Ignorance Is Bliss

I grew up in a cultural Christian family, meaning Christianity was something we practiced – routine rituals without meaning. Our denomination combined doctrines and practices from Anglican, Church of England, and other denominations. I had minimal knowledge about God and the Bible. But I grew up “reverential,” like never leaving the Bible on the floor, not putting any books over the Bible, and keeping the Bible beside my pillow to keep the devil away!

Then I went to the United States. Within the first few months, I learned that God used people to compose the Bible – it hadn’t fallen from the sky as I had imagined. One of my teachers threw the Bible out the window, saying it was just a book, causing me heartburn! Another told how scribes altered texts to their advantage, even adding the benediction to the Lord’s Prayer! My world and faith were shaken – If I can’t trust the Bible, how can I trust the God of the Bible? Could Christianity be a man-made religion, perhaps intending to promote a particular philosophy? I struggled for months.

Then I encountered the Lord Jesus – unlike Paul’s light and sound encounter. Mine was a simple thought: “Five hundred people saw the resurrected Jesus. They can’t be wrong.” I can imagine the twelve disciples wishing Jesus was alive and hallucinating that he was. Maybe even another one hundred of his faithful followers like Mary, Mary Magdalene, Susanna, Joanna, Martha, Lazarus, Zacchaeus, Nicodemus, the widow from Nain, and Jairus. But five hundred people saw him alive! They all couldn’t have been hallucinating, could they?

With this faith, the Spirit of God testified that Jesus was real, his resurrection was true, and if I believe in this good news, I will have an abiding life with him. I believed, and my life has never been the same.

I’ve narrated my testimony because I don’t want your faith shaken by what I am about to say. Scholars think 2 Peter was a pseudo-letter (or pseudepigrapha), meaning Peter didn’t write it; instead, someone claimed to be Peter wrote it. It’s like plagiarism, except in reverse. In plagiarism, I take credit for someone’s work; in pseudepigrapha, I give credit to someone else for my work.

Scholars argue that the vocabulary of 2 Peter is different from 1 Peter; as such, Peter couldn’t have written it. But Peter used a scribe, Silvanus, to write the first letter. Perhaps he himself wrote 2 Peter or used another scribe who used different vocabulary. Also, the content always alters one’s use of language – how one writes a letter to a mother is different from how s/he writes to the boss. Scholars also point out that nearly half of 2 Peter is similar to Jude, which shows inauthenticity. 2 Peter’s and Jude’s illustrations and vocabulary are similar; so are also Ephesians and Colossians, which are even called “twin epistles” (of course, they had a single author). Perhaps, Jude and Peter were good friends and wrote their letters together but for different audiences.

We can go in circles over these and other arguments. I, however, take a simpleton’s approach that this letter was written by Peter, who calls himself “Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 1:1). As was 1 Peter, 2 Peter is full of encouraging and uplifting words, along with warnings and challenges.