Why This Text Matters | Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians | Margaret Mitchell

Religious studies courses can feature a broad range and variety of texts, including anything from The Daodejing, to The Mishnah, to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, to Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger, to Said’s Orientalism. The Marty Center partnered with the Undergraduate Religious Studies Program to design “Why This Text Matters” as a series of videos to help faculty prepare for courses, their students, and anyone generally curious about important texts in the study of religion. In the space of about 30 minutes, viewers can gain a deeper understanding of the context, themes, and significance of texts taught by experts at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
About the Text:
This video provides an analysis of the earliest Christian text that has been preserved. Paul wrote the letter now known as 1 Thessalonians around 50-51 CE, under circumstances that we can to some degree reconstruct from within the text itself. He seeks to address their mourning and consternation over the recent deaths of believers and family members-something for which Paul’s original euangelion (“good news message”) about “the living and true God” and “his son Jesus Christ” had not prepared them.