I & II Peter and Jude

A Commentary

Lewis R. Donelson

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781611643893
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

The letters of 1 and 2 Peter and of Jude come from a time in Christian history about which we know little; thus they represent rare voices from a crucial time in Christianity's development. And the picture of early Christianity suggested by these letters is a fascinating one.

INTRODUCTION TO 1 PETER, 2 PETER, AND JUDE

The letters of 1 Peter, 2 Peter, and Jude have traditionally been grouped together. They share a certain formal relationship. Both 1 Peter and 2 Peter have the name Peter as author. Jude and 2 Peter share a direct literary relationship, with 2 Peter taking over much of Jude. Beyond this formal relationship, the three letters have typically been seen as coming from similar situations in early Christian history and out of similar theological traditions.

Since this commentary adopts the position that the apostle Peter did not write either 1 Peter or 2 Peter and that Jude, the brother of Jesus, did not write Jude, all three letters are placed within the postapostolic period of Christian history. The intense christological debates of the third and fourth centuries, with their indebtedness to Greek philosophy, are not anticipated in any of these letters. In fact, there is no hint even of the gnostic debates of the late second century. These letters come from a time in Christian history about which we know little. They precede the explosion of documents that begins in the late second century and increases in the third and fourth. Thus they represent rare voices from a crucial time in the history of Christianity.

The picture of early Christianity suggested by these letters is a fascinating one. The debates with Judaism that dominate Paul and the Gospels seem to be of little concern. These are communities embedded in the Roman world and thinking about their place in that world. Nevertheless, the way they think about the Roman world is through a rich and diverse combination of readings of the Old Testament and more specifically Christian traditions. All three of these letters display a complex and creative relationship to the Old Testament. Traditional Jewish images, the stories of Israel, and the oracles of the prophets provide the core theological language of the letters. These stories are read and their images employed in a variety of ways. None of the letters follows a consistent interpretive pattern, such as topology or prophecy and fulfillment. The syntax of these letters interweaves the syntax of the OT in patterns that defy categorizations. It is as though all three authors think in the syntax of the OT.

All three letters also rely upon a rich and diverse Christian tradition. In some ways, these letters stand mostly in the traditions and language of the Pauline Letters and the Synoptic Gospels. But they are not limited to that. First Peter seems to echo, one way or another, almost every other book in the NT. The echoes in 2 Peter, while not quite as numerous as 1 Peter, range over most of the NT. Since Jude makes its arguments mostly through a series of readings and images from the OT, it does not display this same indebtedness to Christian traditions. The traditions that feed these letters come largely in the form of moral categories and christological doctrines. In the Christian communities of the letters, there seems to have existed a fluid set of traditions, which focused upon the story and example of Jesus and upon the details of the ethical life. The fluidity of these traditions speaks against the notion of discrete theological trajectories. There is no suggestion of the existence of distinctive Pauline, Matthean, Johannine, or even Petrine configurations. These letters draw a picture of Christian thought in which everything is flowing into everything else. Christians appear to be reading not only throughout the OT but also throughout the corpus that came to be the NT, arranging those readings into their own theologies.

These Christians are also in conflict. The immediate occasion for 1 Peter is conflict with Roman neighbors. The Christians of 1 Peter have in some ways rejected significant parts of their former lives. This rejection has drawn abuse from their Roman friends. Thus 1 Peter gives one of the earliest glimpses of what will become an intense debate in early Christianity. The question of what it means to be Christian, what it means to be Roman, and what it means to be a Roman Christian or Christian Roman will occupy much of Christian thought for several hundred years. In 1 Peter, it is clear that there is both a yes and a no to the Roman world. Early shadows of third- and fourth-century persecution of the Christians by the Romans have already fallen upon the Christians of 1 Peter. However, the post-Constantinian claim that Christians make the best Romans is foreshadowed here as well.

The Christians in Jude and 2 Peter are in conflict as well. However, they are in conflict with one another, not with their Roman neighbors. The danger comes from inside the community, not from the outside. Jude and 2 Peter are mostly attacks on other Christians. As we shall see, the grounds and purposes of these attacks are difficult to reconstruct. It is hard to tell what occasioned the bitter polemic that dominates these letters. Nonetheless, it is clear that conflict with other Christians can be nearly as harsh, although rarely as lethal, as conflict with non-Christians. In this way, these two letters belong on an endless trajectory of internal Christian debate. They anticipate not only the strident debates between the so-called orthodox and heretics that dominate much of Christian theology in the Roman era, but also the controversies within Christian communities throughout history.

The sketchy and incomplete portrait of early Christianity drawn by these letters is fascinating. Christianity, it seems, exists as an intersection of readings of the OT, stories and traditions about Jesus, and the demands of living in the Roman world and the still-emerging church. The commentaries that follow will show that each letter gathers those forces in its own way. Viewed collectively, these documents portray communities deep in conflict, both with outsiders and with insiders. However, the letters also portray communities full of enormous theological resources and theological creativity.

The First Letter of Peter

INTRODUCTION TO 1 PETER

The very first word of 1 Peter has proved to be the most controversial word in the letter. The letter begins with a standard letter opening: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect…” For most of Christian history, the authorship of this letter by the apostle Peter was accepted by readers. The classic tendency to read biblical sentences less in the context of their given document and more in the context of the whole of Christian thought meant that affirming authorship by Peter had little impact on how the letter was read. The rise of historical criticism has, of course, changed this pattern of reading.¹ Modern readers want to place biblical documents in their original historical context. They assume that texts are written by historical people in particular historical contexts. One aspect of a good reading requires re-creating, as much as possible, the moment of origin of a text. Thus a good reading must recount the character and intentions of the author. This shift in reading strategy is not only well documented, but the complications that ensued are also rather infamous.² In order to read 1 Peter, the story of the apostle Peter had to be connected to the origin and theology of the letter. However, combining a portrait of the apostle Peter with the text of this letter has proved to be difficult. This is not a text that historians would have expected the apostle Peter to write.

The difficulties of maintaining authorship by Peter are numerous.³ Perhaps the most formidable problem is the character and quality of the Greek. Though this Greek is not as sophisticated as what second- and third-century Christians will write, it is far beyond what most historians imagine a fisherman from Galilee, no matter how bright, would have written. It is too complex and shows little Semitic influence. Faced with this problem, some readers have suggested that Silvanus, who is mentioned in 5:12, was responsible for the Greek, while Peter was responsible for the ideas. Peter is thereby maintained as author even as his role is reduced. Most readers have found this solution dubious at best.

There are other difficulties with Petrine authorship. While 1 Peter cites and echoes many OT texts, it typically relies on the Greek version, not the Hebrew. There are only a few allusions to the life and ministry of Jesus in 1 Peter. Apart from the reference to the author being a “witness of the sufferings of Christ” (1:11), a few echoes of Jesus’ sayings, and the example of Jesus’ suffering, 1 Peter does its Christology on a cosmic level. There is no interest in Israel, no interest in the law or covenant. The OT is read almost exclusively through the lens of Christology. There seems to be no controversy over the status of the law. The social and historical context that is assumed by the letter fits awkwardly with the life of Peter. The kind of persecution that 1 Peter projects fits much better in the time after Peter’s death. The occasional and localized enmity between Christians who were once Gentiles and their Gentile neighbors that this letter describes coheres wonderfully with the end of the first century and awkwardly with its middle. Furthermore, the apostle Paul insists that Peter’s ministry was to Jews (Gal 2:8). This letter seems to be written predominantly to former Gentiles. All of this is seen as problematic for the historical Peter.

These problems have led many readers to conclude that the apostle Peter did not write 1 Peter. In some ways, such a conclusion is not surprising. Early Christian literature is filled with pseudepigrapha. Within the first few centuries, about a hundred Christian documents known to historians have a false name affixed as author. The apostle Peter is attached as author or source to a whole series of early Christian documents of which only 1 Peter has any real possibility of coming from the apostle himself (e.g., 1 Peter, 2 Peter, Letter of Peter to Philip, Acts of Peter, Slavonic Acts of Peter, Acts of Peter and Andrew, Acts of Peter and Paul, Apocalypse of Peter, Gospel of Peter). Thus there is nothing historically improbable in 1 Peter’s not being written by Peter. Though this decision eliminates the problem of fitting this letter into the life of Peter, it creates other problems. Early Christian pseudepigrapha are so diverse in their character that almost nothing about the origin or reception of a document can be concluded from the simple fact of its being pseudepigraphical. Deciding that Peter did not write 1 Peter is not the same thing as deciding who wrote it, when it was written, how it was received, or why it was attributed to Peter. Once the letter is cut loose from the anchor of Peter’s life, it floats into early Christian history without a determinative context.

The Recipients of 1 Peter

If the face and situation of the author is unknown, then the next place to look for a historical anchor is in the situation of the recipients of the letter. First Peter actually provides a good deal of data about its recipients and their situation. Most of them, perhaps even all of them, were Gentile. According to 4:2–4, the source of their persecution lies in their rejection of their former Gentile way of life. There is no hint, in this passage or anywhere in the letter, that this problem of abuse by Gentile neighbors is confined to a particular segment of the community. The terms used throughout 1 Peter in describing their former lives seem more fitting to Gentile lives than Jewish. They lived in ignorance (1:14); their ancestral way of life was “futile” (1:18); they were “not a people” (2:10).

Some readers, however, detect arguments in 1 Peter that assume Jewish traditions. In typical Jewish style, non-Christians are called “Gentiles” (ethnē, 2:12; 4:3). The letter assumes extensive knowledge of the OT. The only people referred to by name who are not part of the occasion of the letter are Sarah and Abraham (3:6). Its theological terminology is filled with OT imagery. If these are Gentiles, they have been extensively schooled in the OT. In fact, the rhetoric of 1 Peter does not have to argue on behalf of the relevance of the OT and its imagery. It assumes both its relevance and familiarity. However, apart from the use of the term “Gentile,” 1 Peter addresses none of the usual tensions between Jews and Gentiles in the Roman world. There is, for instance, no problem with the law or any of its requirements. The classic Jewish imagery has all been transformed and reconfigured by the Christian experience. Election is now election in Christ. Holiness is now to live as Christ lived. Thus, if there are Jews in this community, the rhetoric of the letter subsumes their peculiar history to that of the Gentile Christians in their midst. Not only does the rhetoric of 1 Peter assume knowledge of the OT; it also assumes knowledge of the story of Jesus and of a rather diverse Christian tradition. First Peter is best seen as written to Gentile Christians who have immersed themselves both in the OT and in the peculiarities of Christian thought.

They were probably rural. The letter was sent to “the elect sojourners of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” Within the rhetoric of pseudepigraphical letters, these places may simply be literary fictions, with the letter having no real connection to these places. It is more likely that these names identify the original home of the letter. Geographical terminology in the Roman world was notoriously imprecise. However, in this case each of the terms designates a Roman province. Pontus and Bithynia were officially one province but were often divided in common usage. The sequence of these names has led to the suggestion that the carrier of the original letter traveled in this order. Starting in Pontus and ending in Bithynia, this imagined letter carrier would traverse most of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) north of the Taurus Mountains. Except for the province of Asia, these regions were primarily rural. Furthermore, these areas were less influenced by Greco-Roman culture than was most of the Roman world. This was a culturally, religiously, and politically diverse environment. This means that it is impossible to be precise about the social norms of the pre-Christian Gentile lives of the letter’s recipients.

If the letter gives any hints about the social rank of the recipients, it would be that they were primarily of lower rank. Though it has proved to be difficult to use modern terminology of class when speaking of the Roman world, it is clear that social rank was crucial to a person’s identity. In the adaptation of the Greco-Roman household code in 2:15–3:7, it is the persons in the subordinate position who are the focus of the exhortation. The primary address is to household servants and women. There is no address to any masters of these servants, and husbands warrant only a quick note. Although it is possible that these people are addressed because servants and wives embody the subordination ideal better than masters and husbands, it is more likely that the weight of the argument reflects the social profile of the community. This was a community of servants, not of masters. Some readers have suggested that the admonition to elders in 5:1–4 is striking in its avoidance of the title “overseer” (episkopos), even while using the verb (5:2). The title “overseer” was typically used for a person in a public office who was of higher social rank than the people in this community. “Elder” is a term of honor within the community that does not carry echoes of social status in the public arena. Perhaps it is only Jesus who can be termed “overseer” (2:25).

The final bit of evidence is more difficult to evaluate. In 1:1 the recipients are called “sojourners” (parepidēmoi). In 2:11 they are exhorted as “aliens” (paroikoi) and “sojourners” (parepidēmoi) to abstain from desires of the flesh. The terms parepidēmos and paroikos have sparked debate among readers because both terms can have technical meanings about a person’s legal residential status. The term parepidēmoi generally refers to people living in exile away from their home city. The term paroikoi refers to people with the legal status of resident aliens. Both terms designate people who are living in a city yet without full rights of a normal citizen of that city. These terms should be distinguished from the general term “stranger” (xenos), which refers primarily to personal familiarity and not legal status. The question is whether these terms in 1 Peter are literal or metaphorical.⁴ It is perhaps significant that in non-Christian literature these terms are almost always technical. This leads some readers to suggest that 1 Peter uses these terms in the normal technical way and that all, or nearly all, of the Christian readers of this letter are people who are not full citizens of the cities in which they live. This lower legal status contributed to the alienation and hostility between them and Gentile neighbors who were full citizens.

Most readers of 1 Peter find such a narrow social profile of the recipients to be unlikely. It is also difficult to know how those terms functioned in the largely rural context of the letter. Further...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Bibliography
• Introduction to 1 Peter, 2 Peter, and Jude
• The First Letter of Peter
• The Letter of Jude
• The Second Letter of Peter
• Index of Ancient Sources
• Index of Subjects