Thursday, May 27, 2010

Back to the Issues of Authorship and Inspiration of 2 Peter

If you’re like me, you would rather try to ignore any evidence that might possibly damage any of the traditions about the Bible – authorship being one of those. The book has 2 Peter has the title for a reason, because Peter wrote it. Honestly, that’s how I’d like to keep it. But there’s another side to the story. I decided a long time ago to place my faith in God and trust Him with my life – with my soul. For me, part of that faith includes placing my trust in the Bible as His inspired Word, the message that He has chosen to leave to me and my family about how to make it through our journey to see Him. If I choose to ignore this “negative” evidence, then I am really demonstrating a lack of faith in God’s Word to stand up against a few skeptical thoughts. His Word is much more powerful than that. If it has the power of God for salvation (Rom 1:16) and if it can save my soul once it’s been implanted in my heart (Jas 1:21), then certainly it can handle my questions.

So, let’s just say for the sake of discussion that there is validity to these arguments; and that 2 Peter was probably not written by the Apostle Peter and that it was written at the end of the first century or beginning of the second. Does that influence your feelings about the text? Should it influence your feelings? Does it mean that the text isn’t inspired? Was there a mistake somewhere along the way and someone circumvented God’s will and inserted this letter in when it shouldn’t have been? These are all legitimate questions.

Like I said, I would rather it have been written by Peter. But if it wasn’t, I’m not going to lose any sleep. Somehow the book still made it into the Bible. What we have to remember about the formation of the Bible is that there was never a council or meeting or any group that formally decided what books were in and what books were out. Over the course of hundreds of years this book could have been taken out by people. But for some reason it was left in. It wasn’t because they were ignorant to the issues that we are now aware of. We have records of the Church theologian Origen expressing his doubts that Peter was the author in the 3rd century, and yet the book remained in the canon.

Let’s take a moment to clear up a common misconception. Many people wrongly think that the only inspired people in the first century were the ones who ended up with a letter/book in the New Testament. I don’t think that’s correct. There are clear Biblical statements that there were prophets in the Church in the first century. In fact, it’s my opinion that each Church had at least one. That’s how the Christians received the will of God until it was available in written form. I find it terribly difficult to believe that none of these men who were inspired wrote down some of the oracles they had received from God; or that no one went home after being at the assembly and hearing their prophet speak went home and took some notes on what he was told that day.

There is also real good evidence that suggests that inspiration carried on after the last Apostle had died. If the gift of prophecy was to communicate the Word of God then why would God take that away before everyone had an opportunity to know what His will was? In other words, wouldn’t it make sense that God would keep prophets around until there were was a supply of all the books of the Bible? That probably didn’t happen until later in the 2nd century.

Having said all this, just because 2 Peter may not have been written by Peter, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t written by an inspired author. I believe that it was written by an inspired author and that’s why God has ensured that worthwhile copies of it remained. There are other letters that I would refer to have copies of (like Paul’s other letters to the Corinthians). But God see to it that those be preserved.

In the end this all comes down to each person’s faith or belief. We’re dealing with texts and evidence that is sourced about 2000 years ago. There is little, if any, information we can prove with certainty. So which ever conclusions you accept, it will be based on faith. Personally, I think the evidence strongly points to the conclusion that Peter did not write this letter. I could take that conclusion and allow it to wreck my faith in God’s Word. That would be an act of faith or belief. Because there is no substantial evidence that the letter wasn’t written by an inspired author. Or, I can choose to remain in my belief that the entire Bible is the inspired Word of God; and that since God is ultimately the author of it all, it really makes little difference to me which man’s hand He used to write it.

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