though this euphemism for death can be found variously in the ancient world, Paul’s threefold repetition of it in this passage seems to put a degree of emphasis on the nonfinality of death for those whom he will finally call “the dead in Christ.” Paul begins his explanation with what will become for him something of a stock phrase, “we do not want you to be uninformed [lit. ‘without knowledge’],” a formula that will occur five more times in the Pauline corpus.15 Because these later uses cover such