Joseph Plevnik, «1 Thessalonians 4,17: The Bringing in of the Lord or the Bringing in of the Faithful?», Vol. 80 (1999) 537-546

The image of bringing in, which, in dependence on Hellenistic parousia depictions, denotes the bringing in of the Lord at his coming, does not fit the imagery and the theology of Paul in 1 Thess 4,13-18. Hellenistic parousias depict the citizens making the royal visitor welcome in their city, whereas 1 Thess 4,13-18 depicts the effect of the Lord’s coming on them. The faithful are raised; the faithful are taken up. 1 Thess 4,13-18 really depicts the bringing in of the faithful, not of the Lord. The implication is that they do not return to the earth, but stay with the Lord forever.

(1896)⁹. Teichmann in fact employed the verb einholen ("to bring in", "go to meet", "go to get") which Peterson in 1929 used for the faithful’s bringing of the Lord to their earthly abode¹⁰. Teichmann noted that he thereby departed from the view held by O. Pfleiderer (1887)¹¹, R. Kabisch (1893)¹², and W. Beyschlag (1895)¹³, according to which the faithful go up to stay with the Lord for ever¹⁴.

        Deissner’s explanation was taken up by A. Deissmann and E. Peterson. Peterson adopted Deissner’s word Einholung. But whereas Teichmann and Deissner still derived their interpretations from 1 Thess 4,16-17 and other Pauline texts, Deissmann and Peterson drew on the Hellenistic parousias. According to them, the Einholung motif in 1 Thess 4,17 is a replica of Hellenistic parousias. Recent discoveries of inscriptions, papyri, and ostraca from 200 B.C. to 150 A.D. prove that Hellenistic and Roman parousias were a well-known event in the world in which the early Christians existed. In the fourth edition of his book Licht vom Osten (1923), Deissmann suggested that the early Church borrowed the imagery of the Lord’s coming from Hellenistic parousias. According to him, "The best interpretation of the Primitive Christian hope of the Parousia is the old Advent text, ‘Behold, thy King cometh unto thee’"¹⁵.

        Deissmann based his argument mainly on the word parousi/a, which has a Hellenistic overtone and does not appear in the Hebrew bible, the Septuagint or Jewish apocalyptic writings. He took this word to be a technical term. According to him, "from the Ptolemaic period down into the 2nd cent. A.D. we are able to trace the word in the East as a technical expression for the arrival or the visit of the king or the emperor"¹⁶.