A Tale of Two Introductions: 2 Peter

I have had my Monday and Tuesday classes engage in various blog discussions in lieu of me being away. Here is the assignment for the General Epistles class, given that they were to read three introductions to 2 Peter: 1) Doug Moo's intro in the NIV Application Commentary series, 2) Ralph Martin's intro in the New Testament Theology series, and 3) Richard Bauckham's intro in the IVP Dictionary of the New Testament.

They are to give a 200 word response to 1) a "testament" introduction to 2 Peter and 2) a "traditional" introduction. Here are the two different introductions:

Introduction 1: Testament Introduction
Although 2 Peter begins by telling us that the apostle Peter is its author, an ancient Jewish audience would have soon recognized it to be a kind of "testament." A testament was a kind of final statement someone made right before they died to help others remember what their life had stood for. They would thus suspect that Peter was in fact not the writer of this letter, but that this letter was meant to remind an audience of what Peter stood for a couple decades after his death. The mention of Peter witnessing the Transfiguration, for example, was not lying, but a literary device meant to remind the audience that Peter himself had been an eyewitness of things the audience was doubting.

A number of features are taken in evidence of a later date for 2 Peter. The style is quite different from 1 Peter and has a lot of rare biblical vocabulary. While 1 Peter expects the Lord's return to take place very soon, 2 Peter speaks of it taking place in the future after the Christian "fathers" have died. In talking about the coming false prophets, it switches from the future tense (as if Peter is speaking) to the present tense (the time it is actually being written). It considers Paul's writings as Scripture, perhaps addressed to a universal audience (which is not how he wrote them)--something unlikely to happen within Peter's lifetime.

So the reference in 3:1 to the previous letter is possibly a reference to 1 Peter, even though 2 Peter doesn't have the same audience as 1 Peter. But the pseudonymous author means to remind the audience of what Peter stood for and to renew their confidence in it.

Introduction 2: Traditional Introduction
1 Peter begins by saying that Peter is its author. As such, deception would be involved if that were not the case. All the evidence we have from the early church suggests that the early Christians considered such writings as forgeries. Further, while there are ancient examples of pseudonymous writings, including the testament genre, we have no ancient testaments that were written in the form of a letter. The claims to see the Transfiguration cannot be considered anything but a lie if the author is not in fact Peter.

None of the usual arguments against Petrine authorship preclude this conclusion. The style is different, but then again, 1 Peter implies that Silas had a hand in its writing. Perhaps we are getting Peter's actual Greek style in 2 Peter--or that of a different secretary from 1 Peter. In fact, the style has the flavor of someone who has used rhetorical exercises to learn Greek rather than a colloquial speaker.

The "fathers" who have died refers not to Christian fathers but to the OT fathers, and thus says nothing of the dating of the letter. The changes in tenses can similarly be explained with minor tweaks in interpretation.

And even though 2 Peter seems to address a universal audience, its flavor is much more that of a particular church or set of churches. In that sense, perhaps it was written to some of the churches 1 Peter addresses, like those in Galatia. On the other hand, the letter referred to in 3:1 might be a completely different letter from 1 Peter.

Since Paul wrote the Galatians, perhaps that is what Peter means when he says, "as Paul writes you." And who is to say that Peter did not come to recognize that he had been wrong and that in fact Paul was right when he wrote Galatians? It is thus possible that Peter might have come to view Paul's letter to the Galatians--as well as those to other churches--as Scripture just like the Old Testament was. Or perhaps Peter is talking about a completely different letter like Romans, which Peter believed to be inspired.