Who Wrote the Book of . . . 1 Peter?

Who Wrote the Book of . . . 1 Peter?

Posted by Clark Bates
August, 6, 2016

      Having discussed the contested books of Paul and the authorship of the gospels, this series on New Testament authorship will now turn toward the writings of Peter. It may or may not surprise some readers to hear that both epistles that bear the apostle Peter's name are highly questioned, and in many cases, considered pseudonymous. This belief has arisen from the school of source criticism that gained prominence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, but recent scholarship has begun to demonstrate the inability of these conclusion to truly account for the authorship of the Petrine epistles.

      It has been the format of this series to present the case against traditional authorship, followed by a parallel case for it. I have decided that for this article and perhaps the next, the format will be more amalgamated in which each objection to traditional authorship will be challenged immediately. We will then conclude with a brief summary and discussion on additional evidence for the Petrine authorship of this epistle.

Who wrote 1 Peter?

      This question is, of course, the heart of the entire article, but given that 1 Peter begins with a salutation attributed to the apostle himself (1:1) it becomes glaringly important. The nature of pseudonymity has been discussed in earlier articles on Paul and will not be regurgitated here, but it has become a prevalent opinion with many modern scholars to accept authorship of this epistle by a Petrine group in Rome between AD 75 and 95, seeking to accurately represent the apostle's thoughts.¹ For those that embrace a late dating to the book, the existence of such a group would be inevitable from a sociological standpoint, but even if this were a sociological inevitability, it does not explain why such a group would write in such a way.

      By way of example, both in the letter's opening and close, references are made to Mark and Silvanus (1:1; 5:12-13). Are these to be understood as pseudonymous fiction? If this epistle were carried by Silvanus, as has been suggested, how was he to represent the letter to its recipients, knowing it was a forgery? Even if we are to accept that the Gospel according to Mark is Peter's testimony, the author of the gospel does not presume to write it in the apostle's name. Perhaps more importantly, while a Petrine group of faithful followers might present an attractive alternative, there is no extant evidence from the first century that such a group ever existed.

Major Challenges to Traditional Authorship

      Almost all modern challenges to apostolic authorship can be contained within 4 categories: 1. The Greek of the epistle is to advanced for the apostle Peter; 2. The content of the book reflects a church structure and social environment that corresponds to a time decades after the apostle's lifetime; 3. The epistle reflects a dependence on the deutero-Pauline letters (those letters contested as pseudonymous in their own right) making its dating to be after them and thus beyond Peter's lifetime; and 4. Christianity could not have reached the remote areas of Asia Minor spoken of in the letter and become a target of major persecution until a decade after Peter had died.

      Taking each of these objections in turn, it must be acknowledged that the Greek of 1 Peter does appear to be of a higher quality than one would expect from a fisherman-turned-apostle. Most who support the earlier dating of this authorship will at least propose the use of a considerably more skilled Greek amanuensis. That being said, quality of language can be, to some extent, subjective. The letter is argued to have such features as, “polished Attic style, Classical vocabulary . . . and rhetorical quality. . . mak[ing] it one of the more refined writings in the NT.”² But the question persists as to whether such language and style require an author formally trained in Greek, and whether or not the apostle Peter could have attained such skill in his lifetime.

     

      It has recently been noted that, within the syntax of the epistle, 1 Peter exhibits a clearly bilingual interference, consistent with a Semitic author for whom Greek is a second language.³ “This is perhaps the most telling feature of the Greek in 1 Peter, for a letter's syntax flows almost subconsciously from an author's proficiency with the language. . .”⁴ When the syntax of 1 Peter is paralleled with that of another Semitic author like Josephus we find that rather than demonstrating refined Greek understanding, the author was deficient to Josephus in multiple areas, including use of prepositions, genitive personal pronouns and the dative case with the preposition en. What this demonstrates is that the author of the epistle was likely of Semitic origin (thus limited to the area of Palestine) in the first century. He would not have been a Greek or Latin speaking Roman or from Asia Minor, making the pseudonymous authorship by a Petrine group less likely.

      The second argument against apostolic authorship is based on the addressed persecution and church structure of 1 Peter. Three emperors of note instituted Christian persecution in the Roman empire during the first century: Nero (54-68), Domitian (81-96), and Trajan (98-117). The nature of persecution in the book is far too vague to be used as a method of dating however. When examining the letter itself, the persecution listed appears to be limited to malicious talk, verbal slander, and false accusations (1:6; 2:12, 15: 3:9, 16; 4:12, 16). This form of persecution need not necessarily point to the level of martyrdom seen under the emperors mentioned and could easily refer to a time period prior to the escalation of government sanctioned and enforced persecution.

      The historian Pliny the Younger wrote approximately 60 letters tot he emperor Trajan over a three year period in AD 90, some of which concerned the persistent problem of Christianity. In these letters he recounted Christians abdicating their faith twenty years prior.⁵ If what is written in 1 Peter regards a less dire situation than that of Pliny then it must be written more than twenty years prior. Much of the debate around the persecutions centers on the “fiery ordeal” of 1 Peter 4:12. Those who claim t a late dating see this as a reference to Nero who used Christians as living torches to light the streets of Rome at night, but recent scholarship suggests this is more likely am acknowledgment to the philosopher Seneca, a contemporary of Peter, who wrote, “Fire tests gold, affliction tests strong men.”⁶ The image of trials as a testing analogous to fire smelting gold is characteristic of the epistle (1:7, 18; 4:12). Peter describes the trial as worldwide (5:9), which suggests a persecution faced by all Christians, not one executed by Roman officials in one place.

      This type of persecution was common in the early church.⁷ Most who hold to a pseudonymous authorship maintain that the letter was written after AD 70 but prior to the reign of Domitian. This is based on 1 Peter 4:15-16 which suggests that Christians were being arrested simply for being Christians, as though it were akin to a common thief, something argued to be impossible prior to Nero.⁸

      Regarding the church structure, it is stated that the use of the term episkopountes (overseeing) in 5:2 refers to the monarchical bishop of the second century. Given the history of this term, the above challenge is more of a case of reading a second century reality backward into the text. As far back as the book of Acts, the apostle Paul uses presbyteroi (elders) and episkopoi interchangeably. In Acts 20:17 and 28 the apostle exhorts the Ephesian elders (presbyteroi) to shepherd (promainein) the people of God because they are overseers (episkopoi)! There is clearly no distinction of terms here, nor any suggestion of official offices. Given that 1 Peter is not written tot a local body, but to a wide area likely covering a territory that would surpass a single bishop there is no reason to assume the later meaning is applied to the term here.

      Coming finally to the epistle's dependence on deutero-Pauline literature. First, it must be recognized that this claim assumes the pseudonymity of those letters, which is not a certainty. Second, the argument has been adjusted simply to 1 Peter's dependency on Paul the apostle as well. Even to assume this dependency would be to suggest a pseudonymous author from a Pauline school rather than a Petrine one, but this creates the added question of why this letter would not then be attributed to Paul instead of Peter? Some have sought to avoid this difficulty by explaining the dependence as an amalgamation of of Petrine and Pauline traditions in which “much Pauline tradition is now set forth under the name of Peter”, the assumed primary apostle of Rome.⁹ This view struggles some, first in its assumption that Peter was in a position of hegemony in the early church beyond that of other apostles, and second this must be assumed to have consistently developed within twenty years of his death.

      Notwithstanding these objections, Peter makes no reference to Paul or his letters in this epistle, and similarities that do exist are of terms and themes that could be less reliant on Paul and more understandably based upon a common faith and Christian tradition. The connection between the two apostles is strained. Too strained even to be a reliable objection to traditional authorship.

Secondary Support for Traditional Authorship

      A final note on pseudonymity must be mentioned. While the prevalence of pseudepigraphy has already been discussed, such writings were largely connected to certain genres. Primarily wisdom literature (Wisdom of Solomon) and apocalyptic (1 Enoch). 1 Peter is neither of these and the acceptance of pseudonymous letters as a genre is contestable. To argue that the book is pseudonymous while retaining a direct link to apostolic authority (as is often claimed) is unverifiable when the link can only be inferred, and merely consists of an attempt to remain skeptical while retaining some sense of authority.

However, even a motive of honoring the apostle by way of pseudonymity finds no support in the first century. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The spurious letter of 3 Corinthians, attributed to Paul, enjoyed acceptance until it was recognized as being non-Pauline. When a presbyter of Asia Minor was discovered as its author, he was not congratulated but censured and removed from church office.

      Lastly, the epistle of 1 Peter contains several allusions to the teachings of Jesus. While the value of these allusions in determining authorship is debated, the list ranges from thirty to at least fifteen. These verba Christi, as they are known, parallel teachings found in all four Gospels, but do not quote the Gospels which does not indicate a literary dependence but one of experience. On this topic, Gundry writes, “The most striking feature about the verba Christi in 1 Peter, however, is that they refer to contexts in the gospels which are especially associated with the apostle Peter.”¹⁰

Conclusion

      While more could be said regarding the geography of the intended recipients of this epistle, and even the theology within its text, sufficient is the discussion at this stage to close. As has been seen in may of the earlier articles, source-criticism has always sought to understand New Testament literature from a vantage point of skepticism. While this is not necessarily inappropriate, the result, as we see here, is too often one in which the critic will maintain skepticism even in light of insufferable difficulties. It is not a position of integrity to assert a skeptical position solely on the basis of group think or an unwillingness to admit previous error. The evidence must always lead those investigating to a conclusion, wherever it may lead. In the case of New Testament authorship, what we often see is a magnifying of contrary evidence against authorship and a diminishing of evidence for. However, when the data is objectively analyzed the traditional authorship rises above accusations as the more likely at best or inconclusive at worst.

1J.K. Elliott, Essays and Studies in the New Testament Textual Criticism, (Cordoba: Ediciones el Amendro, 1992), 127-30.

2Elliott, ESNTTC, 120.

3Karen H. Jobes, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: 1 Peter, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 7.

4Jobes, 1 Peter, 7.

5Pliny the Younger, Letters, 10.96.6.

6Seneca, On Providence, 5.10.

71 Thess.1:6; 2:14-16; 3:3-5; Matt. 10:16-20; Gal. 4:29.

8L. Goppelt, A Commentary on 1 Peter, trans. J.E. Alsup, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 39-45.

9M.E. Boring, Abingdon New Testament Commentary Series: 1 Peter, (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 43.

10R. H. Gundry, “Verba Christi in 1 Peter: Their Implications Concerning the Authorship of 1 Peter and the Authenticity of the Gospel Tradition,” New Testament Studies, 13 (1966-67), 349.