Showing posts with label Peter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peter. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Letter of Peter, 2

Book Written:   Baker gives the date as around 70 A.D. (though how that could be if Peter is thought to have been killed in 64 A.D. see below).  HC puts the date considerably later in the 80s or 90s A.D.

Time Period/Setting:  Peter is writing to all Christians of the time, no particular group intended.

Title: Though Baker notes that authorship of this book is controversial, he recognizes its author as Peter.  HC does not.  He attributes authorship to someone who wrote in Peter's name as, again, HC rather categorically places Peter's martyrdom in the year 64/5 A.D.  Baker says this is not actually a letter.

Peter reminds his audience not to revert to pagan ways (HC explains that Christians of this time were caught in a "twin transition from a Jewish to a pagan environment. . .. " He also writes of the Parousia.  And the author, whoever he may be, emphasizes the truth of his message because he is one of the "eyewitnesses of his majesty"  (Ch.1, 16-18).

Letter of Peter, 1

Book Written:  Baker simply gives a date of 64 A.D. while HC explains that the letter has to be written after Paul traveled through Asia Minor in the 60s, but before the 90s because there's no mention of Roman officials charging Christians with disobedience to the emperor.

Time Period/Setting:  Peter is writing to Christians in five Roman provinces in Asia Minor:  Asia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Galatia and Pontus.    HC explains that these Gentile Christians faced considerable animosity towards them on the part of the Greco-Roman society in which they found themselves.

Title:  Written by Peter, the apostle and first bishop of Rome though HC calls that into question by saying that the fine quality of the Greek may mean otherwise.  HC also says (2 Peter) that Peter was martyred in 64/5 A.D. so HC would conclusively be saying that this letter couldn't have been written by Peter if in fact the letter was penned between 70 A.D. and 90 A.D.   The format is considered to be an actual letter.

Peter is urging his readers to be faithful and good servants of Christ and not to revert to their earlier, heathen ways.  Just to make things perfectly clear I suppose, Peter enjoins his readers not to consort with those lousy Gentiles whom he denounces as immoral low-lifes in  Ch. 4, 3-5.  Such riff-raff lives in "licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing and lawless idolatry."  Can't get much worse than that!