Sunday, February 14, 2021

Michael Kruger on The Problem of External Attestation of 2 Peter

In an interesting article defending the Petrine authorship of 2 Peter, Michael Kruger, under the heading of “The Problem of External Attestation,” we read the following. Note how it refutes the naïve view that a meaningful criterion for accepting a book as canonical is that of early external attestation of it being apostolic in nature (cf. Not By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura):

 

2 Peter and the Early Church. Origin (c. 182-251) is the first to cite 2 Peter by name at the beginning of the third century and thus often finds himself as the pivotal church father in discussions over the epistle’s authenticity. If one assumes that the date of the first explicit citation is roughly concomitant with a book’s composition, then Origen’s late citation certainly casts the only and deciding vote against 2 Peter. However, the date of the first explicit citation is hardly the only data that proves to be relevant.

 

Despite the fact that Origen recognizes that some had doubts about the epistle (“Peter has left behind one acknowledged epistle, and perhaps a second for it is questioned” [Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 6.25.11). He quoted the epistle six times and clearly regarded it as Scripture ( [Origien, Numer. Hom. 2.676). It is evident that he considers 2 Peter as equal in authority with 1 Peter by saying that “Even Peter blows on the twin trumpets of his own Epistles” (Origen, Hom.in Josh. 7.1). It seems quite difficult to believe that an epistle that that Origen treated in such a manner could have been just recently composed in his own day. Indeed, the fact that he quotes it so thoroughly as Scripture in his writings suggests that it may have been accepted widely as canonical by this time.

 

Interestingly, Origen fails to indicate the reason for the doubts some of his contemporaries maintained, nor does he discuss their extent or location. It seems fair, therefore, to suggest that Origen did not seem those doubts to be of any serious nature or at least not enough to question 2 Peter’s scriptural status. In addition, considering the fact that Origen was one of the sharpest literary critics in the ancient world, his silence on 2 Peter’s literary style seems quite conspicuous. Perhaps he was not persuaded that the epistles were fundamentally all that different. In light of these and the aforementioned considerations the fact that Origen is in fact to cite 2 Peter by name in no way argues conclusively against 2 Peter’s authenticity.

 

Eusebius (c. 265-339) makes it clear that the majority of the church accepted the epistle as authentic although he himself had certain reservations about it. He mentions that his doubts stem from the fact that writers he respected did not affirm its canonicity and that it was not to his knowledge quoted by the “ancient presbyters” (Hist. Ecc. 3.3.1). But it is interesting to note that despite his reservations he lists 2 Peter along with James, Jude, 2 and 3 John as “the Disputed books which nevertheless are known to most.” So even Eusebius does not place 2 Peter in with the “spurious” writings such as the Apocalypse of Peter.

 

Church Fathers subsequent to Origen, such as Jerome, Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianus and Augustine, all acknowledge the canonicity of 2 Peter. Even though Jerome was a main proponent of 2 Peter’s authenticity, he recognized the significant stylistic divergence with 1 Peter. He sought to account for this divergence by suggesting that Peter used a different amanuensis. After Jerome’s time, there was no further doubts concerning 2 Peter’s place in the NT canon.

 

As far as canonical lists are concerned, we find 2 Peter absent from the Muratorian Fragment (c. 180), one of the earliest extant lists in church history. Although this may seem to be substantial evidence against the epistle’s authenticity, it is important to note that 1 Peter, James, and Hebrews were also not included. Furthermore, although this lists omits 2 Peter, by no means does it regard it as spurious; silence does not equal rejection. 2 Peter was recognized as fully canonical by the Canons of Laodicea and by the time of the church councils of Hippo and Carthage of the fourth century. It is significant that these latter church councils were the very ones that rejected the Letters of Barnabas and Clement of Rome—which were both very respected writings in the early church and often used alongside Scripture—indicating that these church councils exhibited careful analysis of all documents and rejected all they considered sub-apostolic.

 

2 Peter’s full acceptance into the canon of the church by the fourth century is confirmed by its appearance in various early manuscripts of the New Testament. The Bodmer papyrus, designated p72, is a papyrus dating to the third century and contains the oldest copies of 1 and 2 Peter. In addition, 2 Peter finds a firm canonical home with its appearance in some of the most important textual discoveries: Codex Sinaiticus  (4th century), Codex Vaticanus (4th century), and Codex Alexandrinus (5th century).

 

In our quest to determine the authenticity of 2 Peter we cannot overlook the fact that 2 Peter, despite the reservations of some, was finally and fully accepted by the church as canonical in every respect. The fact that 2 Peter faced such resistance—resistance coupled with the incessant competition of pseudo-Petrine literature—and still prevailed proves to be worthy of serious consideration. It is so easy to dismiss the conclusions of Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzen, Epiphanius, Athanasius, Augustine, Rufinus, Jerome, and the church councils at Laodicea, Hippo and Carthage. If the epistle of 2 Peter held such a form position in the fourth-century canon, then perhaps the burden of proof should fall on those who suggest it does not belong there. (Michael J. Kruger, The Authenticity of 2 Peter, JETS 42:4 [December 1999]:645-71, here, pp. 649-51, emphasis in bold added)