Scholars continue to debate whether Second Thessalonians was written by Paul or by pseudonym. The position that the letter is a late imitation is largely based on the comparison of the parallel expressions of the two epistles to the Thessalonians. There are more words and phrases that are repeated between these two letters than there are in any other two New Testament letters. William Wrede¿s study is the ultimate source of scholarly perception of these parallels. Not only does Wrede locate some exact parallels, he also finds definite words, verses, and related passages that precisely mirror and reject their counterparts in First Thesallonians. Scholars who conclude that Second Thessalonians is pseudonymous owe much of that conclusion to Wrede¿s work. Wreder¿s order of the Greek parallels has been reproduced with his original annotations in this translation.

William Wrede was born in 1859 at Bücken in Hanover. He became an associate professor at Breslau in 1893, and full professor in 1896. He died in office in 1906.