So where are we left after all this? I am still not convinced by the pseudepigraphical arguments for authorship, as it seems to me that there are significant unanswered concerns over it.74 At the very least, even the primary accusation that 2 Peter itself levies against its opponents—what it considers false teaching posing as the truth—would seem to undermine any claim of it being pseudepigraphy in the first place. On the other hand, the history of the reception of the document in the early Church does give one pause. That notwithstanding, 2 Peter was eventually accepted into the canon even as its authenticity concerns lingered. At this point then, Jerome’s amanuensis explanation would seem to sufficiently address many of the concerns 2 Peter raises about authorship, and remains as equally plausible to any of the other possibilities adduced.
Opponents
The opponents in 2 Peter are identified as false-teachers (pseudodidaskaloi —2:1) meaning they may have enjoyed a certain authority in the community as teachers. While the term is occasionally mistakenly applied to the opponents in Jude, this term does not appear in the letter of Jude in reference to the opponents in that letter. In spite of Michael Green’s insistence that the opponents in the two letters share significant similarities as to warrant a conflation, there is need to recognize that even the distinctive use of the terminology in 2 Peter, that is missing in Jude, gives a specific nuance to the characterization of the opponents in the letter as opposed to those in Jude.75 The false-teachers basically seem to have cast doubt on the apostolic teaching about the return of Jesus as a judge of creation dubbing it a myth (1:16–17). Accordingly, there would be no return; there was no need to have moral codes or virtues (2:19), given that it was not in the nature of God to interfere in human affairs (3:5–7), since all evidence points to a never changing universe (3:8–10). These positions are reconstructed from what 2 Peter refutes regarding the false-teacher’s perceived teachings, but are not comprehensive enough to identify them with any specific first-century religious or philosophical group.
Genre
A key element of Bauckham’s psuedepigraphical authorship argument for 2 Peter rests on identification of the writing as a farewell testament (the last words or wishes of a dying person of significance, e.g., a patriarch).76 For Bauckham, the nature of testaments is that they are all inherently, always fictional, a claim questioned by other scholars.77 The elements that account for identification of 2 Peter with this genre include: i) its reference to the author’s impending death (1:12–14), ii) emphasis on moral exhortation (virtues) which parallels other Testaments (1:5–7), iii) recounting (reminiscing?) of the arrival of the gospel message to the community (1:16–19), and iv) warnings of impending dangers that must be resisted and fought (2:1–3; 3:1–7).
Challenges to Bauckham have pointed out that a document can have testamentary material without the whole writing being a Testament (e.g., John 21, 1 Macc. 2), that there is no clear premise to presume that all testamentary writings are pseudepigraphical, missing significant testamentary material in 2 Peter (e.g., a death scene), and rather than predicting arrival of opponents they seem to already have arrived.78 Also, while today we may understand documents such as the testamentary writings to have been written in the name of worthies who had died ages before; it is not clear at all whether first or second century readers would have understood 2 Peter that way.79 So while the testamentary elements are truly present, they are not sufficient to make the document a testament, and so the nature of the documents remains one of an epistle—a farewell letter, to be exact.
Eschatology
There is an image of changing attitudes and concerns about God’s ultimate judgment of creation and the desire for assurance that promises made earlier about the parousia of Jesus were still part of the present reality of the readers. The agitation is being driven the teachings of the false-teachers who have questioned the reliability of the message the community had received from those who brought the gospel to them. Second Peter’s sentiments about the parousia are similar to those in Paul’s letters (1 Thess 5:2) and Revelation (3:5; 16:15). Therefore, the day of the Lord is expected to make a sudden appearance (2 Pet 3:10, 11) and calls for the readers to be watchful (2 Pet 3:12). However 2 Peter does add an aspect to the parousia in that it can be directly influenced by the believers’ ethical response, hastening its appearance by moral conduct (2 Pet 3:12–14). Similarities can be drawn to Acts 3:19–21. These eschatological perspectives set 2 Peter firmly in the early Church’s understanding of an expected return of the Lord within their own lifetime.
1. Rowston 1975: 554–63; Cf. Elliott 1976: 243–54, in 1 Peter. Elliot’s own commentary on 1 Peter (2000) with over seventy pages of bibliographic material is evidence of interest in the letter had sustained, perhaps instigated by his earlier comments about the neglect.
2. Davids and Webb 2008; Watson and Webb 2010; Mason and Martin 2014.
3. Recent influx of studies on 2 Peter and Jude as reflected in the number of commentaries that have been produced, has brought some long-needed focus on the letters but this does not preclude the fact that in comparison with studies on the Gospels and Pauline literature, the numbers on these letters pale. The list includes—Grundmann 1986; Paulsen 1992; Neyrey 1993; Chester and Martin 1994; Holmer 1994; Krimmer and Holland 1994; Vögtle 1994; Moo 1996; Horrell 1998; G. Bray 2000; Schelkle 2002; Kraftchick 2002; Schreiner 2003; Brosend II 2004; Skaggs 2004; Davids 2006; Reese 2007; Senior and Harrington 2008; Green 2008; Witherington III 2008; Powers 2010; Vinson 2010; Donelson 2010; Keating 2011; González 2011; Aichele 2012; Painter and deSilva 2012; Watson and Callan 2012.
4. Dube et al. 2012: 1–28.
5. Kobel 2011: 280.
6. Harland 2003: 211.
7. Harland 2009: 26–27.
8. The term “voluntary associations” used by some scholars to distinguish between Greco-Roman associations whose membership was by means of birth or civic or religious responsibility, in contrast to the purely voluntary groups such as trade guilds. However, it is clear now that even such groups as the synagogues and some trade groups obligated membership, meaning the notion of “voluntary” could not be held too strictly.