37 the Mosaic Law. But here in 2 Thess. 2:2, it would make more sense in this context if it is talking about the Jewish Revolt in AD 66. The Man of Lawlessness (Eleazar b. Ananias) would not be revealed until after the revolt (or rebellion) began in AD 66. Sure enough, that is what literally happened with Eleazar. He was the one who blew the shofar and rallied the Zealots around himself, and used the temple as his headquarters for the rebellion. In those lawless actions, he revealed himself as the Man of Sin or Lawlessness. It was only a few months afterwards when his father (Ananias b. Nedebaeus) was killed by Menahem. His father was a restraining influence on him. Once his father was killed, there were no more restraints on his lawless character and behavior. That fits the description we see here in 2 Thess 2:6-9. The revealing of the Man of Lawlessness had to occur before the Day of the Lord (the Parousia). Note that this epistle was written in AD 52-53, at least one year before Nero became Emperor (AD 54). His adopted father (Claudius) was still reigning. Some think 2 Thess 2:6-9 might be a reference to Nero’s rise to power in the coming years, and that he would be the Man of Sin. That idea is made somewhat more plausible by the fact that the evil character of Nero was “restrained” by his mother Agrippina, by his marriage to Octavia, and by his two main advisors Seneca and Burrus. In order to free himself of those restraints, Nero killed his mother (AD 59) and his wife Octavia (AD 62). But it was not until the death of Octavia in AD 62, who was the only other remaining legitimate heir to the Julio- Claudian throne, that he was fully free to follow his own impulses without restraint. However, it seems more likely that the Man of Sin was fulfilled by Eleazar b. Ananias, the son of the same Ananias who arrested and tried Apostle Paul in AD 58. This may shed some light on Paul’s comments in 2 Thess 2 that the Man of Lawlessness would not be revealed until the revolt in AD 66. Eleazar was the instigator of that revolt. More on all this below when we get to the year AD 66.
AD 51-53 – Production of the NT canon was definitely underway.
Apostle Paul got his part of it off to a great start with his first three epistles. In regard to the development of the NT canon, we need to keep in mind the probability that Paul carried master copies of his Thessalonian and Galatian epistles with him, which he shared with the Jerusalem church and all the other churches he visited and established. As we argued above under the dates of Matthew and Mark, it seems almost certain that Paul already had access to Matthew’s gospel before his second missionary journey, and probably had a copy of it with him in his collection of “books and parchments” that he carried with him on all of his journeys. Since Paul made multiple trips to Jerusalem between his various missionary journeys, it is easy to see how he could have obtained copies of Matthew’s gospel at least, if not also Mark’s, as well as dropped off copies of his own epistles to the apostles in Jerusalem. This is how the NT books were written and put into circulation, not only by the missionary journeys of Paul and the other Apostles, but also by the various couriers that carried messages back and forth from the Apostles in Jerusalem to all the churches scattered throughout the Diaspora. This procedure of carrying master copies (exemplars) of the NT books with them, from which the churches could make their copies, sheds a lot of light on the development, distribution, and formation of the NT canon. It shows how the writings got spread throughout the whole Roman world and Diaspora before the Neronic persecution and the rapture removed all the Christians from the scene. It also explains how so many copies of those manuscripts were scattered all over the Roman world. As the couriers made their rounds to the churches, they would read those epistles and gospels to the congregation, and then have their in-house scribes or local scriptorium make a copy for them to keep. In some cases, Luke or Mark (both of whom were scribes) might have made copies for the church while they were there. Papyrus and parchment writing materials
