jewish people themselves: it is the people who are likened to the clouds—crucially, not in their appearance, but in their movement.

An even clearer connection between Isa 60.8 and the messianic age is made in Shemot Rabbah 51.8, in the context of the analysis of Exod 38.21, ‘These [אלה] are the records of the Tabernacle’. The midrash explains that the building of the Tabernacle atoned for the Israelites' sin with the golden calf, as is proved by the use of the word אלה, ‘these’, in both Exod 38.21 and 32.4: ‘This [אלה] is your god, O Israel’. It continues: ‘The Holy One, blessed be he, said to Israel, “In this world I have been reconciled to you by means of ‘these’ [אלה]; so too in the world to come, as it is said… ‘Who are these [אלה] who fly like a cloud, like doves to their cotes?’”'

Both the eschatological and literal features reach a head in yet another midrash. According to Tanḥuma Tzav 12, at the eschaton Jerusalem will be lifted by clouds through the seven heavens until it reaches the throne of glory. The transformation of Jerusalem is not simply in its vertical location, however: the Jerusalem of the world to come will be the physical location for the eschatological age, according to this rabbinic discussion; it will be a vastly expanded place. Like Jerusalem itself, those people who are taken up to the heavenly city will similarly be lifted by clouds: ‘[God] will send clouds and they will fly, as it is said, “Who are these who fly like a cloud?”’Footnote ³² If this tradition is connected with 1 Thess 4.16–17, then those who are taken up may be viewed as traveling via cloud to reach the eschatological Jerusalem in the seventh heaven.

There is a different tradition regarding the location of the eschatological Jerusalem, however, which comes from the Talmud: ‘Rabbah said in the name of R. Yoḥanan: In the future the Holy One, blessed be he, will lift Jerusalem three parasangs high, as it is said, “She [Jerusalem] shall rise and stay in her place” (Zech 14.10)…and lest you should think it is painful to go up [to it], Scripture teaches: “Who are these who fly like a cloud, like doves to their cotes?”’ (b. Bab. Bat. 75b). According to this midrash, like that just cited, the inauguration of the eschatological era will be marked by the expanding and lifting of Jerusalem high in the air; not to the seventh heaven, however, but merely as high as the clouds.Footnote ³³ The midrash thus positions the world to come as a physical space floating in the clouds; it then raises the question of how the righteous, once the eschatological Jerusalem has been raised, will get there. Since those who will participate in the world to come will have to travel up to the city, will the journey be painful? Not at all: they will fly like clouds, as Isa 60.8 says.

The relevance of the rabbinic interpretations of Isa 60.8, and particularly those of the last two passages quoted above, for the image employed by Paul in 1 Thess 4.17 should be evident. In the rabbinic traditions, at the advent of the eschaton the righteous will fly up to the new eschatological Jerusalem, either in the seventh heaven or floating in the clouds. One scholarly ambiguity raised by 1 Thess 4.17 has been the eventual fate of those gathered together in the clouds. Do they return to earth or ascend to heaven? The Hellenistic parallels amassed by Koester imply that the imperial Christ and the faithful delegation of Thessalonians will return to earth. Correspondences with Daniel 7 and other Jesus Movement traditions (e.g. Mark 13:24–27) about the eschaton suggest that Christ and the Jesus-followers will return to heaven, as does the tradition from Midrash Tanḥuma. Yet the scene, as described by Paul, does not clearly point to either of these solutions; 1 Thess 4.17 merely states that they will meet the Lord in the air and ‘so will be with the Lord forever’. The idea that those who have ascended into the clouds will simply remain in the clouds with the Lord has proven unsatisfying to NT scholars. The events seem to be left unresolved. The rabbinic idea preserved in the Talmud that Jerusalem also ascends to the clouds and that people will dwell there offers a modified version of the popular Second Temple idea of a ‘heavenly Jerusalem’ or ‘heavenly Temple’.Footnote ³⁴ While it would be an overstatement to say that the Thessalonians are promised continued existence with Christ in a nebulous Jerusalem, it is worth considering the possibility that, as some strains of ancient Jewish thought maintained that post-eschatological existence would be located in the clouds, Paul, given his Jewish heritage, may have been familiar with these ideas. The impulse to come down firmly either on terrestrial or celestial ground neglects all the space in between.

While the rabbinic treatment of Isa 60.8 provides interesting parallels and points of contact with 1 Thess 4.17, another analogue is available. In Num 16.32–33, the rebellious Koraḥ and his 250 followers are swallowed by the earth, which miraculously opens to consume them. In Num 26.11, however, we learn that the sons of Koraḥ did not die along with their father, though no explanation is given for how this came to pass. The opportunity for midrash here is apparent, and the rabbis did not let it slip through the crack. A number of different solutions were offered. In one interpretive strain, exemplified by Pseudo-Philo, Koraḥ's sons survived because they did not participate in the rebellion in the first place; they were, in fact, entirely opposed to their father's actions.Footnote ³⁵ More common is the notion that Koraḥ's sons initially followed their father in rebellion, but at the moment that the earth began to open and swallow them they repented and were saved. Within this line of thought there is a variety of views as to precisely how the Koraḥites were saved from Sheol. According to Midrash Tehillim 1.15, Koraḥ's sons were left standing on solid ground while the earth opened up around them. A more widespread view is that three pillars arose in Gehenna on which the three sons stood, suspended above the pit but still covered by the earth when it closed again. The Koraḥites are thus, according to this reading, in an intermediate state: not quite in Sheol, but not on earth either; not quite dead, but not quite living. It is from this subterranean vantage point that the sons of Koraḥ are supposed to compose and recite the Psalms attributed to them (Pss 42–49; 84–85; 87–88).Footnote ³⁶ At the time of the eschaton, God will remove the Koraḥites from their place in Gehenna.Footnote ³⁷

It is the last midrashic explanation for the survival of the Koraḥites, however, that is most relevant to the discussion of 1 Thess 4.17. The explication of Ps 46.8 in Midrash Tehillim 46.3 begins as follows: ‘ “Yahweh of hosts is with us” (Ps 46.8). The sons of Koraḥ said to the righteous, “Do not fear; we have seen all the miracles which he did for us”, as it is said, “The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households” (Num 16.32). “And where were we at that time? In mid-air [באויר העולם]”, as it is written, “The sons of Koraḥ did not die” (Num 26.11)’. According to this midrash, when the earth opened to swallow the rebels, Koraḥ's sons were saved not by being provided with solid ground to stand on, but by being taken up into the air.Footnote ³⁸ This miracle was not, however, a one-time occurrence, restricted to the past; it is, in fact, the model for the separation of the wicked from the righteous on the Day of Yahweh, as the midrash goes on to state: ‘Thus the sons of Koraḥ said, “Do not fear, O righteous, the terror of the day of judgment, for you will not be seized along with the wicked, just as we were not seized”, as it is said, “Therefore we will not fear when the earth is changed” (Ps 46.3)’.

The state of affairs envisioned here is that the Day of Judgment, the eschaton, will be essentially identical to the moment at which the earth opened and swallowed Koraḥ and his followers. On the Day of Judgment, when the wicked are separated from the righteous, the wicked will fall into the gaping earth, down to Sheol, while the righteous will not fall, but will be lifted up into the air. The same picture of what will happen on the Day of Judgment can be found in the Talmud also, in part of the commentary on the classic passage from the Mishnah (m. Sanh. 10.1–3) describing which groups of people will be denied access to the world to come: ‘And should you ask of those years to come in which the Holy One, blessed be he, will renew his world, as it is said, “Yahweh alone will be exalted on that day” (Isa 2.11), what will the righteous do?, the Holy One, blessed be he, will make them wings like eagles and they will fly over the face of the waters, as it is said, “Therefore we will not fear when the earth is changed and the mountains melt into the heart of the sea” (Ps 46.3)’ (b. Sanh. 92b). Although in the talmudic passage there is no direct mention of the sons of Koraḥ, it is noteworthy that the prooftext for the notion that the righteous will float in the air at the Day of Judgment is the very same prooftext adduced in Midrash Tehillim 46.3 above—the Koraḥite Ps 46.3.Footnote ³⁹

The midrashic traditions associated with the survival of the sons of Koraḥ contain a number of features that are reminiscent of 1 Thess 4.17. There is obviously the eschatological frame; the notion that the righteous will fly in the air; and, interestingly, the consolatory pedagogical function of the description. Just as Paul addresses the fears of the Thessalonian community, so too the midrash about the sons of Koraḥ constitutes a direct address to the righteous: ‘Do not fear’, for you will not share the fate of the wicked when the eschaton comes. Thus the midrash is similar to 1 Thess 4.17 not only in content, but also in function. Just as Paul consoles the Thessalonians about their eventual rescue from death so too the Koraḥite psalms serve as a means of reassurance and consolation. Both texts use the explicatory device of floating above the mouth of Sheol as a means of reassurance. They will, literally, be snatched from the jaws of death and borne away from danger.Footnote ⁴⁰

These two strands of midrashic eschatological expectation can assist us in addressing yet another question: Who are the people that are caught up in the air? A specific point of debate in modern scholarship has been the identity of those gathered together by Christ. Grammatically the final clause of 4.16 (οἱ νεκροὶ ἐν Xριστῷ ἀναστήσονται πρῶτον) could be understood either as ‘those who are dead in Christ will rise’ or ‘the dead will rise in Christ’.Footnote ⁴¹ Theologically the difference between these versions is of great importance. Does Paul envision that all will be resurrected for universal salvation, as Origen would have it, or that only Jesus-followers will be resurrected? Paul is somewhat ambiguous on this point and both situations are attested in other extant early Christian literature. The model present in rabbinic texts offers a third possibility: only Christ followers—both alive and dead—are raised up in the clouds and the living wicked join the non-Christian dead in Sheol.