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In my previous posts I’ve talked about writings that claimed to be written by Peter, the closest disciple to Jesus – a Gospel, and Apocalypse, and an Epistle . These are not the only Petrine writings floating around in the early church. Among other things, we have two other (different) apocalypses, one of them unusually fascinating that was discovered only in 1945 (a Gnostic writing).
None of these was actually written by Peter, and I don’t think there’s a biblical scholar on the planet who seriously thinks it was. It appears that writing books in the name of Peter was something of a cottage industry in early Christianity.
That should give us pause. There are two books that also claim to be written by Peter that actually are in the New Testament. If we know that such pseudepigrapha were floating around, on what grounds should we think these two were authentic?
Of all the books of the NT that have been thought to be forged – written by an author falsely claiming to be someone else – 2 Peter is by far the one most widely regarded as falling into the category. Even some more left wing evangelicals think so. My own conservative Christian mentor, the great scholar Bruce Metzger, thought it could not actually be by Peter. The common reason: the writing style is so massively different from 1 Peter that there is simply no way both were written by the same person.
That, as you might realize, is a specious argument, because
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Is 2 Peter likely based on Jude, or is it possible Jude and 2 Peter were written by the same person?
They appear to be by different people, and yes there is an obvious connection. It is almost always thought that the author of 2 Peter took over the book Jude (edited), rather than the other way around. It (2 Peter) is usually considered the final book of the NT to be written.
Hello Dr. Ehrman,
I find your comments on the writings of second Peter on this blog s well as comments you make in your 2022 book: ‘Journeys to Heaven and Hell Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition’ very interesting. I am currently a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church where all believers snarkily comment ‘belief is optional.’ Since it’s merger in 1961 and it’s steady drift away from mainstream Christianity’ it is hardly recognizable to the Universalist Christian tradition, but it’s nice to think that Universalism (all get saved in the end) was a part of early Christianity before the Constantine era. It appears that this ‘universalism’ was a big issue for Constantine scholars and they had to make sure that their control would be reinforced by scaring people into believing that damnation for disbelief would be swift and permanent.Thus they included second Peter and rejected the gospel of Peter and related writings.
Have you ever considered what I will call a Calvinist and/or OT conception of God to at least be realistic and plausible even if it’s far less attractive than what I will call a NT/loving conception of God? By Calvinist I mean that whatever God does or commands-and, without free will, whatever happens in the world-is good by definition, even if it’s often horribly at odds with what humans think is good.
It seems like that could easily explain the huge amount of terrible, pointless evil and suffering in the world without that suffering seriously calling into question God’s existence.
Of course I believe Calvinists would consider this suffering to be good because God is just and as sinners by nature none of us deserves to avoid suffering.
And predestination seems perfectly compatible with a predetermined universe.
One might ask what the point is of worrying about whether such a God exists. There could be a motivation of self-interest in finding favor with such a God even if he seems evil. But, without free will, we’re unable to do even that. I guess all that’s left is feeling saved.
Yes, I was a Calvinist in my late teens early 20s. But I didn’t think that was in contrast to the NT view of God. Quite the contrary! I don’t know any Calvinists who think there views are non-biblical.
Did no early Christian theologians question how an (in all probability) illiterate Galilean fisherman learned to write fluent (if colloquial) Greek? Did they just assume the existence of a Greek-speaking amanuensis helping Peter compose his letters? Or perhaps that, just as the apostles spoke in foreign tongues at Pentacost, they also learned to write the languages they needed to spread the Gospel?
My sense is they thought they were empowered by God. No one mentions amanuenses.
I will be teaching an adult ed class on Early Christianity this fall.. I count on your books and blogs a lot. I am currently reading a book called After Jesus, Before Christianity by the Westar Christianity Seminar. There are some new and interesting ideas in this book. I wondered if you had any thoughts about the book? I’d be very grateful.
Tish Dersnah
I haven’t read that one. The Westar group is often called the Jesus Seminar. I disagree with much of their views about the historical JEsus, but I’m not sure about that book.
Somehow, the more I learn about the making of the NT canon, the more I think about sausage making– the more you know about that, the less likely you are to enjoy sausages.
I think 2 Peter is authentic but edited by later orthodoxy to counter the impression of conflict with Paul. But the conflict is still there. Why leave it in, if not original?
The language arguments are specious, because Peter did not write Greek and may not have had writing skill at all. Most of the letters of the New Testament were dictated. Obviously, the language presentation is that of the translator/scribe.
Besides the conflict with Paul, I take as proof of authenticity 2 Peter 3:1, because, by saying that he is trying with a second letter, Peter is admitting that he has so far failed with the first letter! Overall, this is a letter of failure, because Peter is exhorting those who have rejected his preaching. This would be a strange argument by a later forger who would want to honor Peter’s legacy.
Dr Ehrman, you do not accept the letter as authentic but, hypothetically, if the letter were authentic: what do you think the impact would be on our understanding of the New Testament?
Well, it would show that the historical Peter thought that the historical Paul was writing Scripture. But I have to tell you, the chances of 2 Peter being by Peter are extremely remote. Have you read a full argument devoted to the issue? It’s really pretty compelling, even to pretty conservative biblical scholars like my own professor Bruce Metzger (who was not convinced that the Pastorals were pseudepigraphic.)
Yes, the pericope about Paul and scripture is an obvious orthodox interpolation. That may be the only reason that this letter was included: to carry those remarks and further the idea of sympatico, as you say.
Can you recommend a source for the full argument? Thank you!
I found this article by Michael J. Kruger: https://www.galaxie.com/article/jets42-4-04#:~:text=The%20argument%20against%20the%20authenticity%20of%202%20Peter,Undoubtedly%2C%202%20Peter%20has%20a%20plethora%20of%20problems.
Yup, he is a very conservative evangelical apologist. It is no mystery what he thinks about the authorsinp of 2 Peter!
I don’t think that verse is an interpolation. It was originally in the book. But the book itself was not actually written by Peter, but someone claiming to be Peter. I give the nuts and bolts of the argument in my book Forged.
Sorry if this is a little off-topic, but as far as I can tell, the authors who wrote the Bible had no idea they were writing the Bible. Are there any exceptions to this rule, i.e. authors who we know intended for their work to be collected into an anthology of scripture?
No, I don’t think any of them thought they were writing Scripture. Even though all of them probably thought what they were writing was the truth….
Dr. Ehrman, I don’t know what to do. I watched a video of dr. Jason staples on YouTube and I just don’t know if I should be a believer or not. Some of what he says is convincing. I know you can’t help but I feel like I keep going back and forth between Christianity and deconverting.
YOu should probably know that he himself is a believer. (At least he *was*! I think he still is. But you could certaily ask him)
I found out that he is. Man, I really don’t know what is right. For there to be Christian scholars, I just get nervous if they’re right about Christianity. Especially with the temple and that Paul didn’t preach an imminent return of Jesus.
Many, many Christian scholars agree with the views I present on the blog.
I have an unrelated question that’s been on my mind, I think I have Paul’s letters arranged chronologically but I’m not sure about galatians. Would you place it before or after 1 thessalonians? TY
It’s usually thought that 1 Thessalonians was the first of his letters. I date Galatians a few years later. These things are obviously disputed though.
Bart, do you think that the Gospel of Mark, by affirming that Jesus is the Son of Man, affirms that Jesus is a pre-existent being?
I’t an excellent question, but I don’t think we know. He may equally have thought that he had been elevated to heaven and was coming back as the Son of Man. IN Daniel 7 the Son of Man is not a pre-existent being (any more than the four beasts are). He is simply a heavenly being, not one coming out of the sea.
Bart, would you say that it is entirely possible that all 4 Gospels see Jesus as a pre-existent divine being (as Son of Man could be pre-existent, and synoptics believe Jesus = Son of Man) ?
They don’t seem to: in Matthew and Luke Jesus appears to come into being at his conception, and in Mark there is no word about him being divine in any sense before his baptism. In John the Son of Man from Daniel 7 is very much in abeyyance, though John does portray him as a preexistent Logos.
Bart: As late as the end of the fourth century, Didymus the Blind, the prominent Christian teacher of Alexandria Egypt, explicitly labeled it a “forgery.’
A very long time ago (The New Testament Canon of Didymus the Blind in Vigiliae Christianae, 37(1) May 1983, 1-21), you gave very good reasons (pp 9-11) for not considering Didymus to be the author of the the Latin translation of the commentary on the pastoral letters in which this statement appears.
But in Forged (2011), Forgery and Counterforgery (2013) and here on this blog post from 2022, you present this as the actual opinion of Didymus.
Have you changed your mind? If so, why?
Mainly because I think I was being to much of a hard-ass logician back in my younger days. 🙂 Seriously, for my purposes in both places it doesn’t much matter if Didymus himself authored the commentary. But for the 1983 article I had reasons to be methodologically strict, sticking only with writings we were pretty sure when back to Didymus, since writings by another author would tarnish the specific argument I was making; for the later books and blog, the name of the author of the commentary was not particularly important, since whether Didymus wrote it or not, it showed that an orthodox author as late as the late fourth century was still deeming it an unacceptable forgery.
But as a young whipper-snapper bad-ass logician you did present some very convincing evidence that Didymus considered 2 Peter to be genuine. Perhaps the argument that Didymus didn’t write the commentary on the pastorals was a little weaker, especially since it is a Latin translation. Which leaves me wondering, has there been much scholarly discussion regarding the author of this commentary on the pastorals?
I bet there has been, but I don’t know!
Sorry, I keep saying pastorals when I should be saying Catholic epistles.
I’m told that Erich Klostermann in 1905 argued that the Epistolam S. Petri Secundum Enarratio as a whole could not have been written by Didymus, whereas Karl Staab in 1924 argued that it is a loose translation of parts of a larger commentary written by Didymus.
Other than the work by that young whipper-snapper and bad-ass logician in 1983, I wonder what else has been written about this in the past century?
There has been scholarship on Didymus, but since I was mainly interested in his quotations of the Gospels, I’ve never followed it.