Basic Orientation to the Letter
Who wrote the letter?
The letter presents itself as from the apostle Peter but as even conservative scholar Robert Stein admits in the lecture linked below - "Very, very few people today would argue for Petrine authorship of this book. The Word Biblical Commentary, which is a conservative commentary series, argues against Petrine authorship. Of all of the books of the Bible, this is the one that is most difficult to defend in regard to authorship....For 2 Peter, I must admit that there are questions that come up that I don’t know how to answer". One solution is the one he concludes with - "I’ll maintain Petrine authorship in some way, having had a secretary perhaps write some of this material for him". The majority view is that it comes from a later author and is clearly related to and probably dependent on Jude.
When was it written?
Clearly this depends on whether Peter is the author. If he is then it must be early (it describes Peter as approaching his death which was about 64/65AD) but most scholars date it as 80-90AD or perhaps even later.
Introducing the Epistle of 2 Peter
Biblical Theologians
Mark Alan Powell has resources based on his Introducing the New Testament (Baker 2009)
His page on 2 Peter has various resources for students and teachers including the following PDFs:
2 Peter in the Christian Canon
Parallels between Jude and 2 Peter
2 Peter in the Revised Common Lectionary
Peter Davids on James, Peter and Jude were more important than they seem
Peter Davids' General Introduction to his 2006 Apollos Commentary on 2 Peter and Jude (pp 33-36 of PDF)
Dr Thomas L. Constable's expository notes on 2 Peter (2015 edition, 59pp) with references to various (mainly conservative) commentaries are available in HTML and as downloadable PDF.
Biblical Training Website
This website has a number of helpful introductory resources including
Dr Robert Stein's New Testament Survey
2 Peter Authorship (11 mins) - transcript
2 Peter Content (18 mins) - transcript
Dr Thomas Schreiner's New Testament Survey
2 Peter and Jude (43 mins)
Dr Craig Blomberg's Introduction to the New Testament
Jude and 2 Peter (54 mins)
Dr Bill Mounce's New Testament, Its Structure, Content and Theology
1 & 2 Peter, Jude (1 hr 5 mins) - transcript
Luther Seminary's Enter the Bible Website
This has resources on 2 Peter by David Stewart including
On the right hand side of the page are various further resources including short commentaries on the chapters
The Text This Week Website
This has resources relating to
Specific passages from 2 Peter
Fulcrum Articles on 2 Peter
- Week 5 – Reading 2 Peter and Jude
- 2 Peter: Introduction to 2 Peter
- 2 Peter: Guide to Online Academic Resources
- 2 Peter: Guide to Commentaries
This “author” stands for those providing the resources for Fulcrum’s Reading the NT project. If you wish to contribute suggestions please email [email protected].