Steven Carr

2 Peter 1
We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

Was the author embarrassed by charges from fellow Christians that the stories about the power and coming of their Lord Jesus Christ had been nothing but cleverly invented stories?

aa5874

But, 2 Peter has been regarded as non-authentic by the Church. It does not belong to the Canon. We are probably dealing with known forgeries. The veracity of 2 Peter may be ZERO.

Deus Ex

Then why do they keep printing bibles with 2 Peter still in them? :devil1:

brianscott1977

I think Peter is saying, “Other people make up stories, but we are talking about things that we have seen firsthand.”

I am confident that people did accuse the first century Christians of making things up – for as long as there has been religion there have been people saying that religion is false – but in this context I don’t think that is what Peter is getting at. I could be wrong, but that is how I read the passage.






I’ll bite. Where are you getting this from? Particularly, where are you getting the idea that the Church says that 2 Peter in non-authentic? And who wants it out of the Cannon?

show_no_mercy

Eusebius says:

So even as early as the fourth century, 2 Peter was regarded as pseudepigrapha.

ApostateAbe

The claim is the miracle of the "Transfiguration." Again, look at the context.

We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

The charges that it is baloney would come from the outside, and doubts about it would be present on the inside. And for good reason, because the author of that letter was not Peter, and he didn't really see it happen. So, yeah.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Peter,

Note 2 Peter 2:3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up.

So Peter himself is accusing Christian teachers of making thing up.

It is also quite interesting that the one apparent reference to a human Jesus Christ does not match the Gospel stories. Peter does not tell about the transfiguration that happens to Jesus on the mountain in the gospel stories. Why leave this out if you are trying to convince people you really knew Jesus? We also have differences in what was heard. First note how vividly the transfiguration is presented in the gospels.

Peter doesn't report on the transfiguration. Instead he just reports the words he allegedly heard, which is different in each gospel, but more importantly is different in Peter and all the gospels.
The words " Listen to him" which are in all three of the synoptic gospels are left out. In fact, the words more closely match the adoption formula in Matthew's report of Jesus' Baptism at 3.17 and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."

In the gospels, this adoption formula is the only lines that God, the father gets to speak.

It is incredibly interesting that Peter does not testify to a single line or thing that the character Jesus said. Instead he testifies to the only line that God, the father has in the gospels. In other words, Peter is only testifying that he heard God, the father, not that he heard any God/Man or Man named Jesus.

This suggests to me that the writer is not using the gospels as his source. One might say that it is rather the gospels that are using this line and expanding on it. The Gospels writers are using Peter's letter as a source for the mountain story.

In the entire letter, except seemingly in this mountain passage, there is no human Jesus figure. Jesus is synonymous with God. He is God/lord and Savior.

Can we read the passage as also saying that Jesus is God/lord and Savior as opposed to a human being? I think we can:

Let us take this line by line: The power and coming of our lord Jesus Christ is still in the future. It is apparent that certain Jews (followers of John the Baptist, for example) expected the immanent return of their God to Earth. If Jesus Christ is just another name for their God, then "the power and coming of our Lord Jesus" is a future event. How did they witness his majesty? It is not by any transfiguration that Peter saw, rather Peter says:

This is a combination of Psalm 2: I will proclaim the decree of the LORD :
He said to me, "You are my Son [d] ;
today I have become your Father.
and Isaiah 42: "Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him
and he will bring justice to the nations

Peter is just quoting/misquoting the Hebrew scriptures to prove his point that God the Savior/Jesus Christ will come to save people in the future. It is Peter himself, like a figure in the old testament, who received honor and glory when he head this on the sacred mountain, i.e., the mountain of God.

Peter is just saying that he (and his fellow apostles) heard God say this when he was on a mountain with God.

The writer is not someone who has hung out with a dude named Jesus or is trying to convince anyone that he hung out with a dude named Jesus. The writer of this is someone who heard the Jewish God named Jesus speak to him on a mountain and tell him that he would be coming soon.

The Jesus and the Apostles on the mountain stories in the Gospel likely developed out of a misinterpretation of this passage.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

show_no_mercy

I think it should be noted that a lot of times in antiquity, especially when "quoting scripture", it was seen as being more authentic to quote from memory instead of looking something up to verify it. So the author of 2 Peter might have just quoted from the Transfiguration pericope from memory.

mountainman

But this is precisely what Eusebius claims that Porphyry wrote.
These "early christians" were not afraid of being "embarrased".
Especially after Constantine backed the canon with his sword.


If many people believe that it is reasonable to consider that Eusebius had no hesitation in the forgery of the Testimonius Flavianum, why is it so difficult to believe that it is also reasonable to consider that Eusebius simply forged "Porphyry" claims that "the apostles were inventors".

The "Criterion of Embarrassment" falls under the Aristotlean rhetoric mode of "pathos" -- a plain and simple appeal to the emotions of the audience -- and the mode of persuasion in the new testament literature rarely moves out of pathos. The Logos in the NT was hijacked from the Greeks. The Ethos in the NT was hijacked from the Greek LXX and the Greek poets and philosophers.

Aristotle's Three Modes of Persuasion in Rhetoric

Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration,
since we are most fully persuaded when we
consider a thing to have been demonstrated
Of the modes of persuasion furnished
by the spoken word there are three kinds. [...]

Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character
when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. [...]

Secondly, persuasion may come through the hearers,
when the speech stirs their emotions. [...]

Thirdly, persuasion is effected through the speech itself
when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means
of the persuasive arguments suitable to the case in question.

---- ARISTOTLE, "Rhetoric", 350 BCE

spamandham

...or perhaps embarrassed by such charges from nonChristians: