Second Epistle of Peter


2 Peter, also known as the Second Epistle of Peter and abbreviated as 2 Pet., is an epistle of the New Testament written in Koine Greek. It identifies the author as "Simon Peter", a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ". The epistle is traditionally attributed to Peter the Apostle, but most critical scholars consider the epistle pseudepigraphical. Scholars estimate the date of authorship anywhere from AD 60 to 150.

Authorship and date

According to the Epistle itself, it was composed by the Apostle Peter, an eyewitness to Jesus' ministry. says "This is now the second letter I have written to you"; if this is an allusion to 1 Peter, then the audience of the epistle may have been the same as it was for 1 Peter, namely, various churches in Asia Minor.
The date of composition has proven to be difficult to determine. Taken literally, it would have been written around AD 64–68, as Christian tradition holds Peter was martyred in the 60s by Nero, and also because Peter references his approaching death in .
The questions of authorship and date are closely related. Scholars consider the epistle to have been written anywhere between c. AD 60–150, with "some reason to favour" a date between 80 and 90. Dates suggested by various authors include:
  • c. 60
  • 63
  • 64 – 110
  • Mid 60s
  • c. 70 or 80
  • 75 – 100
  • 80 – 90
  • c. 90
  • Late first or early second century
  • c. 100
  • 100 – 110
  • 100 – 125
  • 100 – 140
  • 130
  • 150
The scholarly debate can be divided into two parts: external and internal evidence. The external evidence for its authenticity, although feasible, remains open to criticism. Much of this debate derives from Professor Robert E. Picirilli's article "Allusion to 2 Peter in the Apostolic Fathers," which compiles many of the allusions by the Apostolic Fathers of the late first and early second centuries, thus demonstrating that 2 Peter is not to be considered a second-century document. Despite this effort, scholars such as Michael J. Gilmour, who consider Picirilli's evidences to be correct, disagree with classifying the work as authentic but rather as a pseudepigrapha, arguing among many other things that Paul had to warn against contemporary pseudo-Pauline writers.
The internal debate focuses more on its style, its ideology, and its relationship to the other works and stories. Some of the internal arguments against the authenticity of 2 Peter have gained significant popularity since the 1980s. One such argument is the argument that the scholar Bo Reicke first formulated in 1964, where he argued that 2 Peter is clearly an example of an ancient literary genre known as a 'testament', which originally arose from Moses' farewell discourse in Deuteronomy. Richard J. Bauckham, who popularized this argument, wrote that the 'testament' genre contains two main elements: ethical warnings to be followed after the death of the writer and revelations of the future. The significant fact about the 'testament' genre was not in its markers but in its nature; it is argued that a piece of 'testament' literature is meant to "be a completely transparent fiction." This argument has its detractors, who classify it as a syllogism. Others characterize the writing as a 'farewell speech' because it lacks any semblance of final greetings or ties with recipients.
One of the questions to be resolved is 2 Peter's relationship with the Pauline letters since it refers to the Pauline epistles and so must postdate at least some of them, regardless of authorship. Thus, a date before AD 60 is improbable. Further, it goes as far as to name the Pauline epistles as "scripture"—one of only two times a New Testament work refers to another New Testament work in this way—implying that it postdates them by some time. Various hypotheses have been put forward to improve or resolve this issue; one notable hypothesis is that the First Epistle of Clement, by citing as Scripture several of the Pauline letters, was inspired by 2 Peter because it was considered authentic. This would mean that even the recipients of 1 Clement, the inhabitants of Corinth, would have also considered it authentic, which would indicate that the letter must have been in circulation long before that time. The earliest reference to a Pauline collection is probably found in Ignatius of Antioch around AD 108.
Another debate is about its linguistic complexity and its relationship with 1 Peter. According to the scholar Bart D. Ehrman, the historical Peter could not have written any works, either because he was "unlettered" or because he was a fisherman from Capernaum, a comparatively small and probably monolingual town, in a time and province where there was little literacy. Bauckham addresses the statistical differences in the vocabulary of the two writings, using the data given by U. Holzmeister's 1949 study; 38.6 percent of the words are common to 1 and 2 Peter. 61.4 percent peculiar to 2 Peter, while of the words used in 1 Peter, 28.4 percent are common to 1 and 2 Peter, 71.6 percent are peculiar to 1 Peter. However, these figures can be compared with other epistles considered authentic, showing that pure statistical analysis of this type is a weak way of showing literary relationship. Bauckham also notes that "the Greek style of Second Peter is not to the taste of many modern readers, at times pretentiously elaborate, with an effort at pompous phrasing, a somewhat artificial piece of rhetoric, and 'slimy Greek'"; contrary to the style of the first epistle, "2 Peter must relate to the 'Asiatic Greek.'" The crux of the matter is how these differences are explained. Those who deny the Petrine authorship of the epistle, such as, for example, Kelly, insist that the differences show that First and Second Peter were not written by the same person. Others add that 2 Peter was a specific type of pseudepigraphy common and morally accepted at the time, either because it was a testamentary genre or because the works of the disciples could bear the names of their masters without any inconvenience.
Those who defend Petrine authorship often appeal to the different amanuenses or secretaries Peter used to write each letter, as first suggested by Jerome. Thomas R. Schreiner criticizes people who regard arguments in favor of the authenticity of 2 Peter as mere arguments of religious conservatives who impotently try to invent arguments to support authenticity. People of this mindset, according to Schreiner, object to the claim that different secretaries may have been used but then claim that the corpus of the two letters is too small to establish stylistic variation. Schreiner states:
The scholar Simon J. Kistemaker believes that linguistically "the material presented in both documents provides substantial evidence to indicate that these letters are the product of a single author." However, this view is very much in the minority. Most biblical scholars have concluded Peter is not the author, considering the epistle pseudepigraphal. Reasons for this include its linguistic differences from 1 Peter, its apparent use of Jude, possible allusions to second-century gnosticism, encouragement in the wake of a delayed parousia, and weak external support.

Early surviving manuscripts

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:

Greek

There is an obvious relationship between the texts of 2 Peter and the Epistle of Jude, to the degree that one of them clearly had read the other and copied phrases, or both had read some lost common source. The shared passages are:
2 PeterJude

In general, most scholars believe that Jude was written first, and 2 Peter shows signs of adapting phrases from Jude for its specific situation.

Canonical acceptance

The earliest undisputed mention of 2 Peter is by the theologian Origen in his Commentary on the Gospel of John, in which he states:
Origen mentioned no explanation for the doubts, nor did he give any indication concerning the extent or location. According to Donald Guthrie this means that Origen "saw no reason to treat these doubts as serious, and this would mean to imply that in his time the epistle was widely regarded as canonical." Acceptance of the letter into the canon did not occur without some difficulty; however, "nowhere did doubts about the letter's authorship take the form of definitive rejection."
Origen, in another passage, has been interpreted as considering the letter to be Petrine in authorship. Before Origen's time, the evidence is inconclusive; there is a lack of definite early quotations from the letter in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, though possible use or influence has been located in the works of Clement of Alexandria, Theophilius, Aristides, Polycarp, and Justin.
Robert E. Picirilli observed that Clement of Rome linked,, and in 1 Clement 23:3. Richard Bauckham and Peter H. Davids also noted the reference to “Scripture” in 1 Clement 23:3 matched 2 Peter 3:4, but make it dependent on a common apocalyptic source, which was also used in 2 Clement 11:2.
Carsten Peter Thiede adds to Picirilli's work authors such as Justin and Minucius Felix who would use 2 Peter directly and a new reference in Clement of Rome.
2 Peter seems to be quoted amongst apocryphal literature in Shepherd of Hermas, Apocalypse of Peter, the Gospel of Truth, and the Apocryphon of John.
Eusebius professed his own doubts, and is the earliest direct testimony of such, though he stated that the majority supported the text, and by the time of Jerome it had been mostly accepted as canonical.
The Peshitta, the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, does not contain the Second Epistle of Peter and thus rejects its canonical status.