Written in Peter’s name: 5 things a Catholic Bible says about 2 Peter

The bishops’ introduction states that among modern scholars there is wide agreement that 2 Peter is pseudonymous: a work composed by a later author who attributed it to Peter, following a literary convention of the period.^[1]

This comes from the Catholic Church’s own scholarship, printed as the introduction to the book itself. A Muslim who said the same would be accused of hostility.

The strongest objection is that a minority of scholars still defend Peter’s authorship. They point out that the first letter of Peter mentions a helper named Silvanus who wrote for him, and propose that a secretary shaped the Greek of the second letter.^[2] The reply is that the bishops’ introduction describes where the field stands, and that a secretary explains style but does not explain the borrowing from Jude or the reference to a collected Paul, which the next entries take up.

The letter opens in the name of Simon Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ.^[3] It calls itself his second letter.^[4] Its author says he was an eyewitness of the transfiguration and heard the voice from heaven.^[5]

It also takes the form of a farewell, with the author saying he knows that he will soon put off his body, as the Lord Jesus Christ made clear to him.^[6] The device of a dying apostle leaving his last words gives the letter a weight that a signed opinion would lack.

A later writer claiming to have stood on the mountain with Jesus is making a claim about himself that the evidence, on the bishops’ own account, does not support. The convention of pseudonymous writing may explain the motive. It does not turn the claim into a true one.

According to the same introduction, many scholars consider 2 Peter the latest work in the New Testament, and date it to the first or second quarter of the second century.^[1] Peter, by Christian tradition, died in Rome in the 60s, so a date in that range puts the letter several decades after him.

The letter gives its own reasons for that dating. It speaks of the apostles as a generation already gone, and records scoffers who say that all things have continued unchanged since the fathers fell asleep.^[7] It refers to Paul’s letters as a known collection, some of it hard to understand, and ranks them with the other scriptures.^[8] A collected Paul, already read as scripture and already disputed, belongs to a later church than Peter’s.

The introduction notes that the passage on false teachers has many literary contacts with the Letter of Jude, and that 2 Peter is generally agreed to depend on Jude.^[1] An apostle writing from his own memory of Jesus would have little need to rework another author’s text.

The parallels are specific. Each letter warns of false teachers, cites the fallen angels and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of judgement, and names Balaam.^[9] Jude also quotes a prophecy from the book of Enoch, which 2 Peter leaves out.

The fair objection is that some conservative scholars hold the borrowing ran the other way, with Jude using Peter. Even so, one author had the other’s text in front of him, so the letter does not preserve an independent eyewitness memory. The introduction takes the order from Jude to 2 Peter as the generally agreed one.

The oldest certain reference to 2 Peter comes from Origen in the early third century, and Origen reports that others rejected it. Some local churches still excluded it from the canon as late as the fifth century.^[1]

Origen, as quoted by the historian Eusebius, says that Peter left one letter acknowledged by all, and perhaps a second, since that one was doubted.^[10] Eusebius himself, writing in the fourth century, lists it among the disputed books and reports that it was not handed down as part of the canon, though many found it useful.^[11] Jerome, around 392, says that many deny it is Peter’s because its style differs from the first letter.^[12] The old Syriac Bible left it out altogether.

The early church doubted this letter for the same reason modern scholars do. It entered the canon in spite of that doubt, and it remains there.