When one thinks of the Antichrist in a Biblical context, it’s almost always Revelation that first springs to mind. Despite the fact that John of Patmos never specifically uses the term, “antichrist,” the Beast from the Sea described within the pages of the apocalypse is commonly accepted as laying the foundation for this sinister figure. Before we reach the New Testament’s final book, however, this Satanic foe makes a sort of cameo appearance in an unlikely place: Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians. Here, he is referred to as the Man of Lawlessness.  

Second Thessalonians is generally seen as a forgery–one of the Deutero-Pauline Epistles as academics call them. That is to say that 2 Thess was not written by the real Paul, but rather by someone pretending to be him. This was a common practice in the ancient (and Biblical) world and was likely done in hopes of bolstering a work with the additional authority as often comes from a famous prophet or apostle. As such, we cannot look to 2 Thess as an example of bonafide Pauline theology. Nevertheless, the letter does seem to be fairly early, with Marcion incorporating it into his own canon by the mid-2nd century, and thus it does provide a helpful window into the world of early Christianity.

As I demonstrated in the last five articles, there exists compelling evidence for an earlier Essene version of John’s Revelation. In that document, Jesus and his followers–who resemble Sicarii more than saints–played the role of the antagonists and were represented by the Sea-Beast and those who took his mark. When reading Revelation in this context, mysteries that have eluded scholars for so long seem to unravel before our very eyes. We find additional proof for the thesis, put forward so cogently by SGF Brandon (1967), that Jesus was a revolutionary leader whose message eventually inspired the Jews to take up arms against Rome in 66 CE. Indeed, Jesus was not just a Zealot, as others have suggested, but THE Zealot, that teacher who Josephus knew as Judas the Galilean. This discrepancy in names is reconciled by the earth-shattering discovery of the Talpiot Tomb, in which we find an ossuary labeled Judas bar Jesus. Could it be that Jesus was not the first name of the one called Christ, but the name of his father, his “family name” in contemporary Roman thought?

I have written at length on the historical Jesus and the names by which he was known in contemporary sources, but I summarize it here again, because the text we are now focusing on, 2 Thessalonians, seems to offer another example of a hostile witness to the early Jesus movement. In short, I propose that like Revelation, there is a Jewish core to 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2 that was slightly revised and absorbed into the pseudo-Pauline letter.

Chapter 2 opens with a warning not to believe any letters that may have come to the community previously claiming that the eschaton was imminent. As scholars have noted, this is quite possibly a reference to 1 Thessalonians–commonly believed to be a genuine Pauline composition. In it, Paul bodes the community to “keep awake,” because the Lord could appear at any time. Paul clearly expected that he and others to whom he addressed would be alive to see that day on which the dead would be raised and when they would all “be caught up in the clouds…to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess 4:17 NRSV). 2 Thessalonians appears to counter this notion, stating that several events would have to take place before the End, and in the meantime, the church’s members should go about their daily lives. Apparently, some community members were so caught up in apocalyptic fervor that they stopped going to work. “What’s the point? Jesus is coming back any day now!”

So immediately, Pseudo-Paul appears to be “correcting” the embarrassingly apocalyptic teachings of Real-Paul as they appeared in 1 Thess. Here is where the ties to Revelation start to emerge. Verse 3 proceeds to mention that “the rebellion” must first occur and that the “Man of Lawlessness” aka the “Son of Destruction” must be revealed. This language is nearly identical to what we find in Revelation 17, where reference is made to the beast that “was, and is not, and is about to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to destruction” (Rev 17:8 NRSV). Besides the literary connection, this beast can be said to be the “son of destruction” in the sense that it is portrayed as the heir to Abaddon/Apollyon, The Destroyer. As we briefly touched on in our last article, this angel of the bottomless pit (the one who is cast down/swallows up–the same Hebrew root is employed) is none other than Belial/Satan. As such, the beast is summoned from the watery abyss of the sea (another metaphor for the pit/Hades) by his fallen father.

Beyond these things, the term, “Son of Destruction” is nothing less than a smoking gun for the theory of Jesus’s identity espoused on these pages. This intriguing title is not unique within the New Testament canon. In John 17:12, the “one destined for destruction” aka “the son of destruction” is specifically identified as Judas Iscariot! Those who have read The Historical Jesus Theory of Everything Part 1, will recall that Judas Iscariot is but another alternative moniker for Jesus himself. Judas “the Sicarii” represents Judas the Galilean, who founded the Fourth Philosophy of Judaism as defined by Josephus, and instituted the order of Sicarii rebels who ultimately wound up taking their own lives at the fortress of Masada.

Judas, much like Jesus Barabbas, is a vessel into which all negative aspects of Jesus’s personality were siphoned off. He betrays his teacher, much like the Qumran sectarians believed Jesus betrayed John the Baptist, their Righteous Teacher. He steals from the common purse, just as the Wicked Priest of the Dead Sea Scrolls is said to have stolen from the sect’s funds. And, intriguingly, Judas is said to have died at nearly the exact same time as Jesus himself. 

Traces of doppelganger Judas still remain in the gospel texts. Channeling the spirit of Renee Girard, Hyam Maccoby (1982) stunningly demonstrates how Judas fills the role of the sacrificed victim more than even Jesus himself (133). Judas is the proverbial evil twin of Jesus (128). Textual detectives might also recall the character of Judas Thomas aka Judas “the twin” and Jesus’s brother, Judas, whom, along with Judas Iscariot, Eisenman (2006) has also identified as referring to the same early church Pillar (113).

In The Sacred Executioner, Maccoby shows that by slaying the victim, whether it be a king, god, or the founder of a city, the sacrifice (often a brother as in the myth of Cain and Abel) takes on the burden of guilt, but also effectively BECOMES the victim (Maccoby 1982, 133). Beneath all of the mythmaking, the sacrificer and the sacrifice are revealed to be one and the same. This profound idea was incorporated into the Jesus narrative making Judas essentially the Tyler Durdan of Mark’s Gospel. 

With this profound recognition established, the passage in 2 Thessalonians begins to make much more sense. It appears as if this portion of Chapter 2 originally came from the same camp that produced the Book of Revelation and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Pseudo-Paul assimilated these verses into his letter, because they made for a good explanation as to why the eschaton had seemingly failed to arrive on schedule. “The antichrist has to come first! He’s the one holding things up! That’s the ticket!” 

Pseudo Paul goes on to write that the “Man of Lawlessness” (a fitting moniker for the Dead Sea Scrolls’ Scoffer, who was said to have torn down traditions anciently established) partook in a particular flavor of blasphemy. 

“He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God” (2 Thess 2:4 NRSV).

Scholars continue to go back and forth on the question of whether Jesus believed himself to be God, but there is little doubt that the early Christians viewed Jesus as divine. By the time John’s Gospel is written, Jesus is said to have declared that he and the Father are one. But even as early as Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is accused of blasphemy by the High Priest. When asked by Caiaphas if he is indeed the Messiah, Jesus answers, “I am,” which may in fact be a thinly veiled reference to the divine name. During his arrest in the fourth gospel, when Jesus is told that the soldiers and police are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, he replies, “I am he,” which triggers the whole lot of them to fall to the ground. It appears as if here Jesus again invoked the divine name. Why such a reaction otherwise?

So we have some early hints of Jesus believing himself divine. But did he enter the temple? We certainly have attestation to him entering the heavenly temple in the letter to the Hebrews, but what of the earthly one? There is the somewhat wild tale of Jesus stealing the divine name from the temple and hiding it under the flesh of his tight, as recounted in the Toldoth Yeshu. For a slightly more grounded account, however, we ought to take a closer look at the incident commonly referred to as “the cleansing of the temple.” In each of the four gospels, we are told that Jesus started a ruckus and effectively shut down regular temple operations. Some scholars have deduced that this was more than just a minor demonstration–that this was a military takeover and that Jesus and his followers must have held the temple for some time that day before deciding, based on reasons unknown to us, that it was best to call off the coup and retreat (Brandon 1967, 338-340). Could Jesus have entered the sanctuary during this span? It seems entirely plausible.

Reading on, in 2 Thess 2:5, Pseudo-Paul claims to his readers that he’s told them all of this before. This seems to be a rhetorical trick by the author anticipating that his message would appear unfamiliar to the congregation. The parishioners would have been led to assume that they just missed this part–perhaps dozing off during one of Paul’s lengthy homilies. The author then mysteriously asserts the following: 

“And you know what is now restraining him, so that he may be revealed when his time comes. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it is removed” (2 Thess 2:6-7 NRSV).

What, or who exactly, is the one “restraining” the Son of Destruction? Scholars have toiled over this question and yet there is not one accepted answer. Some discouraged academics have gone so far as to despair that the solution may never be found (Peerbolte 1997, 139). Could it be Michael? Satan? God himself? 

The solution I propose is tentative, but I offer it up regardless. In my view, the restrainer is the Messiah, who at this point was believed to be a manifestation of an aspect of Yahweh. This is in line with the Rider of the White Horse in Revelation, who is called “The Word of God.” In line with Margaret Barker, he is here depicted as the Great Angel, elsewhere identified as the Name of God–an offshoot of the divine essence that could be experienced by humankind, God himself being unknowable in His full splendor. 

Christians would, of course, come to identify this entity with Jesus, but here it is not so named. In fact, the restrainer in 2 Thess cannot be Jesus, as the Greek phrase translated as “removed” is more properly translated as “born in their midst” or “come into being in the middle of them.” This would imply that the Messiah had not yet come into the world at all and that he was the one keeping the Man of Lawlessness from being revealed. More correctly, he is keeping the Man of Lawlessness from being “exposed,” as the arrival of the REAL Messiah would signal to others that the guy they were following– the one who they THOUGHT was the Messiah–was actually an imposter!

A vital clue for the Messiah NOT being Jesus in this text comes in verse 8 which states:

“And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming.”

Only in some texts, it does not read, “Lord Jesus,” but only “Lord!” Just like Revelation, a later copyist inserted Jesus’s name into the text where it did not appear before! In the original, it is not Jesus, but a theophany of Yahweh himself who rides in and destroys the Antichrist, just as the Rider on the White Horse does in Revelation 19 and very much like Melchizedek (perhaps another name for this theophany) does in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Pseudo-Paul wraps this section up by mentioning the “signs, lying wonders,” and “wicked deceptions” used by the followers of the lawless one. Ironically enough, the original author of this Qumran-esque excerpt seems to be aiming his polemic at the so-called miracles of the real Paul. The author also mentions that these people “took pleasure in unrighteousness” in yet another parallel to the Seekers of Smooth Things in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Sicarii in the works of Josephus. In seeming agreement with the strict determinism found in the DSS, the author reveals that it is actually God who sends these hopeless ones a “powerful delusion.” (Anyone who’s tried arguing with those of the fundamentalist persuasion nowadays might well agree with that particular conclusion.)

If I am correct in my assertions here, the implications are nothing less than a complete upheaval for our understanding of the early Jesus movement. Going by the evidence at hand, it seemed to be common practice, and an effective one at that, for the early Christians to assimilate hostile texts into their own theological schema, in the process creating such characters as the Antichrist. In our analysis of 2 Thessalonians, we find further support for the identification of Jesus Christ with Judas the Galilean–and the literary creation, Judas Iscariot–as his less-than-Godlike attributes were split off as if via mitosis. The primary accusations against Jesus in the gospels–blasphemy and fomenting rebellion–are both here as well. 

I’ll perhaps do more of a deep dive into 2 Thessalonians in a future post, as there is still much research to be done. In the meantime, I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on this text and any reading recommendations on the topic are very much welcome! 

References

Brandon, S. G. F. 1967. Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Eisenman, Robert. 2006. The New Testament Code. London: Watkins.

Lietaert Peerbolte, L.J. “The Κατέχον/Κατέχων of 2 Thess. 2:6-7.” Novum Testamentum 39, no. 2 (1997): 138–50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1561247.

Maccoby, Hyam. 1982. The Sacred Executioner: Human Sacrifice and the Legacy of Guilt. New York: Thames and Hudson.