2 Peter and Jude Introduction

2 Peter — Steve Gregg

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2 Peter and Jude Introduction

2 PeterSteve Gregg

In this introduction to 2 Peter and Jude, Steve Gregg indicates that it is not surprising for the Holy Spirit to inspire Peter and Jude to say similar things. While the authorship of these books is questioned as pseudepigraphal works, their inclusion in the New Testament is due to their apostolic authority. Gregg highlights that common material may have been used, and the writers allude to the writings because they are powerful, cogent, and relevant to the message they want to convey.

Transcript

Alright, we begin now to introduce the books of 2 Peter and Jude. It is, I would say, impossible to correctly introduce either of these books without reference to the other. They clearly bear a relationship to each other, although the exact nature of that relationship has been disputed by scholars.

When I say they have a relationship with each other, I would say, for example, that I'd point out that 25 verses are in the book of Jude, 15 of those verses have parallels in 2 Peter. So there's more of Jude in 2 Peter than there is that's not in 2 Peter. Three-fifths of the book of Jude are also paralleled in 2 Peter, mostly in 2 Peter chapter 2. Now why this is so has been the subject of scholarly speculation.

It seems probable that the books have a relationship with each other. Now there are some who might take an approach that's rather simplistic and just say, well, both these men were inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has, of course, the same thoughts as himself.

And therefore, it's not surprising that the Holy Spirit would inspire Peter to say certain things and quite independently to inspire Jude to say almost the same things verbatim. And that is a possibility, but it's not the most, it's not a necessary thing to believe and it's not the most likely. Since the Holy Spirit has a great number of things to say, we might expect him to be more efficient and not have to repeat himself so much if he's just going to reveal out of thin air concepts to different writers.

It seems that these writers are influenced by one another. Just like, for example, Paul sometimes quotes something from Luke or Peter quotes something from Paul or seems to be influenced by something from Paul or both authors will quote something from Jesus. In other words, when this is happening, we have no reason to deny that these authors are aware of each other's work and in some respect influenced in their wording or choice of choice of material to present.

And one view is that Peter borrowed information from Jude, that Jude wrote first and that Peter included much of what Jude wrote in his second chapter of his second epistle. Another view is that Peter wrote 2 Peter first and that Jude wrote based on the information in 2 Peter chapter 2. And a third view is that both of them were influenced by a third document that we don't have anymore, but that had the common material and which may have been a common tract or sermon that the whole church was familiar with and which writers might allude to in their writings if it was something they thought was powerful enough and cogent and relevant to what they wanted to say. Just as many people today, many preachers will quote from other famous sermons or famous Christian books or whatever in their sermons.

So Jude may have been influenced by Peter. Peter might have been influenced by Jude. They both might have been influenced by some third document that we don't have or they might have been both independently inspired just to write very, very similar things to each other.

But the similarity is so close that the last suggestion is very seldom considered seriously among Bible scholars. And so treating these books together is something that we must do, I think. Partly because once you've covered 2 Peter, there's very little left in Jude to cover.

As I said, Jude has only 25 verses and 15 of them are paralleled in 2 Peter. So taking them as two parts of one teaching would be what most commentators would do and what I think is the responsible thing to do. Now as far as the authorship of the books, of course they bear the names of their alleged authors.

Jude wrote the book of Jude and Peter, 2 Peter. There's never been any real question seriously in the early church as to the authorship of Jude. Jude was not an important enough person in the early church for someone to put his name on a book if he wasn't really the author.

We do know that in later periods and maybe even in the apostolic period, people who were not who they claimed to be wrote books and then put the name of a famous authoritative Christian on them. Paul, for example, in 2 Thessalonians 2, he was warning them not to pay any heed to letters that purport to be from him but which teach certain things that he was denying in 2 Thessalonians 2. Now that's interesting because the letters to the Thessalonians were among the very earliest letters Paul wrote. Only Galatians could possibly have been written earlier than Thessalonians as far as the travels of Paul and so forth.

We know the chronological order of his letters. And yet at the very early stage of Paul's writing ministry, there were already people that Paul knew about who were sending out letters with his name on them but he wasn't the author. And so we find this also in the 2nd century.

We find in the 2nd century after the apostles are all dead and in the 3rd century that certain books appeared called the Apocalypse of Peter or the Gospel of Peter or the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas or some other name like that as if the author was that person but we know that they were written much too late to really be that person. These are called pseudepigraphal works. Pseudepigraphal means written under an assumed name.

We might call it a pen name. We also might call it a fraud name. Which I think is a good way to look at it.

Now the point is Jude was not such a famous Christian as to be likely to be chosen to have his name put on a book that he didn't actually write. If someone else wrote this other than Jude and wanted to give it credibility by putting another man's name on it, Jude is hardly the man that would be chosen. This is also an argument for Luke and Mark being the real authors of their books.

We don't actually know. The authors of Mark's Gospel and Luke's Gospel are anonymous. In the original manuscripts the author doesn't name himself.

The church has traditionally told us that Mark wrote Mark and Luke wrote Luke and this is no doubt true. One reason we can say it's probably true is that there's no reason why anyone would attribute them to Mark or Luke unless they really wrote them. Mark was an extremely obscure person, Luke even more so.

We think of Luke as some famous because he wrote one of the Gospels and the Book of Acts but if he didn't write those he's almost invisible in the New Testament. He's only mentioned like twice or three times as being one of Paul's companions at the end of a letter where he says Luke is with me along with a whole bunch of other people. If not for Luke's authorship, Luke's obscurity would make him so unlikely to be chosen as the traditional author of those books and likewise Mark.

Mark is a very obscure person in the Book of Acts and in the New Testament but certainly someone who is lying about the authorship would have picked someone more prominent. Therefore in the early church there was never any serious doubt about Jude being the author. Now there was some doubt as to whether Jude's book belonged in the canon of the New Testament.

The canon of the New Testament took almost 350 years or so to be formalized. All the books in our New Testament, the 27 books, were accepted and in circulation in the early days of the church by some but there were some that were held in suspicion by certain groups. Certain Christians were not sure either whether the person whose name was in it was the author since as we said there were pseudepigraphal writings or even if he was the author whether he should be in the New Testament or not.

For example who is Jude that his book should be in the New Testament? Now the main reason to have a book in the New Testament is that it has apostolic authority. All the known writers of the New Testament with few exceptions, Mark, Luke, and Jude really, apart from those three, all the writers of the New Testament were apostles. And the purpose of inclusion of a book in the New Testament was to maintain the apostolic witness.

The apostles were those that Jesus himself appointed to represent him and to speak for him. So what the apostles left in writing is New Testament authority. But Luke and Mark were included in our Bibles even though they were not apostles.

But they were both very closely associated with apostles. Mark traveled with Peter. At the end of 1 Peter chapter 5, Peter refers to Marcus, my son, which doesn't mean he's really his son but basically a very close associate, an assistant, someone who traveled with him.

And according to the early church father Papias, Mark was simply writing the gospel of Peter. Peter preached it. Mark wrote it.

And therefore the gospel of Mark was accepted from the earliest time as Peter's gospel and therefore apostolic though Mark himself was not an apostle, Peter was. Likewise Luke's writings. Luke was not an apostle but Paul was and Luke was an inseparable companion of Paul and almost certainly wrote his books while he was with Paul.

Which means that while he and Paul were traveling together, Luke was writing these books. It's hardly likely that Paul would allow those to go into public publication without proofreading them himself especially since the second book Luke wrote was mostly about Paul. I doubt that Luke would have said, Paul I'm not going to let you see this, I'm going to send this out to the churches.

That Luke's writings would have Paul's imprimatur is indisputable. And therefore Luke's writings and Mark's, though they are not themselves apostles, have apostolic authority. What about Jude? We do not know of Jude being an apostle.

Who was Jude anyway? Well he says he's the brother of James. Well who's James? James wrote the book of James. But which James was he? You know the name James was simply the Greek form of Jacob and Jude was the Greek form of Judah.

Both very common names in the Jewish world. Lots of people named their kids after Jacob and Judah. And we find many Jameses and many Judas in the New Testament.

In fact among the apostles there were two people named James and two people named Jude. Or Judas which is another form of it. Judas Iscariot and Judas not Iscariot as John calls him.

And then there's of course James the Less and James the son of Zebedee. Even in that small group there were more than one. But the James and the Jude that wrote these books were not any of those.

They were yet additional. An additional James and an additional Jude. These men were not among the twelve.

They as the gospels would inform us were the brothers of Jesus. Mary apparently had a number of children at least five sons. Jesus being the oldest and there were four others named.

And then there's some daughters too. We don't know their names but Mary had a large family and Jesus had brothers. We're told in the New Testament that his brothers didn't believe in him during his lifetime.

But he did appear to James after his resurrection according to 1 Corinthians 15. And James and Jude and the other brothers of Jesus were in the upper room on the day of Pentecost when the church was born. Christ's brothers were there.

Now we don't know much about Jude. We're told very little about him. James however became very prominent.

In fact when Peter left Jerusalem fleeing from Herod it would appear that James the brother of Jesus was put in charge of overseeing and speaking for the church. At the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 James was the one who made the decision after everyone including Peter had given their input. James gave the decision.

James was very important. When Paul late in his life visited Jerusalem he first went to James to see you know how do you want me to conduct myself. This is your turf here not mine.

And James gave him instructions here go pay the fees for these four guys who have a Nazarite bond. Paul did it. It was understood in the early church after a certain point that James the brother of Jesus was you know authoritative in the church.

Now Paul in Galatians chapter 2 or is it chapter 1 Paul Paul mentions James the brother of Jesus and seems to imply that he recognized him as an apostle. Galatians 1 19 Paul's talking about his visit to Jerusalem after his conversion. He says after three years verse 18 Galatians 1 18.

Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained with him 15 days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother. Now James the Lord's brother was not one of the twelve apostles but he's classed as an apostle by Paul.

He says I didn't see any other apostles except James. He's an exception to the statement I didn't see any apostles. He was an apostle I saw.

And therefore in addition to the twelve and in addition to Paul himself there were others in the early church that were viewed as apostles. James being one of them. And we can see why James might be.

Not only was he the Lord's brother but he actually took the leadership of the church apparently taking it over from Peter. Certainly a very authoritative man in the Jerusalem church. Now Jude on the other hand we don't know anything about his activities in the book of Acts.

We don't know anything about his authority in the early church. Though he too was the Lord's brother. And it may be that if James was regarded as an apostle because of being the Lord's brother that Jude might have been on the same basis or perhaps Jude might have been on the basis of his close association with his own brother James.

When he introduces himself in Jude 1 he does not introduce himself as the brother of Jesus but the brother of James. He does not call himself an apostle of Jesus Christ. Just the brother of James.

Now if Mark and Luke's writings were considered apostolic in authority because of their close association with Peter and Paul respectively then Jude's book might have been considered to be authoritative because of his close association with James who was an apostle. James the Lord's brother. On top of that Jude was the Lord's brother too.

In any case the question of Jude's apostolic authority is questionable and was held in question by the early church for a long time. It wasn't until about 397 AD that Jude was included in the canon of the New Testament. Not because people doubted whether Jude was its author but because they weren't sure who Jude was.

I mean they knew he was the brother of the Lord but they weren't sure if he held the status that the apostles held so as to have his books included. We have many good Christian writers whose books we may recommend and read and buy in bulk and pass out to people. I have books like that by Christian writers I'm very fond of but I don't intend to put them into the Bible.

Just to say that Jude was a respected Christian, the brother of Jesus, the brother of James and he wrote a book does not in itself say that his book should be in the Bible and this is what the early church was trying to deliberate about. They finally decided to include it but for a long time there were many in the church who thought it's a good book but it doesn't belong in the canon of the New Testament. By the way, those who decided to include it, as with the other books, were not necessarily as far as we know inspired in their decision and therefore there are people who question some of the inclusion of some of the books in the New Testament.

If I were to question any book in the New Testament canon it would be Jude but that wouldn't be because of any problems I have with Jude per se. It would be for the same reason that they questioned it for the first 300 years of its circulation. They weren't sure if it's apostolic in authority.

Those who finally decided it was may have decided correctly or not. We don't know their inspired procedures. In any case, Jude is an unusual book.

It's short. It is mostly a repetition of what we have in another book, 2 Peter, and it's written by someone that we don't know much about except that he was the brother of Jesus and of James but the office or status he held in the church is pretty much unknown. So that's the guy.

His authorship was never doubted. Now Peter, of course, everyone knows who Peter is. Peter was not only an apostle but he was the spokesman for the apostles in the early days.

He clearly spoke up for the apostles when Jesus was with them on earth and then when Jesus left after Pentecost Peter seemed to speak up for the apostles most of the time too. No one doubted that he was a true apostle and that Jesus had in fact sent him a vision, sending him to Cornelius because the inclusion of Gentiles uncircumcised in the church was something that Peter, among others, would certainly have to approve. And so Jesus, of course, sent Peter to the house of Cornelius so that he would witness what God was doing there even though Philip the Evangelist was in the same town with Cornelius, Caesarea.

Caesarea is where Cornelius lived and last we read in Acts before that, Philip the Evangelist was living in that town with his four daughters who were prophetesses. But God didn't send them to Cornelius, he sent Peter. Peter had to go from Jerusalem there to get to him because Peter is more important than Philip.

Peter is more important than most anyone else. He wasn't really more important than the other apostles but he was the mouthy one among the apostles. He's the one who spoke up most regularly for them and to speak for them.

And therefore any letter written by Peter would be clearly canonical, clearly belong to the canon of the New Testament. However, Peter, 2 Peter was also withheld from the canon until about 397. But for different reasons.

Jude was withheld not because of any questions about the authorship but questions about the authority of the particular person who authored it. Peter, 2 Peter was withheld from the canon not because of any questions about Peter's authority but questions about whether Peter really was the author. There was much suspicion in the early church that 2 Peter was not Peter's work.

Now, 1 Peter was never doubted. The early church accepted 1 Peter right from the beginning as authentic. And that's one of the reasons they had problems with 2 Peter because it was different in some significant ways.

The grammar and the literary quality of 2 Peter is very different than that of 1 Peter. And this being so, some thought that the two books could not have come from the same author. And there were some other things that made them wonder about it.

Even modern scholars who are not, who are maybe of a more liberal sort perhaps, and doubt certain traditions about the canon and all that, there are still people who don't believe that Peter wrote 2 Peter. But the church officially accepted it at a certain point. I think they were right to do so.

But there are still people who have the same objections to 2 Peter that the early church had and it made them hold it at arm's length for a while. But the fact that Jude and 2 Peter eventually were included in the canon means that after so long a time of being withheld, the early church was not eager to quickly make hasty decisions about such things. And the fact that they were withheld so long and then later included actually could be seen as a strength on their part.

That they were examined more thoroughly and more critically than most of the books and yet they passed the test ultimately. To pass a long examination is a greater accomplishment than to be included quickly without much examination. And so we should, I think, accept 2 Peter and Jude without much problem.

But did Peter write 2 Peter? Well, if the book is authoritative, he did. It says it's written by him. If it isn't written by him, then the whole book should be thrown out.

Not because we can't have books in the Bible that Peter didn't write, but we certainly can't have books that Peter didn't write by people who are claiming to be Peter. In other words, by liars. We can't have frauds in the Bible.

And therefore, Peter's authorship is very important. Now, most of the books of the New Testament, we have early attestation from early Christian writers about their authenticity. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, certainly the epistles of Paul.

These are all attested very early by church fathers who said, yeah, Paul wrote that letter to the Romans. Paul wrote to the Philippians. Paul wrote to the Colossians.

Matthew wrote the sayings of Jesus in Aramaic, and others translated them into Greek, Papias said. And we have these very early testimonies about the authenticity and the genuineness of the claimed authorship of the books. 2 Peter, not so much.

There's not much early attestation that the early church recognized this as a real book by Peter. There's some, but not much. 2 Peter had less of this kind of attestation in the early church fathers than any other New Testament book.

That means you'll find more references to the other books of the New Testament in the writings of the church fathers, quoting them as being from the persons whose names they bear. That's attestation of authorship. Then you have more on every other book of the New Testament than you have for 2 Peter.

It's got the least attestation of that kind from the church fathers of any New Testament book, though it is much better attested in the church fathers than any of the books that were eventually excluded from the canon. For example, there was 1 Clement, and there was the Epistle of Barnabas, both very much respected books. Clement and Barnabas are both mentioned in the scripture as friends of Paul, although there's some question as to whether Barnabas is the same Barnabas.

In probability, the Epistle of Barnabas was not the same Barnabas, but it sort of claims to be. In any case, the early church had a very high opinion of 1 Clement and of the Epistle of Barnabas, but they eventually rejected them from the canon. Despite the favorable view the early church had of these books, their authorship was not attested even as well as 2 Peter's was.

So the extra biblical support for the authorship of 2 Peter is less than for any other New Testament book, but is more than for any book that was excluded. Now it was never included in a list of spurious books. Many of the early church writers listed books that were in circulation which the church should be aware of, and these would be books the Gnostic Gospels and so forth.

They would be called spurious books. No list ever included 2 Peter in the list of spurious books. However, it was listed with what were called contested books.

Eusebius, who was a church historian in 325 AD, listed the books that were recognized by the church in his day. 325 was before the final canonization of the last books, which came almost 75 years later than his time. But in 325, Eusebius gave lists of recognized books, but he also, in addition to the recognized books, he listed contested books, which are books that might be canonical, but it's not universally agreed upon.

In that list, 2 Peter and James and Jude and 2 and 3 John were included. These books in 325 AD were listed as contested. That doesn't mean they were rejected.

It just means the church wasn't 100% sure about this, and there were some who thought they belonged and some who didn't. So you can see that 2 Peter's had a tenuous road to inclusion in the canon of Scripture. It was first quoted as Scripture by name by Origen, who lived like 185 to 255, somewhere thereabouts AD.

Origen quoted from 2 Peter six times and called it Scripture and said Peter wrote it. So you might think that's pretty early, living from 185 to 255. That's pretty early, and it is compared to now.

It's a little late compared to some of the other church writers. There were writers before Origen, and they didn't ever quote from it or Peter wrote it. But Origen was a good scholar, and he is a source for early church opinion.

At least his opinion was that it was in fact written by Peter. Now, as I mentioned, Jude and Peter, 2 Peter, chapter 2 especially, show what appears to be some kind of literary dependence upon one another. Many scholars have felt that Jude was written earlier and 2 Peter later.

This was even one of the reasons for them suspecting that Peter didn't write 2 Peter. They thought, why would a major figure like Peter depend so heavily on a writing by a relatively unknown figure like Jude? Why would he quote so extensively from Jude's letter? I'm not sure why anyone ever assumed that Jude's book was written earlier than Peter's. Jude being the brother of Jesus would be contemporary with Peter.

We don't know when Jude died, but in all likelihood, their lifespans probably were fairly similar. Probably they lived and died in the same range of time. Either of them could have written earlier, but from the internal evidence, I think Peter wrote first and that Jude wrote second.

I believe that Jude actually seems to acknowledge dependence on 2 Peter. Not so much by name, but you see, 2 Peter chapter 2, which is the chapter that so closely resembles Jude, is a chapter warning about the coming of false teachers. 2 Peter 2 begins with Peter saying, there were false prophets among the people in those days and there will be false teachers among you.

And he begins to describe those false teachers and he describes them in essentially the same terms that Jude in his book describes false teachers. Jude's book is almost entirely a warning against false teachers. And the description down to several minute details is the same in 2 Peter as in Jude.

But the difference is Peter says there will be false teachers and Jude says there are false teachers. And he, and therefore the teachers that are described in both books were anticipated when Peter wrote, but were present when Jude wrote. And that's a very good reason to suspect that Jude wrote later and that he even, I think it's very probable that Jude should be seen as an expository sermon, just like a pastor might get up and take some passage of scripture and comment verse by verse on it and apply it to the congregation or to the present time.

A legitimate means of preaching, of course. In fact, it's a very good way to preach. Some feel that Jude is an expository sermon that Jude wrote and maybe presented based on a text of scripture.

And that text was 2 Peter 2. So that Peter had said, these false teachers will come and this is what they will be like. He gives these details. Jude writing to a congregation, hopefully already familiar with Peter's work, writes and says, you know, these teachers have arrived and they are, and he describes them using Peter's description.

So it's like he's expounding on 2 Peter 2 and applying it to a situation that his people were actually in. And Jude also indicates that the apostles before him had predicted this in Jude verse 17. Jude 17 says, but you beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peter was one of those. How they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. Now Jude says, remember the apostles warned us about these mockers who would walk according to their ungodly lusts.

Well, if you look over at 2 Peter chapter 3, 2 Peter 3.3 says, knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days walking according to their own lusts. It's verbally parallel. Now, if Jude says, remember friends that the apostles warned us, these scoffers would come walking after lusts.

And then Jude describes them in the very same terms that Peter used in 2 Peter 2. It seems to me like the apostles that Jude is referring to, includes Peter. In fact, he might be just meaning Peter and saying that Peter more or less speaks for the apostles. You know, Peter's writings are sort of, he always speaks up for the others.

You know, I mean, this isn't the apostles warning us. So it sounds to me, and I don't know why more scholars don't just see this clearly and make and consider it a slam dunk, but it seems to me a slam dunk that Peter wrote 2 Peter 1st. Jude wrote an expository sermon based on 2 Peter 2 as his text and reminding his readers that Peter had said these things.

Now, by the way, if Jude is in fact doing so, then that means Jude provides the earliest attestation for the authorship of 2 Peter. And Jude was contemporary with 2 Peter. That's the very earliest attestation you could hope for.

Jude probably died around the same time Peter did in all likelihood. And that being so, it doesn't matter how many church fathers attest that Peter wrote it. If, if a contemporary, the brother of Jesus, the brother of James confirms that Peter wrote it, and how would he be doing? So if he's, if he's using 2 Peter, the book claims to be by Peter and Jude in quoting it says the apostles said this.

I mean, that's about as clear as you could get that Jude would then be confirming 2 Peter. Now, of course we would still need someone to confirm Jude, but like I said, there never was any serious question whether Jude wrote Jude. It's just whether Jude had the authority to be included in scripture himself.

I mean, we're reading an expository sermon by an early Christian who's using a text written by an apostle. Does such a sermon qualify to be in the Bible or not? Well, it took a while for the church to decide, but they eventually decided it does. Now, I mentioned that the main questions about Peter's authorship of 2 Peter were based upon linguistic grounds, and yet these are not as telling against him as some might think.

The negative testimony is that 1 Peter is a book that everyone believes was written by Peter, and it was written in some of the best Greek to be found in the New Testament. Now, I've said that about some other books, Luke, Acts, Hebrews. These also are written in some of the best Greek in the New Testament.

The New Testament Greek is not even. Different authors were better at it than others, and the writer of Hebrews and Luke himself and Peter's first epistle exhibit some of the very best literary Greek in the entire collection. 2 Peter, on the other hand, not really.

It is said that 2 Peter, the style is grandiose and pretentious and effective, like someone's trying to sound like a great writer, but he's not really that great. The scholar C.F. Chase said, the author, he means of 2 Peter, the author appears to be ambitious of writing in a style which is beyond his literary power. So, we've got a real big difference here, a very well-written Greek document in 1 Peter and kind of an awkward style of Greek in 2 Peter.

And this is what has led probably more than most anything else to the doubts that Peter could have written both books. Now, Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, the Vulgate, he had something to say about the difference in the Greek styles between these two books. He said it's due to a different amanuensis.

Now, when we're studying 1 Peter, we pointed out that there were some today who would say, how could Peter have written such good Greek as 1 Peter? See, the early church never doubted he wrote it, but modern skeptics and so forth say, well, he couldn't have written it because he was just a fisherman. Greek was his second language. How could he write one of the best Greek documents? And I pointed out to you then when we were in 1 Peter that, well, he used an amanuensis.

He actually says at the end of his book, by Silvanus, I have written to you this book. And what he means apparently is that Silvanus served as his amanuensis. What's that mean? That's a secretary, a secretary that takes dictation.

And often it is well known from Roman times an amanuensis would clean things up a little bit. Just like if you would take a transcript of one of my lectures and want to present it for written publication, you'd have to clean it up. I don't talk the way that I write.

You'd find it, you may not notice it as much listening, but I just noticed it because I'm thinking about it. Just in the last couple of sentences, I gave some partial sentences, a false start one way, and then stopped and went back and started over again. You don't do that in writing, but often in speaking you do.

So an amanuensis would take dictation, but he wouldn't necessarily be a stenographer taking word for word dictation. He would hear what the author was saying and he'd write it down in the best way he could word it. And if he was really good at Greek, then he might word it really well.

If he was kind of not so good, then his style might be very different. And this is thought to account for the differences in style in first and second Peter, different amanuensis. And that's entirely realistic.

It was Jerome that suggested that. Now, as far as the differences that everyone talks about between these two, they're not as great as one might think from hearing the complaints. Because the linguistic differences between first and second Peter have been subjected to linguistic analysis and computer analysis.

They've done that with the letters of Paul too, because some people say the vocabulary of Paul in the pastoral epistles, first and second Timothy and Titus, is so different from his vocabulary in other epistles that his authorship of those books was doubted. But linguistic analysis by computers can show how, you know, can actually quantify how similar and how dissimilar the vocabularies are of certain separate literary works. And by the way, Paul's authorship of the pastoral epistles is different.

I mean, I should say the the vocabulary is different in many respects than the vocabulary in his other writings, but a linguistic analysis showed that it's not as different as are the different writings of one American author or British author. Someone who has written a lot of books, C.S. Lewis, for example, if you subject all his works to linguistic analysis, you'd find that the chronicles of Narnia hardly seem like they could be written by the same person who wrote The Problem of Pain, you know. But when an author is writing to different people in different circumstances, he certainly can have a variety.

And there's, on this basis, there's no reason to doubt Paul's authorship of the pastoral epistles when compared with the others. Likewise, when the linguistic analysis is made of 1 and 2 Peter, it is said that the language differs, of the two epistles, less than does the language of 1 and 2 Corinthians. Statistically, 1 and 2 Corinthians differs more linguistically than 1 and 2 Peter.

And yet no one has ever doubted that the same author wrote the Corinthian epistles. I mean, Paul's authorship of those is so early attested, and it's just a given. Paul wrote those.

No serious argument could be raised against it. And yet the linguistic differences between 1 and 2 Corinthians are greater than those between 1 and 2 Peter. And likewise, the differences between 1 Timothy and Titus, which all would agree are written by the same person, even if they don't believe it's Paul, no one doubts that different authors wrote 1 Timothy and Titus.

They're too close to each other in subject matter and style. But the differences between those two are greater linguistically than between 1 Peter and 2 Peter. So the differences are not as great as some people have tried to make them out to be.

On linguistic grounds, 2 Peter is closer to 1 Peter than it is to any other New Testament book. So, you know, if 2 Peter was written by any author that had written any other portion of the New Testament, linguistic grounds would point to Peter too there. So it is different.

The two books are written in different style, but not so damaging evidence as many would think before it was critically analyzed and quantified. Okay, I've given you some notes. There's some charts there I want to show you that compare.

But before I go through those charts, there's just a few other things I want to say. There are scholars today who still doubt that Peter wrote 2 Peter. I don't think they have valid arguments, but they have arguments.

One of the arguments they give is they say the book has a Hellenistic cast. That means Greek philosophy seems to be woven into the thinking of the author. This is because there's a strong emphasis on the word gnosko and epigonosko, which are translated as knowledge.

These concepts of gnosko and epigonosko in later Greek thought, for example, in Gnostic thought in the 2nd and 3rd century, were huge emphases. The word gnostic, which starts with a silent g, means one who knows. It's based on the word knowledge, gnosko.

The Gnostics were a heresy that arose and thrived in the 2nd century. The emphasis in Peter on gnosko has led some to say, well, this was kind of a Gnostic kind of an emphasis that we'd find later than Peter's time, suggesting Peter didn't write it because it has more of an emphasis such as we'd find in the Hellenistic and Gnostic writings of a later time. Likewise, his reference to the divine nature, which is a term that's used only once in scripture, but it happens to appear in 2nd Peter 1.4, where he says that we become partakers of the divine nature.

This sounds very mystical and some think it sounds like something the Gnostics, with their esoteric knowledge and so forth, and their, what should we say, elitist kind of spiritual experience might speak of, and they do speak of, actually, later Greek writers do talk about the divine nature, people having the divine nature in them. Well, Peter does in 2nd Peter 1.4, and many feel like this suggests a later time of writing when these terms were more commonly used, and therefore Peter couldn't have written it. But obviously, there's no reason why these terms could not have been used by Peter.

The word gnosko is an ordinary word for knowledge. The fact that Peter mentions it frequently doesn't make it unlikely that it's a genuine Christian point, and the divine nature, there's every reason that that could be used by a Christian writer. After all, all the Christian writers say that we receive the Holy Spirit, and God himself, through his Holy Spirit, imparts his life to us, and that is the divine nature, is it not? So, though Peter is using some words more frequently than one might expect, and some words are uncommon until later writings, this does not in any way prove that the book was written later than Peter's time.

It is said by some of these critics that there are indicators in 2nd Peter that it's written after the apostles were dead. Chapter 3, verse 2, we mentioned. Actually, we mentioned verse 3, so we'll look at verse 2. Chapter 3, verse 2 says that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord Jesus, Lord and Savior.

Now, when it says of us, the apostles, the word us is missing from the oldest manuscripts, which means remember what was written to you by the holy prophets and by the apostles, suggesting the apostles are no longer around, just like the prophets are no longer around. This is a later writer saying we don't want to forget what the prophets and apostles said, as if those are earlier witnesses that are no longer speaking, and therefore the writer himself could not be one of the apostles. And in chapter 3, verse 4, it says that the scoffers will say, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.

Now, he's saying that scoffers will come in the last days, and they're going to talk about how things have not changed, even though the earlier generations of Christians, the fathers, have fallen asleep or died. And it is argued that this means this was written at a later generation than the apostles generation. They were the fathers.

They were the first generation of Christians. And if we're now talking about the earlier generations of Christians have now passed away and giving cause for scoffers to say, well, you know, they expected Jesus to come, and he didn't. They're dead.

Nothing has changed. So I guess he's not coming. The criticism here is that the author speaks of the earlier generation of Christians being dead.

And if he was Peter, he is that earlier generation of Christians. So it can't be Peter. However, this misses the whole point.

He's not saying that at the time he's writing, the fathers have fallen asleep. He said in the end times, scoffers will come making this statement. Certainly, when scoffers come later and say, since the fathers fell asleep, it'll be after the fathers have fallen asleep.

But the writer is not saying that this is the case at the time of writing. So this argument just seems to come from careless reading. And you'll sometimes find that I think scholars make arguments that are based on careless reading.

You'd think a scholar would be careful. It's not a given. By the way, it's rather ridiculous to suggest that the writer was writing after the apostles since he claims to be Peter.

If he's saying things in his epistle that should be interpreted as if the apostles are dead, why would he say those things when he's claiming to be one of the apostles? It's clear that either he is an apostle and these things don't mean that the apostles are dead or that he is saying the apostles are dead and he wouldn't claim to be Peter, but he does. So this argument seems really bizarre to me. And then the last argument that is brought up to suggest that this was written later than Peter's time and couldn't be Peter is that in the end of 2 Peter 3, there's a reference to Paul's epistles, all Paul's epistles.

And the argument is that Paul's epistles weren't collected in the first generation. Peter wouldn't have a collection of Paul's epistles. These were collected in the second century or so.

And therefore, the reference to all Paul's epistles as a collection would have to come from a later writer than Peter. The verses in question are 2 Peter 3, beginning at verse 15, it says, account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, et cetera, et cetera. Notice, Paul wrote about these same things in all of his epistles.

So here we have a collection of Paul's epistles, but Peter doesn't say anything about Paul's epistles being collected into a corpus that the church was passing around as a group. Peter made his rounds through the church. He no doubt encountered the epistle to the Romans when he was in Rome.

He probably encountered, you know, Paul's writings to other churches as he traveled. And since especially these writings to other churches were often copied and passed along to others, because a lot of Paul's writings were circular epistles, they were sent around to a group. Peter would have had occasion to read some of them.

We don't even know if what he calls all Paul's epistles would be all the ones that we know about, or even whether Paul had written by this time, all the ones that we know about. Paul may have been still alive. We don't know.

I don't think he was, but if he was, then all his epistles would simply mean all the epistles of Paul that are available. All the ones I've seen, he says the same thing I'm saying. It's not necessary to interpret these words as if we're, this is a later generation of Christians who've now got a complete collection of Paul's epistles.

So you can see the arguments against Peter strike me as somewhat desperate. They require a careless reading of certain passages and reading meaning into them that they don't say. And you can see that this is the work of scholars who really just have an agenda.

They want to discredit the epistle and say, and they find reasons to do so that are not very really sound reasons. And now to finish this introduction, I want to look at these charts I've given you in the notes. There are three such charts.

And then at the end, I have given you an outline of second Peter and of Jude. We won't go over those outlines now, but let me, let me go over these charts. What do they have? Well, I mentioned the very close similarities between the two epistles, second Peter and Jude are mainly with reference to second Peter chapter two, where Peter describes the coming false teachers and Jude where Jude describes the already arrived false teachers.

And the description of these false teachers are just put your finger, if you would, in second Peter chapter two and find Jude, which is just before the book of revelation, put your other finger there and be prepare yourself to flip back and forth. I just want you to see some of the similarities here. And these are things that are said about the false teachers in second Peter two one, Peter said, there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them.

So they deny the Lord. They deny Christ. Jude verse four says for certain men have crept in unnoticed.

They are here now who long ago were marked out probably by Peter in his second epistle for this condemnation, ungodly men who turned the grace of our God into licentiousness and delight. They deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. So their denial of the Lord is spoken of second Peter two, one and in Jude verse four.

Now look at second Peter two, 13, jumped down a bit. It says they will receive the wages of unrighteousness as those who counted pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes.

The body of Christ has blemishes, you know, uh, when these guys are in the church carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you. So they're called blemishes in the body in Jude verse 12. It says these are spots in your love feasts while they feast with you without fear.

Okay. Spots and blemishes. Both writers use the same imagery.

By the way, such imagery is not found elsewhere in the new Testament. So it's rather coincidental that this very unusual imagery would be used by both if there's not some kind of literary relationship between them. Now look at second Peter two, 18 and 19, second Peter two, 18 and 19 says, for when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh through licentiousness.

Uh, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error while they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption. Okay. So they promise liberty.

They're there. The emphasis of their teaching is liberty. They're libertines, probably anti-nomians who teach that it doesn't matter how you live, as long as you have whatever faith or knowledge or whatever it is they're advocating morality doesn't matter.

You've got liberty. You're free and free means free to sin. So they teach in Jude verse four, we saw this.

These are ungodly men who in the middle of the verse, who turned the grace of our God into licentiousness or license and deny the only Lord God. Now they, they turn God's grace into license or, or into the ability to, to misbehave. Some people feel that, well, we're saved by grace.

So let's send that grace may about shall we, shall we sin since we're not under the law, but under grace, Paul asks in Romans six, 14 or 15, God forbid, there are teachers who teach that, but Paul and Paul knew they would. And that's why he answers them there in Romans six, Peter and Jude both mentioned that this is what they teach. They teach liberty.

They teach grace, but to them, that means party hardy because you won't be condemned for your behavior. This is a, this is false teaching. They're also said to be guilty of bombastic speech, proud and bombastic words.

In second Peter chapter two in verse 18, it says for when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, Jude also refers to this in Jude verse 16. It says, these are murmurers, complainers walking according to their own lusts and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. So the same characteristic is mentioned in these two places.

They also make false promises in second Peter two verse 17. It says, these are wells without water clouds carried by the tempest in whom the gloom of darkness is reserved forever. Wells without water, a well, when you're thirsty, you find a way, you think, oh great water.

But if there's a, if it's a dry well, it's a false promise. It advertises what it doesn't produce. And likewise in second Peter two 19, he says, while they promise them Liberty, they themselves are slaves to sin.

So there's these make false promises. They, they seem to be holding out the prospect of something desirable, but they can't deliver on it. Likewise in Jude verse 12, it says, after it says their spots, it says in the middle of that verse, they are clouds without water, similar image to wells without water.

You look to clouds and wells to get water that you need and want. You're thirsty. You look to the clouds.

Oh good. It's going to rain. Oops.

Didn't rain. No cloud, no water in those clouds carried about by the winds. So they, they make false promises.

Now there are several references to them seeking personal gain. These people are in the ministry for their own enrichment, probably money, but they also are driven by sexual lust as we shall see. But as far as the money part, second Peter two three says by covetousness, they will exploit you.

Okay. They use covetousness and they're motivated by covetousness. If you look down in second Peter two to verses 14 and 15, likewise, having eyes full of adultery, they cannot cease from sin, beguiling unstable souls.

They have a heart trained in covetous practices. That's greedy for money. There are cursed children.

They've forsaken the right way. They've gone astray following the way of Balaam, the son of Beer, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. He exploited his religious gift in order to get rich.

That's what they're like. They're gifted speakers. They're rather bombastic, but they do impress people and they use that to bilk people for money.

In Jude verses 11, 12, we have the same point. Jude 11 says, woe to them for they have gone astray the way of Cain. They've run greedily after the error of Balaam for profit.

There's that profit thing. And verse 12 says, there are spots in your feast. Uh, it says, uh, serving only themselves is I guess the point I'm bringing out here in verse 12.

They serving only themselves. Verse 11 says that they've run in the error of Balaam for profit. This idea that these people are in it for the money is in both places.

And Balaam is given as the example in both books. Then I said, they're driven by sexual lust. We've already seen maybe the verses that say that in second Peter two 14, it says they have eyes full of adultery that cannot cease from sin, beguiling unstable souls.

So they have eyes full of adultery. They're, they're, they can't stop lusting. They are driven by lust.

And in Jude verse four, it says to them for certain men have crept in unawares. Uh, see, they turned the grace of our God into licentiousness, which is essentially, um, basically, uh, uh, sexual promiscuity and license. So then we have in, uh, first Peter two, 10 through 12, that they disrespect authority.

Second Peter two, 10 through 12, especially those who walk according to the flesh and the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They're presumptuous self-willed. They're not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, which in the Greek is glories.

And it's probably a reference to the church leaders, probably the apostles, whereas angels who are greater in power and might do not bring reviling accusation against them before the Lord. But these like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of things they don't understand. And they will utterly perish in their own corruption.

They are loose cannons. They do not respect legitimate church authority. Now we have to remember church authority back then meant the apostles.

Sometimes people will use this as a criticism of maybe Martin Luther, who didn't respect adequately the church authority of the Roman Catholics, or for that matter, the founders of any denomination since then who broke free from some existing church to start a new movement. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. Since we don't know that the church that they broke away from is really had God's authority.

In other words, just because men have positioned themselves at the top of a religious organization and call themselves the elders of the pastors, what are they, my bishops or priests or whatever they call themselves, Popes. That doesn't mean they're really church authorities as far as God is concerned. To be, to challenge persons who call themselves authorities who are not is actually legitimate.

In fact, Jesus in Revelation 2 is commending the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2.2. Jesus says to the church of Ephesus, I know your works, your labor, your patience, that you cannot bear those who are evil and you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars. So there are people who claim to be church officials, apostles even. You test them, you find them liars, that's a good thing to do.

Don't follow them. In 3 John, John told Gaius, the recipient of the letter, that there was a man in the church named Diotrephes who loved to have the preeminence, but there's a better man in the church named Demetrius who is a good example and had a good testimony with everyone. He said, follow the one who's good and don't follow the one who's evil.

It's interesting. You don't have to follow every church leader if they have any evil, if they're defecting from Christianity. But these early false teachers were breaking free from the legitimate authority of the apostles, and they despised those authorities.

In Jude verses 8 and 9, we have the same trait mentioned with a specific case given. Peter says even angels don't bring railing accusations against proper authorities, and Jude gives the example of the devil as an authority that Michael wouldn't bring an accusation against. In Jude verses 8 and 9, likewise, also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries.

Yet Michael, the archangel, in contending with the devil when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not to bring a reviling accusation, but said the Lord rebuke you. So we see this is parallel to what Peter said about the angels don't do what these people are doing. They're smarter than that.

Now, these similarities then are in the two descriptions of the false teachers. It's very clear these are the same teachers in both being described. We need to quit essentially now, but let's just look at the back of the sheet, and I want to show you how many similar metaphors and similes are used in the two books.

Peter and Jude both describe these teachers as being like wild beasts. Peter says they're like waterless wells, whereas Jude says like waterless clouds. Essentially the same imagery, same thought.

Peter says they are clouds carried by the wind. Jude says they are carried by tempest. Jude adds a few of his own that Peter doesn't have.

They're fruitless trees, uprooted, twice dead, waves of the sea foaming out their shame, wandering stars doomed to the eternal blackness forever, and then both of them mention Balaam. They're like Balaam, Peter says, and Jude affirms that, but also adds they're also like Cain and Korah. It's clear that Jude is using the outline of 2 Peter 2, but he's also adding his own insights like a preacher will.

He reads the scripture. He affirms the scripture, and he gives other examples. That's what Jude is doing.

And finally, the last chart is essentially paralleling the examples that both writers give of God's judgment. Both of them are saying, you know, you don't want to go the wrong way because God has already shown precedence of what he does to bad folks. You know, if you think God doesn't judge the wicked, remember he has done so in the past.

And the examples given by Peter in 2 Peter 2 are the case of the angels who fell, and the people of Noah's day, and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. These are all cases of precedence that God has given of judgment to warn us against future sinning and being judged. Now Jude, for his part, also mentions the fallen angels and Sodom and Gomorrah.

Jude does not mention Noah's world, and he does add his own third example, and that is Israel in the wilderness, how that God judged the Israelites in the wilderness when they rebuilt. But you can see the case of the fallen angels in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah are shared by the two books, and that each of them has a third example that the other does not use. Jude uses the children of Israel in the wilderness, and Peter uses the antediluvian world.

By the way, Peter in his, when he's talking about these examples of former judgment, points out that God did deliver Noah from the flood and did deliver Lot from Sodom. These points are not brought out by Jude, but these differences, notwithstanding, you can see there's more similarity than difference. Certainly enough to make it clear that Jude is referring to Peter in his writing, to what Peter has written, that is.

All right, we're done for this lesson. We'll take a break.