332 Joel White giving 2 Thessalonians the benefit of the doubt in favor of Pauline authorship (82), though with Ernest Best I would want to “widen the concept of authenticity to include authorship by a companion of Paul writing at his behest (and not one of his companions or someone from a ‘Pauline’ school writing after his death)” (83). The Traditionsgeschichte behind 2 Thess 2,3-4 is complex, and we will not examine it thoroughly here. It is sufficient for our purposes to note that several strains of thought running through this text have antecedents in Daniel. First, we note the idea of an end-time apostasy instigated by a “man of lawlessness” in v. 3. This seems to be a clear allusion to the “little horn” of Dan 7,8 and 8,9 that is revealed to be a ruler who “intends to change times and the law” (Dan 7,25) and is further described by Gabriel as a future king who understands “sinister schemes” (Dan 8,23) and who “by his cunning shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule” (Dan 8,25). Second, Paul states that this man of lawlessness will “oppose and exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped” and “claim to be God” (2 Thess 2,3). This is evocative of the description of the lawless ruler of Daniel who will “speak pompous words against the Most High” (Dan 7,25), “exalt himself as high as the Prince of the Host” (Dan 8,25), and “regard neither the God of his fathers...nor any god, for he shall exalt himself above them all” (Dan 11,37). Third, though Paul does not use the phrase “abomination of desolation”, he does mention that the man of lawlessness will “seat himself in the temple of God” (2 Thess 2,3), which is reminiscent of the tradition concerning the cessation of sacrifice and the setting up of the “abomination of desolation” attested in Dan 9,27; 11,31; 12,11 (see above). Fourth, the notion that the lawless one’s great power is derived from Satan (2 Thess 2,9) may allude to the statement in Dan 8,24 that “his power shall be mighty, but it will not be his own power”. It is perhaps possible to identify other allusions to Daniel in the larger context, but these suffice to highlight (82) WHITE, Erstlingsgabe, 217-222. (83) E. BEST, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians (BNTC; London 41986) 52-53. So also T. HOLTZ, “Thessalonicherbriefe”, TRE XXXIII, 420; D. DESILVA, An Introduction to the New Testament. Contexts, Methods, and Ministry Formation (Downers Grove, IL 2004) 542. The evidence of 2 Thess would still deserve consideration even if the letter is deemed to be “Pauline” only in the broader sense that Best rightly excludes from the notion of authorship — on which cf. A.D. BAUM, Pseudepigraphie und literarische Fälschung im frühen Christentum (WUNT 2/138; Tübingen 2001) 92-93 — but its weight for the purposes of my argument would be lessened considerably.