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What we have said about provenance yields the essential matter about dating these letters. They both seem to have been written at Corinth during Paul’s evangelistic campaign in that city. That the organization of the church presupposed by these letters is of the simplest agrees with this reconstruction. There are no references to officials such as presbyters or deacons, only to "those...who are over you in the Lord” (1 Thess. 5:12). This also agrees with the passage about the parousia (1 Thess. 4:13-18) that has been understood by some (mistakenly in our view) to mean that the second coming would take place in Paul’s lifetime. It is difficult to think that the statement would have been worded in this way if it was composed after Paul’s death.
It can be argued from an inscription that the proconsul Gallio (before whom Paul was brought in Corinth [Acts 18:12]) reached Corinth in the early summer of A.D. 51.13 As Paul had exercised a ministry in Corinth before Gallio’s arrival, the apostle most likely came to Corinth early in 50. The first letter to the Thessalonians would have been written soon after that, and the second some months later. These letters are thus among the earliest letters of Paul to survive. Some date Galatians earlier, but none of the others.
As we noticed earlier, it is sometimes urged that Paul’s stay in Thessalonica must have been longer than it would appear from the account given in Acts. Support is found for this in Paul’s statement that he worked night and day (1 Thess. 2:7-9) so that he would not be a burden to the Thessalonians and his further statement about the aid the Philippians sent him while he was in Thessalonica (Phil. 4:16), which are said to demand a longer time. But even making full allowance for what these considerations tell us about the length of his stay, it still remains that Paul cannot have been in Thessalonica for more than a matter of months. His letters to the church there would still be quite early. 14
Those who deny the Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians tend to date it rather later. Thus Enslin thinks it was written "after Paul’s death, perhaps in the early years of the second century.” He argues this on the ground that the epistle was written after Paul’s death by someone who wanted to get Paul’s authority for his letter, in which he was setting forward "later views of the Parousia.” 15 This is scarcely convincing evidence for a late date, Moreover, Enslin does not even examine the question of how on his view the letter could have been recognized as canonical by the time of Marcion. 16 Marxsen dates it "soon after A.D. 70,” 17 but cites no evidence.