2 Peter’s Knowledge of the Transfiguration’s Synoptic Context

John C. Poirier

(Kingswell Theological Seminary)

Society of Biblical Literature, San Francisco, Nov. 21, 2011

The author of 2 Peter, not shy about the ruse of Petrine authorship, writes about his

purported personal experience at the Transfiguration as follows:

2 Pet 1:16–18

16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the

power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his

majesty.

17 For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was

conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved,

with whom I am well pleased.”

18 We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on

the holy mountain.

Scholarship is divided on the source-critical issues surrounding 2 Peter’s reference to the

Transfiguration. Richard Bauckham has argued that 2 Peter’s account does not derive

from the synoptic gospels, but rather from independent tradition.1 Others maintain that

the differences are not as significant as Bauckham makes them out to be, and that direct

use of one or more of our gospels is the preferred solution. Robert Miller, in particular,

1 Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (WBC 50; Waco: Word, 1983) 205–10. See the works listed in

A.D.A. Moses, Matthew’s Transfiguration Story and Jewish-Christian Controversy (JSNTSup 122;

Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996) 211 n. 9. Joseph Blinzler also argues that 2 Peter’s

Transfiguration is independent of the synoptic accounts. He thinks 2 Peter represents the surfacing of a

third Transfiguration tradition, in addition to (1) that lying behind Mark and (2) Luke’s special source (Die

neutestamentlichen Berichte über die Verklärung Jesu [Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen 17/4; Münster:

Aschendorff, 1937] 72). Peter H. Davids holds the same position as Bauckham. According to him, 2

Peter’s Transfiguration account “is clearly not dependent upon any of the Synoptic accounts, as a

comparison of some of the key elements will show” (The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude [Pillar New

Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006] 198). The chart that Davids presents in support

of his claim, however, can easily suggest an opposing scenario. Davids apparently thinks that direct

dependence is found only in exact duplication, but by Davids’s criteria, one would have to conclude that

Matthew’s Transfiguration account is not based on Mark’s!

2

has argued that many of Bauckham’s starting points are questionable.2 Miller’s position,

in my view, is much the stronger one: the author of 2 Peter knows the Transfiguration for

the same reason he expects his readers to know it – viz. because the gospels made it

widely known.3 That 2 Peter should be dated late enough for this should surprise no one,

as it is often considered the latest book in the New Testament – a view with which I

agree.4 Nevertheless, Bauckham has gained a following for his arguments for dating 2

Peter earlier, and it would repay us to take a closer look at his arguments.

Bauckham’s Arguments for Dating 2 Peter in the First Century

The range of dates scholars assign to 2 Peter is astounding. A number of more

conservative scholars, compelled to uphold Petrine authorship, date the work in the 60s

CE. Those who do not assume Petrine scholarship usually date the work some seventy or

eighty years later, making it the youngest book in the New Testament. Richard

Bauckham splits the difference between the ultraconservative and the traditional

scholarly views. He admits that Petrine authorship is impossible, but he seems driven to

2 Robert J. Miller, “Is there Independent Attestation for the Transfiguration in 2 Peter?,” NTS 42 (1996)

620–25. Cf. Ernst Käsemann: “The story of the Transfiguration is recounted . . . clearly according to a

tradition which is secondary to that of the Synoptists” (Essays on New Testament Themes [SBT 41;

London: SCM, 1964] 186). One of Bauckham’s arguments is that 2 Peter does not take over any of the

(presumed) Sinaitic contacts found in the synoptic Transfiguration accounts (Jude, 2 Peter 205). It is

questionable, however, whether such contacts are truly present in the accounts – see John C. Poirier,

“Jewish and Christian Tradition in the Transfiguration,” RevB 111 (2004) 516–30. 3 Robert J. Miller writes, “The author of 2 Peter does not narrate the event, but rather refers to it in such a

way that we can tell that he expects his audience to be familiar with it” (“Historicizing the Trans-historical:

The Transfiguration Narrative: Mark 9:2–8, Matt 17:1–8, Luke 9:28–36,” Foundations & Facets Forum 10

[1994] 219–48, esp. 220). See also Simon S. Lee, Jesus’ Transfiguration and the Believers’

Transformation: A Study of the Transfiguration and Its Development in Early Christian Writings (WUNT

2/265; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2009) 138. 4 Robert E. Picirilli attempted to demonstrate echoes of 2 Peter in the apostolic fathers, but his examples all

fall short (“Allusions to 2 Peter in the Apostolic Fathers,” JSNT 33 [1988] 57–83). As Picirilli admits,

“Some . . . may decide that a pseudonymous writer of 2 Peter used Barnabas, 1 and 2 Clement, and Hermas

(and others), rather than the other way around.” On 2 Peter’s recall of 1 Clement and 2 Clement, see H. C.

C. Cavallin, “The False Teachers of 2 Pt as Pseudo-Prophets,” NovT 21 (1979) 263–70, esp. 268. On the

3

defend as early a date as he can get away with.5 Thus he dates the work, on the grounds

of one argument, to the period 75–100 CE,6 and on the grounds of another argument,

more narrowly to the period 80–90 CE.7 These date ranges are early enough to ensure

that 2 Peter is not the youngest NT writing, and also that it is early enough to justify

speaking in terms of the author’s personal reminisces of Peter’s preaching (which

Bauckham occasionally does).8 Bauckham seems compelled not to ruffle too many

feathers on the conservative side of the aisle, so he argues that the pseudepigraphy of 2

Peter is intended to be transparent – this, of course, appears calculated to diminish the

offensiveness of saying that 2 Peter was not written by Peter. He does this by suggesting

that 2 Peter combines the genres of letter and testament, and suggesting that the authorial

voice in the latter was never taken literally: “The pseudepigraphal device is . . . not a

fraudulent means of claiming apostolic authority, but embodies a claim to be a faithful

mediator of the apostolic message”.9 In what follows, I show that this seeming attempt to

date of 2 Peter, see Thomas J. Kraus, Sprache, Stil und historischer Ort des zweiten Petrusbriefes (WUNT

2/136; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2001) 413. 5 Bauckham’s strong tendency to affirm traditional authorship wherever possible can be seen in his article

“Pseudo-Apostolic Letters,” JBL 107 (1988) 469–94. Regarding 2 Peter, however, he has to admit (489),

“2 Peter is the only NT letter that explicitly addresses readers living not only during the supposed author’s

lifetime but also after his death (1:12–15). It does so by a careful and deliberate use of the testament genre,

which enables Peter to foresee and address a specific situation after his death. Since this literary device so

precisely meets the need of the author of a pseudo-apostolic letter to bridge the chronological gap between

the supposed author and the real readers, and since there are no known examples of its use in authentic

letters, it makes the pseudepigraphal character of 2 Peter at least extremely likely”. Richard I. Pervo, by

contrast, refers to Jude and 2 Peter as “rather clumsy fictions that simultaneously look back to the apostolic

age and pretend to be products of that age” (Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists

[Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2006] 205).

Bauckham rightly discounts attempts to prove 2 Peter’s independence on the basis of its failure to

mention all the details found in the synoptic versions of the Transfiguration. This marks a distinct

improvement, e.g., over the approach of Morton Smith, who considers 2 Peter’s version independent of the

synoptic version because the former does not mention Peter’s suggestion about building booths, the cloud,

or Elijah and Moses (“The Origin and History of the Transfiguration,” USQR 36 [1980] 39–44, esp. 39). 6 Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 154.

7 Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 158.

8 Bauckham names a number of earlier scholars who viewed 2 Peter as independent of the synoptic

tradition: Friedrich Spitta, Theodor Zahn, Joseph Blinzler, and A. J. Maclean (Jude, 2 Peter, 205). 9 Jude, 2 Peter, 161–62. Ultraconservative scholarship, in its attempts to uphold Petrine authorship of the

letter, has tended to focus almost exclusively on Bauckham’s identification of 2 Peter as a testamentary

4

retain the good will of 2 Peter’s pseudepigraphy does not vie with the letter’s

circumstances or purpose.10

The success of 2 Peter’s argument, in fact, depended on its

deceiving readers into accepting its firsthand knowledge of the Transfiguration.

Bauckham’s argument for dating 2 Peter some forty to fifty years earlier than the

traditional scholarly view is cumulative, and he rightly notes the differing weight of the

points he makes. To Bauckham’s mind, one of the more solid indications of a first-

century date is found in that letter’s relation to the passing of the first generation of

believers – a problematic moment in the early church, given the widely circulated

promise that some of those present with Jesus in Mark 9:1 would survive until the

parousia. Bauckham considers that watershed to mark the advent of a type of anti-

eschatological revisionism (“eschatological skepticism”) within a certain sector of the

church. He suggests that this backlash against the first generation’s imminentist

eschatology provided the direct spur for the writing of 2 Peter. He writes about this

scenario, in fact, as though it were patent, and he calls the reference to the “fathers” who

“have fallen asleep” (in 3:4) a “strong clue” for dating the book. Such a scenario, he

argues, calls for a date sometime in the first century:

The fathers who are dead are not the fathers of the scoffers, but the first Christian

generation, the generation of the apostles. Of course, it is not possible to date the

death of a generation, but what is required is an estimate of the date at which the

scoffers could plausibly have claimed that the first Christian generation had died,

so that the promise of the Parousia within their lifetime was invalidated. The

generation of the apostles would consist of people born no later than c. A.D. 10.

Assuming that in the first century it was rare to live beyond seventy years, we

writing, as though the case for pseudepigraphy were wrapped up in that move (see Davids, The Letters of 2

Peter and Jude, 145–49; Robert Harvey and Philip H. Towner, 2 Peter & Jude [IVP New Testament

Commentary Series 18; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009] 9–11). This is interesting, not least

because Bauckham’s gesture looks like an attempt to make 2 Peter conform with a somewhat conservative

scenario, but it has drawn fire from those who do not judge it conservative enough. 10

On the pseudepigraphy of 1 and 2 Peter, see now Bart D. Ehrman, Forged: Writing in the Name of God –

Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are (New York: HarperCollins, 2011) 65–70, 75–77,

199–202.

5

may suppose that c. A.D. 80 was the time at which contemporaries with their

hopes set on the Parousia in the lifetime of the apostolic generation would begin

to feel accurately that this generation had virtually died out. The scoffers’

objection in 3:4 becomes plausible in the decade 80–90.11

According to Bauckham, “3:4 alone enables us to date 2 Peter with considerable

probability c. A.D. 80–90.”12

One of the main purposes of my paper is to question this

understanding of what 2 Peter is all about. In anticipation of my own counterscenario for

the writing of 2 Peter, I simply note here that the supposition that 2 Peter responds to the

first wave of eschatological disillusionment is open to question, and I argue below that

the claim that the passing of the first generation was “no longer an issue in the second

century”13

misconstrues the charge to which 2 Peter is responding. I give a more detailed

explanation of 2 Peter’s true scenario (as I see it) in the remaining sections of this paper.

Although the argument from the timing of this eschatological disillusionment has

a disarming simplicity about it, Bauckham is more impressed with the evidence that he

thinks emerges from a comparison of the words of the theophanic voice in 2 Peter with

the words found in the synoptic gospels. On the basis of this evidence, Bauckham argues

that 2 Peter’s Transfiguration account is based on “a tradition independent of the

Synoptic accounts”.14

This is the argument in which I am most interested, as this paper is

intended to demonstrate just the opposite (among other things). (Bauckham’s other

argument – the implication of the opponents’ charge – will also be answered in the course

of this investigation.) Bauckham presents a chart comparing the words spoken by the

voice at the Transfiguration according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, 2 Peter, the Clementine

11

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 158. Bauckham writes (Jude, 2 Peter, 154), “No doubt this teaching [of a

parousia] fed on disillusionment felt by some Christians when the last prominent members of the

generation of the apostles; in whose final years eschatological expectation had run high, passed away and

the prophecy of the Parousia remained unfulfilled.” 12

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 158. 13

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 158.

6

Homilies, and the Apocalypse of Peter, along with the parallel words in the Baptism

accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the Gospel of the Ebionites. In my own chart

(below), I include only the NT writings and Clem. Hom. 3.53:

Transfiguration

Matt 17:5 ou[to/j e0stin o9 ui9o/j mou o9 a)gaphto/j Mark 9:7 ou[to/j e0stin o9 ui9o/j mou o9 a)gaphto/j Luke 9:35 ou[to/j e0stin o9 ui9o/j mou o9 e0klelegme/noj 2 Pet 1:17 o9 ui9o/j mou o9 a)gaphto/j mou ou[to/j e0stin Clem. Hom. 3.53 ou[to/j e0stin mou o9 ui9o/j o9 a)gaphto/j15

Baptism

Matt 3:17 ou[to/j e0stin o9 ui9o/j mou o9 a)gaphto/j Mark 1:11 su\ ei1 o9 ui9o/j mou o9 a)gaphto/j Luke 3:22 su\ ei1 o9 ui9o/j mou o9 a)gaphto/j

Transfiguration

Matt 17:5 e0n w{| eu0do/khsa a)kou/ete au0tou=. Mark 9:7 a)kou/ete au0tou=. Luke 9:35 au0tou= a)kou/ete. 2 Pet 1:17 ei0j o4n e0gw\ eu0do/khsa. Clem. Hom. 3.53

16 ei0j o4n eu0do/khsa tou/tou a)kou/ete.

Baptism

Matt 3:17 e0n w{| eu0do/khsa. Mark 1:11 e0n soi\ eu0do/khsa.

Luke 3:22 e0n soi\ eu0do/khsa.

The chart does not make it immediately clear why Bauckham thinks the evidence

presented therein should lead one to think that 2 Peter’s wording is not dependent upon

the synoptic gospels. In fact, 2 Peter’s words look very much like an imperfect recall

(viz. reoralization) of the synoptic gospels’ words. In discussing the types of readings of

gospel material found in the Clementine Homilies, Leslie Kline differentiates between

“harmonized readings”, which represent combinations of wording from more than one

14

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 148. 15

This is Bauckham’s reading, printed in the critical editions. Ms. O has o9 ui9o/j mou; P* has mou doubled.

See Bernhard Rehm, Die Pseudoklementinen, vol. 1: Homilien (3rd ed. [updated by Georg Strecker]; Die

griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1992) 76.

7

gospel, and “conflated readings”, which involve combinations of wording from more

than one passage within the same gospel.17

Both types of readings appear in relative

abundance within a number of second-century writings, so it should not be surprising to

find them both in 2 Peter. When one considers Bauckham’s chart of pronouncements by

the divine voice at the Baptism and Transfiguration, but reads it against Bauckham’s

strong-armed interpretation of the evidence (see below), one finds in 2 Peter a typical

example of the reoralization of synoptic material manifesting in both harmonized and

conflated readings.18

We must turn to Bauckham’s explanation to see why he concludes so differently.

First, he makes a lot out of the fact that 2 Peter adds a second pronoun mou to the saying,

so that whereas the voice in Matthew and Mark refer to Jesus as o9 ui9o/j mou o9

a)gaphto/j (which is also how the voice at the baptism refers to Jesus in all three

gospels), the voice in 2 Peter refers to Jesus as o9 ui9o/j mou o9 a)gaphto/j mou. Bauckham

takes this doubling of the pronoun to signify the multiplication of titles for Jesus – he is

both “my son” and “my beloved”. According to Bauckham, the use of this second title

(“my beloved”) is best accounted for on the terms of a (presumed) Semitic original lying

behind the Transfiguration, so that 2 Peter “has a good claim to be closer to the Semitic

basis than the synoptic versions, and must be regarded as at least as original as they

are.”19

He rehearses the evidence for o9 h0gaphme/noj (“the Beloved”) constituting a

christological title in Ephesians, the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius, and elsewhere, and

16

This is a correction of Bauckham’s reference to “Clem. Hom. 3:35”. 17

Leslie L. Kline, The Sayings of Jesus in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies (SBLDS 14; Missoula, MT;

Scholars Press, 1975) 13. 18

On the relation between 2 Peter and Matthew’s Transfiguration and Baptism accounts, see Blinzler, Die

neutestamentlichen Berichte über die Verklärung Jesu, 17–18. 19

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 209. Bauckham discusses four possible explanations of the term a)gaphto/j

on pp. 207–9.

8

claims that this “is itself sufficient evidence to regard [2 Peter’s words] as based on a

tradition independent of the synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration”.20

But why think

that? Why not rather suppose that the currency of such a christological title simply

interfered with pseudo-Peter’s attempt to recall the exact wording of the gospels? That

would seem to be a more straightforward explanation – yet Bauckham never even

mentions it as a possibility.

Bauckham also truncates the list of possible scenarios in his remarks on the

second half of the voice’s words. After noting the rarity of 2 Peter’s use of ei0j o4n over

against Matthew’s e0n w{|, Bauckham mentions that this same rare wording appears in

Clem. Hom. 3.53 – a fact that he thinks “must point to common tradition” between 2

Peter and the Homilies.21

The problem with this is that Bauckham admits that Matt 12:18

features the words ei0j o4n in a related phrase. If the author of 2 Peter is reconstructing the

Transfiguration account from his imperfect recall of bits and pieces from the gospels, it is

not unlikely that he (unintentionally) conflated the wording of Matt 17:5 with the similar

wording of Matt 12:18. In Matt 12:18, ei0j o4n even immediately follows a)gaphto/j mou,

so that both of Bauckham’s purported difficulties with strict reliance on the synoptic

gospels can be explained by mnemonic interference from this particular verse from

Matthew. And it is at any rate odd that Bauckham should conclude that the similarity

between 2 Peter and Clem. Hom. 3.53 “must” indicate the use of a “common tradition”,

when it is at least equally possible that the author of the Clementine Homilies knew 2

20

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 209. Bauckham lists the following witnesses for o9 h0gaphme/noj: Eph 1:6;

Barn. 3.6; 4.3, 8; Ign. Smyrn. Inscr.; Acts Paul & Thecla 1 – “cf. Odes Sol. 3:8; and o9 a)gaphto/j used

throughout Asc. Isa.” 21

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 210.

9

Peter.22

(This also accounts for Clem. Hom. 3.53’s agreement with 2 Peter’s reference to

a heavenly voice, which Bauckham had also explained on the basis of a shared

tradition.)23

Kline explains the Homilies’ knowledge of the synoptic tradition through a

harmonizing (post-synoptic) source. Whether Kline is right, or whether the Homilies’

knowledge of the synoptic tradition is more direct, it would be odd to privilege a scenario

in which the Homilies – written by an obvious champion of the Petrine tradition – do not

lie directly downstream from 2 Peter.24

Bauckham also enlists a number of other, less impressive arguments for a

relatively early dating of 2 Peter. For example, he notes (as mentioned above) that 2

Peter describes the voice heard at the Transfiguration as “heavenly”, while the voice that

speaks in the synoptic gospels proceeds from a cloud.25

He claims that the author of 2

Peter is unlikely to have changed the Transfiguration account in this way, as he “tends to

use apocalyptic language only when he is following a source (as in chap 3)”.26

Thus this

particular detail (Bauckham thinks) supports the idea that 2 Peter derived his version of

the Transfiguration independently of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There are several

problems with this argument. Can we be as sure as Bauckham that the author of 2 Peter

is not prone to add apocalyptic language on his own, especially when the pool of afforded

chances to add such language is probably very small? And why not suppose that the

22

See the history of research in Kline, The Sayings of Jesus in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, 1–11. 23

See Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 206. 24

Bauckham precedes this argument with another (supposed) argument, whose line of reasoning I am

unable to discern. He notes that the words “with whom I am well pleased” probably derive from Isa 42:1,

and he shows the extent to which such an echo might have remained active within the various writings

(Jude, 2 Peter, 209). Given that Bauckham presents this as some sort of counterevidence to the idea of 2

Peter’s use of Matthew, it is apparent that he intended to include an argument within these remarks.

Although his words are clear enough, I am unable to pick up the thread of an argument, and I wonder if he

left something out. 25

Bauckham admits that the argument he puts forth on the basis of the “heavenly” voice (or rather its

“evidence”) is “insufficient to prove the point”, but he makes the argument anyway, so we might as well

look at it.

10

author simply confused the baptismal wording with the Transfiguration’s wording, and

thus imported the heavenly voice from the Baptism account?

In addition to giving reasons for dating the work early, Bauckham also has to

defend against the implications of some standard views that impinge upon his imagined

scenario. He notes, for example, that 2 Peter knows of Paul’s writings (see 3:15–16), and

even refers to them as grafai/, but he assigns an earlier date to the scripturalization of

Paul’s writings than most scholars do.27

In his recent argument for the relative lateness of

the book of Acts, for example, Richard Pervo assumes, as a matter of course, that Luke’s

knowledge of Paul’s writings as a corpus implies a date of 100 CE or later.28

Bauckham

never refers to Paul’s letters as a “corpus”, but it is difficult to accept that 2 Peter is

speaking in any other terms. In fact, it is puzzling that Bauckham neither includes nor

refers to a discussion of the date at which Paul’s letters were gathered into a corpus.

Instead, he tries to turn the lack of any apparent Pauline influence on 2 Peter into a sign

of an early date: “In general, the later we date 2 Peter, the more surprising the lack of

Pauline influence becomes.”29

Bauckham knows, of course, that this judgment does not

fit well with what we know of Paul’s influence on second-century writings, and so he

immediately qualifies his remark by noting that “[t]here are second-century writers (such

as Justin) who show little or no trace of Pauline influence”. But the lack of universal

impact for Paul’s letters is widespread enough, especially in the first half of the second

26

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 206. 27

Cf. Tord Fornberg: “The light in which the author of 2 Peter beheld St Paul proves that he belonged to a

later age, which looked back to the apostles as the human foundation of the Church” (An Early Church in a

Pluralistic Society: A Study of 2 Peter [ConBibNT 9; Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1977] 23). 28

Pervo, Dating Acts, 51–147. 29

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 148. Pervo notes that 2 Peter (in 3:15–16) “can speak of Paul’s letters without

falling into transports of admiration” (Dating Acts, 407 n. 440).

11

century, to question the usefulness of even noting a lack of Pauline influence in 2 Peter.30

A more balanced view would suggest that the lack says nothing one way or the other

about the date of 2 Peter.

The Project at Hand

In what follows, I attempt to show not only that 2 Peter knows the synoptic gospels’

version of the Transfiguration, but also that it consciously and openly engages the

Transfiguration in its synoptic context. There is a simple enough reason why this is not

generally recognized: scholars have taken 2 Peter’s references to the Transfiguration as

an end (or near end) in themselves, when in fact 2 Peter’s whole reason for discussing the

Transfiguration was to support a particular understanding of a different but related detail

from the synoptic gospels – viz. the literary function of the Transfiguration as a

resignification of an otherwise failed eschatological promise. The universal failure

among scholars to grasp the Transfiguration’s role in 2 Peter’s argument has both

contributed to, and been facilitated by, a failure to discern 2 Peter’s allusions to Jesus’

promise that “some standing here will not taste until they see the kingdom coming with

power” (Mark 9:1; cf. Matt 16:28; Luke 9:27). This failure to see how 2 Peter invokes

both parts of the reciprocally related promise and (Markan-ly newfound) denouement has

caused most readers to miss the true logic of 2 Peter’s first chapter. Many readers come

away from 2 Peter believing that the Transfiguration functions merely as a clumsy

30

See Georg Strecker, Eschaton und Historie: Aufsätze (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979) 315;

Andreas Lindemann, “Der Apostel Paulus im 2. Jahrhundert,” in Jean-Marie Sevrin (ed.), The New

Testament in Early Christianity: La réception des écrits néotestamentaires dans le christianisme primitif

(BETL 86; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1989) 39–67, esp. 64–65; Luigi Padovese, “L’antipaulinisme

chrétien au IIe siècle,” RSR 90 (2002) 399–422, esp. 415–22; Richard I. Pervo, The Making of Paul:

Constructions of the Apostle in Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010) 192–98; Joseph R.

12

attempt to establish the author’s (false) credentials or credibility,31

or (somewhat better)

to assert the reality of the parousia (signified by the Transfiguration), when in fact there is

much more going on in 2 Peter’s argument.

The point of this paper is to show that the prophecy “more fully confirmed” to

which 2 Pet 1:19 appeals is not the Transfiguration per se, but rather Jesus’ promise in

the gospels that “some standing here will not taste death until they see the kingdom

coming in power” (Mark 9:1; cf. Matt 16:28; Luke 9:27). The language is even recalled

in the reference to “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” in 2 Pet 1:16, and

echoed in the opponents’ question in 3:4: “Where is the promise of his coming?” The

reason 2 Peter so ardently defends the historicity of the Transfiguration is not because the

account seemed too fantastic for 2 Peter’s opponents, but rather because its narrative

function within the gospels looked too artificial from a literary standpoint: its placement

in the gospels as the immediate sequel to Jesus’ promise that some of his disciples would

see the Kingdom’s arrival within their lifetime looks suspiciously like a “cleverly devised

myth” (2 Pet 1:16) intended to explain away a troubling and widely circulated logion.32

The Transfiguration is not the “myth” per se. Neither is the parousia, nor the apostolic

preaching.33

Rather, the “myth” is the redactional trick of using the Transfiguration to

Dodson, “Introduction,” in Michael F. Bird and Joseph R. Dodson (eds.), Paul and the Second Century

(LNTS 412; London: T & T Clark, 2011) 1–17, esp. 7–8. 31

E.g., see Arthur Michael Ramsey, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ (London:

Longmans, Green and Co., 1949) 125; Terence V. Smith, Petrine Controversies in Early Christianity:

Attitudes towards Peter in Christian Writings of the First Two Centuries (WUNT 2/15; Tübingen: Mohr-

Siebeck, 1985) 82. Bauckham writes, “The defense of apostolic authority is not at all the author’s

intention” (Jude, 2 Peter, 216–17). 32

It is more likely, on rhetorical grounds, that “cleverly devised myths” represents the opponents’ charge

rather than the author’s. Bauckham rightly calls this “a much more straightforward reading of the verse

than the alternative view that the phrase contains the author’s charge that his opponents followed myths”

(Jude, 2 Peter, 213). See Smith, Petrine Controversies in Early Christianity, 78–79. 33

Bauckham holds that the opponents referred to “the apostolic preaching” as “myths” (Jude, 2 Peter, 213).

Karl Hermann Schelkle holds a similar position (Die Petrusbriefe, Der Judasbrief [6th ed.; HTKNT 13/2;

Freiburg: Herder, 1988] 196).

13

alleviate the appearance of a failed prophecy. (2 Peter’s opponents may also have

doubted the tradition of the Transfiguration itself, but that is beside the point.)

The Literary Role of the Synoptic Transfiguration Account

To set the grounds for my case, we must take a look at the relation between Jesus’ setting

of an eschatological “expiration date”, and the gospels’ use of the Transfiguration as a

means of resignifying what Jesus said.

Today’s readers of Mark’s gospel tend to read Mark 9:1 in isolation from 9:2–8,

as if the Transfiguration had no relation to what preceded it. Typically, it is only when

asking when and where the Markan Jesus might have supposed Mark 9:1 to be fulfilled

that readers are able to see how the Transfiguration functions literarily to fufill Jesus’

promise in 9:1. As both Matthew and Luke felt the same pressure to explain away Jesus’

failed promise, they retained the relation between Jesus’ promise and the Transfiguration

just as Mark had forged it.34

Modern scholars are by no means the first to posit a narrative connection between

Mark 9:1 and 9:2–8. Franz Joseph Schierse has assembled a long list of patristic and

medieval writers who comment on such a connection.35

Those NT manuscripts that were

divided sectionally or pericopally (by the insertion of kephalaia or titloi, etc.) seem

always to have associated Mark 9:1 with the preceding verses rather than with what

follows, but the archbishop Stephen Langton (d. 1228) – to whom we owe our present

chapter divisions – associated 9:1 with what follows. As Gary Goswell explains, the

34

On the origins of the Transfiguration account, see Poirier, “Jewish and Christian Tradition in the

Transfiguration,” 516–30. 35

Franz Joseph Schierse, “Historische Kritik und theologische Exegese der synoptischen Evangelien:

Erläutert an Mk 9,1 par.,” Scholastik 29 (1954) 520–36, esp. 528–29.

14

reasons for preferring Langton’s division between 8:38 and 9:1 – that is, for reading this

part of Mark according to the chapter divisions in our modern English Bibles – are

several and various: “Langton’s chapter division at Mk 9.1 can be justified by the

repeated speech attribution (‘And he said to them’; cf. 8.34) . . . . Further connections

include the following: the selective nature of the predicted future revelation (9.1: ‘there

are some standing here’) fits in with Jesus taking only Peter, John and James up the

mountain (9.2); the emphasis on visionary seeing (9.1, 2–4, 8); and the precise time

statement in 9.2a (‘And after six days’).”36

Not everyone agrees with this way of reading Mark 9:1. Oscar Cullmann

dismisses this reading as a rationalizing attempt to deal with Jesus’ promise, and he is not

amused by the support given it by Clement of Alexandria, John Chrysostom,

Theophylact, and Euthymius.37

Cullmann writes, “[T]he countless attempts at a

reinterpretation of the logion in Mark 9.1 . . . represent attempts to avoid the scandal that

Jesus predicted the end for the time of his generation.”38

Cullmann does not consider,

however, that the evangelists themselves might have wanted to “avoid the scandal” – a

scandal that surely loomed larger for them than for us. That Mark inserted the logion in

9:1 immediately before the Transfiguration calls for an explanation. That he wanted

readers to interpret 9:1 in the light of 9:2–8 remains the best explanation. As Enrique

Nardoni writes,

The fact that the transfiguration narrative follows immediately the saying in Mark

9:1 is not enough to prove the redactional connection between both literary units.

But the relative time-indication stressed at the very beginning of the narrative

36

“Early Readers of the Gospels: The Kephalaia and Titloi of Codex Alexandrinus,” JGRChJ 6 (2009)

134–74, esp. 158–59. See Joop van Banning, “Reflections upon the Chapter Divisions of Stephan

Langton,” in Marjo C. A. Korpel, Josef M. Oesch, and Stanley E. Porter (eds.), Method in Unit

Delimitation (Pericope 6; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 141–61. 37

Oscar Cullmann, Salvation in History (London: SCM, 1967) 213 n. 1. 38

Cullmann, Salvation in History, 213.

15

(9:2, “six days later”) following immediately a prophetic saying (9:1) concerning

a future event seems to give a good sign of literary and thematic connection.

Besides, the verb “to see,” which in 9:1 concerns an action and an event to come,

is repeated in 9:9 after the transfiguration denoting an accomplished fact. F.

Neirynck lists this repetition as an entry under the title of “Markan inclusion.”

Identified in this way, this repetition seems to be a sign that the promise made in

9:1 is fulfilled in the following narrative of the transfiguration.39

As Schierse notes, the secondariness of Mark’s interpretation of the logion in 9:1 is also

suggested by the preservation of a similar time-limiting logion in a different context

elsewhere in the synoptic tradition (Matt 24:34 // Mark 13:30 // Luke 21:32).40

That the author of 2 Peter had the logion from Mark 9:1 in mind is also shown by

the language of his opponents, cited in 3:4, challenging the promise that Jesus would

return within a generation: “ever since the fathers fell asleep”. Commentators regularly

note that this language recalls the wording of Jesus’ promise. Mark 9:1 plays a more

involved role in the polemic of 2 Peter than most readers realize.

There can be little doubt about the artifice in the gospels’ recasting of Jesus’

promise to return quickly. The earliest generation of believers had anticipated Jesus’

return, which, on the basis of his purported promise that it would take place before all of

the Twelve had died, was widely expected to happen within the lifetimes of most first-

generation believers.41

Was Jesus mistaken? The non-fulfillment of this logion

undoubtedly represented an embarrassment for the early church – an embarrassment

precipitating Mark’s ingenious damage control. Not everyone, however, was willing to

39

Enrique Nardoni, “A Redactional Interpretation of Mark 9:1,” CBQ 43 (1981) 365–84, esp. 375. See C.

E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to Saint Mark (Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary;

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963) 287–88; John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the

Historical Jesus, vol. 2: Mentor, Message, and Miracles (New York: Doubleday, 1994) 342. 40

Schierse, “Historische Kritik und theologische Exegese der synoptischen Evangelien,” 521–22. 41

Many scholars (plausibly) take Mark 9:1 to represent post-Jesuan (but pre-Markan) tradition. See Rudolf

Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963) 121; Erich Grässer, Das

Problem der Parusieverzögerung in den synoptischen Evangelien und in der Apostelgeschichte (3rd ed.;

16

accept Mark’s improvement. The author of 2 Peter had apparently encountered people

who rejected the idea of Jesus’ literal bodily return, and who recognized the artificiality

of the Transfiguration’s recasting as a means to uphold that idea while dispensing with

the promise’s expired shelf life that had dogged its continued reception. 2 Peter’s

opponents scoffed at how the Transfiguration was made to serve as an explanation for the

question “Where is the promise of his coming?” (3:4). That is why they accused those in

2 Peter’s camp of promulgating a “cleverly disguised myth” (1:16).42

Bearing in mind the literary dimensions of the synoptic Transfiguration account

and its context, a number of connections in 2 Peter begin to come into sharper focus –

connections which, when viewed apart from the synoptic literary context, are all but

invisible.43

When “Peter” says, in v. 19, that “we have the prophetic message more fully

confirmed”, the message he has in mind is not an OT prophecy (as commonly assumed),

or the body of OT prooftexts that regularly accompanied the kerygma. It is, rather, the

prophetic message of Jesus recorded in Matt 16:28 // Mark 9:1 // Luke 9:27. This

“prophetic message” was “more fully confirmed” (v. 19) by the claim that “we ourselves

heard this voice come from heaven” (v. 18). 2 Peter thus defends not merely the reality

of the Transfiguration, but also the evangelists’ representation of it as a fulfillment of

Jesus’ promise that some of his disciples would witness the Kingdom arriving “with

Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977) 131–37; Nardoni, “A Redactional Interpretation of Mark 9:1,” 369; Meier, A

Marginal Jew, vol. 2: Mentor, Message, and Miracles, 339. 42

On the significance of the use of the term “myth”, see J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Epistles of

Peter and of Jude (HNTC; New York: Harper & Row, 1969) 316;

Davids, The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude, 200. 43

It is only from behind this wall of invisibility that Jerome H. Neyrey can assert that 2 Peter “makes no

mention whatsoever of Mark 9:1 or any other prophecy of which the transfiguration might be a fulfillment”

(“The Apologetic Use of the Transfiguration in 2 Peter 1:16–21,” CBQ 42 [1980] 504–19, esp. 514).

17

power”.44

As noted above, such a reading is supported by 2 Peter 1:16’s reference to “his

glory and power”, an unmistakable echo of Mark 9:1.45

(I return to the matter of

interpreting 2 Pet 1:19–21 in a later section of this paper.)

Most discussions rightly point to the Matthean wording echoed in 2 Pet 1:17.46

If

my reading of 2 Pet 1:16 is right, 2 Peter also knew Mark’s wording – an unsurprising

suggestion, given the tradition of a Mark-Peter connection commonly accepted in 2

Peter’s day. It is also possible to hear in 2 Pet 1:15’s use of e1codoj an echo of Luke

9:31, and Allison Trites has noted that 2 Pet 1:17 appears to pick up the term

megaleio/thj from Luke 9:43.47

Depending on how one dates it, therefore, 2 Peter might

44

Schierse points out that 2 Peter provides strong support for reading the Transfiguration as a fulfillment of

Mark 9:1: “Die patristische Auffassung vom Zusammenhang zwischen Mk 9,1 und der Verklärung Jesu

findet schließlich eine starke Stütze durch die Argumentation des sog. zweiten Petrusbriefes. Die Schrift,

deren pseudepigraphischer Charakter jetzt auch von der neuesten katholischen Auslegung zugestanden

wird, will hauptsåchlich die Frage beantworten, warum die Parusie ausgeblieben ist, nachdem die Våter, d.

h. hier die Apostel, gestorben sind. Ihr Tod muß offensichtlich im Widerspruch gestanden haben zu einer

Verheißung des Herrn (3, 4). Die Antwort, welche der Verfasser gibt, ist nun die gleiche wie die des

Markusevangeliums: Durch die Verklärung auf dem ‘Heligen Berg’ ist das prophetische Wort zuverlässiger

geworden, es leuchtet jetzt wie eine Lampe in der Nacht und nährt die Hoffnung auf den kommenden Tag,

an dem es seine endgültige Erfüllung finden wird (1,16–19)” (“Historische Kritik und theologische

Exegese der synoptischen Evangelien,” 534–35). 45

Bauckham correctly notes, “As usually with 2 Peter’s pairs of words, du/namin kai\ parousi/an (lit.

‘power and coming’) should be taken closely together, even as a hendiadys: ‘coming in power’” (Jude, 2

Peter, 215). 46

Only Matthew states that the voice at the Transfiguration said “with him I am well pleased” (17:5), a

detail echoed in 2 Pet 1:17. For other contacts between 2 Peter and Matthew, see Peter Dschulnigg, “Der

theologische Ort des Zweiten Petrusbriefes,” BibZ 33 (1989) 161–77, esp. 169–71. See Thomas J. Kraus,

Sprache, Stil und historischer Ort des zweiten Petrusbriefes (WUNT 2/136; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck,

2001) 376–79. 47

That 2 Pet 1:15 echoes Luke 9:31 is pace John Knox, Marcion and the New Testament: An Essay in the

Early History of the Canon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942) 142. See Michael J. Gilmour,

The Significance of Parallels between 2 Peter and Other Early Christian Literature (Academia Biblica 10;

Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002) 97. Bauckham doubts that e1codoj in 2 Pet 1:15 recalls Luke

9:31, as he finds “sufficient evidence of the currency of the term to make [an allusion] most unlikely”

(Jude, 2 Peter, 202). It is odd, then, that Bauckham should (rightly) note that Irenaeus’s use of e1codoj

(Adv. haer. 3.1.1) may be based on an interpretation of 2 Pet 1:15. (E. Earle Ellis fails to recognize

Irenaeus’s likely dependence on 2 Peter [“The Date and Provenance of Mark’s Gospel,” in F. Van

Segbroeck, C.M. Tuckett, G. Van Belle, and J. Verheyden (eds.), The Four Gospels 1992: Festschrift

Frans Neirynck (3 vols.; BETL 100; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992) 801–15, esp. 804], as does

James G. Crossley in his discussion of Earle’s view [The Date of Mark’s Gospel: Insight from the Law in

Earliest Christianity (JSNTSup 266; London: T & T Clark, 2004) 6–9].) If the collocation of a reference to

Peter makes it possible to regard Irenaeus’s use of the word a possible allusion to 2 Peter, why should not

the collocation of a reference to the Transfiguration make 2 Peter’s use of the word a possible allusion to

18

well be our earliest example of a writing that knows all three synoptic gospels.48

The

delay of the parousia was evidently a problem throughout the generation that saw the

writing of these gospels, and was met by the evangelists by the introduction of new

logia.49

There is, of course, an apparent problem with this thesis: How could the author of

2 Peter expect readers to believe that he was a man who had been martyred in Rome in

the 60s CE, but that he wrote in defense of a literary design found in gospels all written

after that time? The answer, of course, lies in the widespread tradition that the Markan

gospel was basically a transcript of Peter’s own testimony. This might even explain why

2 Peter was written in Peter’s name, as opposed to the name of some other early Christian

spiritual mogul. Perhaps the author of 2 Peter wanted readers to infer that the connection

between the troubling logion of Mark 9:1 and the Transfiguration preceded the writing of

any of the gospels – that Mark made the connection in his gospel because he heard it that

way from Peter.50

The Date of 2 Peter and the Identity of the Opponents

The arguments laid out in the preceding sections of this paper reveal a major problem

with Bauckham’s understanding of the “eschatological skepticism” to which 2 Peter

Luke? See Allison A. Trites, “The Transfiguration in the Theology of Luke: Some Redactional Links,” in

L. D. Hurst and N. T. Wright (eds.), The Glory of Christ in the New Testament: Studies in Christology in

Memory of George Bradford Caird (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987) 71–81, esp. 74. 48

Ramsey notes that 2 Peter describes the Transfiguration “with phrases from Saint Matthew and Saint

Luke” (The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ, 125). On the relation between 2 Peter’s

Transfiguration to the texts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, see Joseph Blinzler, Die neutestamentlichen

Berichte über die Verklärung Jesu (Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen 17/4; Münster: Aschendorff, 1937)

71–72. 49

For example, the theme of a suspected or actual delay plays a key role in three parables in Matthew 24–

25. See Raymond E. Brown and John P. Meier, Antioch and Rome (New York: Paulist, 1982) 17–18.

19

responds: 2 Peter is not responding (directly) to the delay of the parousia as a new

problem, but rather to how the evangelists’ strategy for minimizing the effect of that

delay was criticized by a particular stream of early Christian thinking. The decade of the

80s is indeed fairly representative of when the myth that Mark built into his literary

arrangement was “cleverly devised” – Mark was probably written in the 70s – but that

does not mean that that date is representative of when 2 Peter defended it. It would take

the better part of a generation, perhaps, for Mark’s strategy to be adopted by Matthew

and Luke, and several more years to elicit the backlash to which 2 Peter responds. In

other words, 2 Peter is not offering a response to the delay of the parousia, as Bauckham

et al suppose, but rather a response to a response to a response to the delay – a response

to a particular group’s response to the synoptic gospels’ creative response to the delay of

the parousia. This of course pushes the range of possible dates considerably later than

Bauckham’s scheme allows.

Who then were those who scoffed at the synoptic tradition’s attempt to head off

criticism of one of Jesus’ most cherished promises? It is well known that Origen would

eventually castigate those who interpreted the synoptic Transfiguration accounts as

fulfillments of Jesus’ eschatological prediction (see his Comm. Matt. 12.31),51

but Origen

was not yet born in 2 Peter’s day, and his remarks do not seem to reflect loyalty to a

particular school – let alone one that might have been around some seventy or so years

earlier. Something else is clearly at work. Perhaps the best guess might consider the

authors, redactors, and intended readership of the Gospel of Thomas – a gospel that, in

50

Ramsey plausibly suggested that “Peter’s” promise to leave something for his readers’ remembrance (2

Pet 1:15) is “perhaps . . . a reference to Saint Mark’s Gospel” (The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of

Christ, 125). 51

See G. H. Boobyer, St. Mark and the Transfiguration Story (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1942) 27–30.

20

my estimation, was soon to appear. That gospel, with its more spiritualized

understanding of eschatology, represents a group of believers who no longer understood

Jesus’ promise to return in literal terms. April DeConick has argued, in a number of

places, that such a change in understanding retraces the layering of tradition within the

Gospel of Thomas. According to DeConick’s interpretation of the evidence,

[I]n the Thomasine Gospel, . . . we can see the development of explanatory

schemas to rationalize the disconfirmation [of Jesus’ expected return], along with

arguments that the disconfirmation really was not disconfirmation but

misinterpretation on the part of the community. For instance, they insist that the

end of the world had not come as they had expected. The members of the early

community merely had misunderstood Jesus by “waiting” for the end to come or

“looking forward” to a future event (Gos. Thom. 51, 113).52

According to the reading offered above, 2 Peter accepts the synoptic gospels’ way of

explaining away Jesus’ promise to return within a generation – presumably to hold on to

the hope of a literal return – while 2 Peter’s opponents explain away Jesus’ promise in a

more drastic way, by insisting that believers should stop looking forward to Jesus’ literal

return altogether.53

(Cf. Thomas’s reinterpretation of the “not taste death” saying in logia

1, 18, 19, 85.) The difference between the author of 2 Peter and his opponents, therefore,

has to do with their differing strategies for showing that the disconfirmation of Jesus’

promise, in DeConick’s words, “really was not disconfirmation but misinterpretation on

the part of the community”. For the Thomasine Christians, the kingdom

was like a tiny seed that had fallen unnoticed on tilled soil and now had grown

into a large plant (Gos. Thom. 20). They concluded that the kingdom had

continued to grow since Jesus’ death. Now, at the present time—just as Jesus had

52

April D. DeConick, “Reading the Gospel of Thomas as a Repository of Early Christian Communal

Memory,” in Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher (eds.), Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early

Christianity (Semeia 52; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005) 207–20, esp. 213. See idem,

“Mysticism and the Gospel of Thomas,” in Jörg Frey, Enno Edzard Popkes, and Jens Schröter (eds.), Das

Thomasevangelium: Entstehung – Rezeption – Theologie (BZNW 157; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008) 206–21,

esp. 209. 53

Fornberg writes, “2 Peter may be a document illustrating the battle against ideas which later found

expression in Gnosticism” (An Early Church in a Pluralistic Society, 31 [emphasis original]).

21

predicted!—it had fully arrived on earth. The anticipated “rest” of the dead and

the “new world” had “already come” (Gos. Thom. 51, 113). Since the kingdom

was now spread out among them on the earth (Gos. Thom. 113), Jesus would be

revealed to them immediately and directly (Gos. Thom. 37).54

The Gospel of Thomas thus represents a completely new way of dealing with the problem

the synoptic evangelists addressed with their strategic placement of a failed-but-

purportedly-unfailed logion. 2 Peter’s preferred way to rid Jesus’ promise of its

problematic aspect left the essential promise to return intact – the hope of Jesus’ return

continued as a real hope, one that should remain palpable within the believer’s mind. 2

Peter’s opponents, however, took a more drastic line – a line represented by the tradition

behind the Gospel of Thomas, shifting “from an imminent cosmic event to an immanent

personal mystical experience”.55

2 Peter thus offers a fascinating look at a struggle

between two competing hermeneutics, both designed to explain away the apparent failure

of a prominent prophetic saying, and both extensions of a particular group’s foundational

eschatology.56

The Transfiguration and the “Prophecy of Scripture”

We should take a look at how 2 Pet 1:19–21 fits into the preceding argument. Many

readers seem to treat 2 Pet 1:19–21 as a digression – a less-than-natural sequel to

“Peter’s” discussion of the Transfiguration – or an argument presented in parallel to the

54

DeConick, “Reading the Gospel of Thomas as a Repository of Early Christian Communal Memory,”

213–14. 55

DeConick, “Reading the Gospel of Thomas as a Repository of Early Christian Communal Memory,” 214. 56

I regard Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis’s aargument that Thomas 13 is “Thomas’ version” of the synoptics’

“Caesarea Philippi – Transfiguration” cycle as rather far-fetched (“The Revelation of the Sacral Son of

Man: The Genre, History of Religions Context and the Meaning of the Transfiguration,” in Friedrich

Avemarie and Hermann Lichtenberger [eds.], Auferstehung – Resurrection: The Fourth Durham-Tübingen

Research Symposium: Resurrection, Transfiguration and Exaltation in Old Testament, Ancient Judaism

and Early Christianity (Tübingen, September, 1999) (WUNT 1/135; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2001) 247–

98, esp. 264).

22

appeal to the Transfiguration. There is no reason, however, to posit a literary seam

between vv. 18 and 19. The text reads as follows:

2 Pet 1:19–21

19 So we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed. You will do well to be

attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the

morning star rises in your hearts.

20 First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter

of one’s own interpretation,

21 because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by

the Holy Spirit spoke from God. [adapted from NRSV]

To what does “prophetic word” refer? Bauckham lists six different interpretations of the

phrase to\n profhtiko\n lo/gon:

(1) OT messianic prophecy (Bigg, Mayor, Moffatt, Wand, Chaine; Käsemann,

“Apologia,” 187); (2) the whole OT understood as messianic prophecy (Schelkle,

Spicq, Kelly, Grundmann); (3) one specific OT prophecy (Fornberg, Early

Church, 82–83); (4) OT and NT prophecies (Plumptre, Sidebottom); (5) 2 Pet

1:20–2:19 (Robson, Studies, 44–48); (6) the Transfiguration itself as a prophecy

of the Parousia (Neyrey, CBQ 42 [1980] 514–16).57

None of these interpretations, I suggest, really gets at the way to\n profhtiko\n lo/gon

functions within the argument of 2 Peter.

The first order of business in interpreting 2 Pet 1:19–21 is to dispel a couple of

mistaken ideas attending its reception among modern readers. The first idea concerns the

identification of profhtiko\n lo/gon in v. 19 as a reference to the Transfiguration per se,

understood, as Jerome Neyrey suggests, as “a parousia-prophecy”.58

Neyrey thinks there

57

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 224. 58

Neyrey, “The Apologetic Use of the Transfiguration in 2 Peter 1:16–21,” 515. Although I disagree with

Neyrey’s view, it should be said that it is a distinct advance over associating the “prophetic word” with an

OT prophecy. Davids defends the association of “prophetic word” with an OT prophecy with the strange

claim that “the phrase ‘word of prophecy’ or ‘prophetic word,’ when found in Christian writing through the

second century, is used only for OT scripture” (The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude, 207). This claim only

holds up because it is overspecific. For it to be meaningful, we must first have reason to believe that “word

of prophecy” should mean something differently (however technically) from “prophecy”, as the latter was

hardly an uncommon term for a contemporary Christian phenomenon (cf. Luke 1:16; 1 Cor 13:8; 1 Tim

4:14; Rev 1:3; 22:7, 10, 18–19). The very idea that a “word of prophecy” having something to do

specifically with Scripture per se looks suspiciously like an attempt to understand the concept of Scripture

23

are “many reasons” for associating the “prophetic word” with the Transfiguration, but his

arguments are mostly based on the assumption that no other “prophetic word” is

operative in the text at hand – an assumption, as we have seen, that passes too quickly

over the several allusions to Mark 9:1. The second idea concerns the range of possible

referents for “prophecy of scripture” in 1:20. It is often said that this reference to

“scripture” must have the Old Testament in view. For example, Donald Senior and

Daniel Harrington write that “‘prophecy of Scripture’ must refer to the OT, since it is

highly unlikely that a NT writer (however late 2 Peter may be dated) referred to NT

books as Scripture”.59

This is a rather odd statement to read in a commentary on 2 Peter,

especially given the fact that 2 Peter itself refers to Paul’s letters in explicit comparison

with “the other scriptures” (ta_j loipa_j grafa_j; 3:16). It is also worth mentioning

that other late NT writings can refer earlier NT writings as “scripture”: 1 Tim 5:18 cites a

saying from Luke 10:7 as “scripture” (grafh/).60 On the terms of contemporary usage,

therefore, it would not be unexpected for 2 Peter to refer to a gospel text as “scripture”.

Bauckham, however, thinks this needs to be qualified, and he also is convinced that

profhtiko\j lo/goj could not refer to a NT writing. He gives two reasons to resist a NT

referent: (1) “[e]ven Justin” never uses profhtiko\j lo/goj to refer to a NT writing, and

(2) the author of 2 Peter “is not likely to be representing Peter as saying that he and his

fellow-apostles based their preaching of the Parousia on apostolic writings”.61

These

objections do not hold up. As for (1): Justin packs profhtiko\j lo/goj with rhetorical

through the very late idea of Scripture as “Word”, as does Davids’s dubious claim that “all of Scripture was

considered prophetic in the eyes of many of the Judaisms of the first century”. 59

Donald P. Senior and Daniel J. Harrington, 1 Peter, Jude and 2 Peter (Sacra Pagina 15; Collegeville,

MN: Liturgical, 2003) 257 n. 20. 60

See J. Arthur Baird, Holy Word: The Paradigm of New Testament Formation (JSNTSup 224; Classics in

Biblical and Theological Studies Supplement Series 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002) 180–81,

183–84.

24

force in a debate with the Jew Trypho – we cannot expect him to refer to a NT passage as

profhtiko\j lo/goj in a debate with someone for whom the words of the New

Testament carried little truck.62

And as for (2): on my reading, the author of 2 Peter does

not, in fact, represent Peter (or the other apostles) as “bas[ing] their preaching of the

Parousia on apostolic writings”. They base it (of course) on their personal commission

and their eyewitness status. It is the community addressed by the letter that uses the New

Testament as an independent testimony to this word.63

2 Peter chap. 1 is a single strand of thought, defending the veracity of Jesus’

promise recorded in Mark 9:1 against those who protest against the artificiality of its

Markan context. The author of 2 Peter defends the Markan context by “recalling” his

own experience with Jesus on the “holy mountain”, an experience constituting (for Mark)

the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that some would “see” the Kingdom arrive with power.

The “prophetic word”, to which 2 Pet 1:19 refers, is the same as the “prophecy of

scripture” in 1:20. Neyrey came close to the view argued here when he argued that the

Transfiguration is the profhtiko\j lo/goj. It is not the Transfiguration, however, but

rather the prophecy which the Markan literary arrangement presupposes: the promise of

an imminent parousia that immediately precedes the Transfiguration. Bauckham’s

response to Neyrey, in which he refers to the “unnatural interpretation of a passage [vv.

20–21] which explicitly discusses inspired writings (profhtei/a grafh=j)”,64

drops from

view when we make a simple adjustment to Neyrey’s view, moving the referent from the

61

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 224. 62

See Justin, Dial. 39.4; 56.6; 77.2; 110.3; 128.4; 129.1. Bauckham also notes the use of profhtiko\j lo/goj in Justin, 1 Apol. 54 – here the term seems to have been suggested by the context of a discussion of

Moses’ prophetic activity. 63

Is Bauckham putting too much emphasis on the word “we” in 2 Pet 1:19? 64

Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 224.

25

Transfiguration to the prophecy in Mark 9:1. (Mark 9:1, for 2 Peter, is Scripture.) When

the author of 2 Peter assures the reader that “no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s

own interpretation”, he apparently refers to the accusation that Mark, by juxtaposing

Jesus’ promise with the Transfiguration, had made the former into a “matter of [his] own

interpretation”. V. 21 assures us that the Holy Spirit delivered the prophecy in Mark 9:1,

and that the Spirit knows better than anyone – better even than anti-apocalyptic literary

critics! – what was really meant by it.

An Earlier Scholar’s Ignored Corrections to the Discussion of 2 Peter

I would be remiss if I did not mention a scholar who anticipated my views some seventy

years ago.

As far as I know, my interpretation bears little resemblance to anything found in

any book or article devoted primarily to 2 Peter. Many of its main features, however,

were anticipated long ago by one of the greatest English-language commentators on the

synoptic Transfiguration accounts, G. H. Boobyer, whose contribution to 2 Peter still has

not received the hearing it deserves. Boobyer notes, in agreement with most scholars,

that 2 Peter is all about upholding the parousia hope, and that this concern is an active

one within chap. 1. His only slip, from the standpoint of my own understanding, is that

he identifies the “cleverly devised myths” with the teaching of “the Lord’s du/namij kai\

parousi/a” – that is, with the content of the promise in Mark 9:1 – rather than with the

claim per se that the Transfiguration represents the fulfillment of Mark 9:1.65

Yet that

slip is but a slight one in the task of spelling out the argument of 2 Peter chap. 1 as a

whole, and an instructive one as well. Boobyer goes on to note that the author of 2 Peter

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deflates the charge of “cleverly devised myths” by claiming to be an eyewitness of the

Lord’s glory on the holy mountain. Thus, “[t]he three on ‘the holy mount’ had in some

way seen the truth of that which the writer desires to establish.”66

Thus far, Boobyer’s claims trace mostly familiar lines in the interpretation of 2

Peter. When he moves to how v. 19 fits with the preceding verses, however, he steps out

of line with scholarship, and he steps more in line with the position that I outlined above:

For the author, his experience on “the holy mount” has meant that e1xomen bebaio/teron to\n profhtiko\n lo/gon. It has assisted in establishing something

prophesied and still future, still to be realised; it is a prophecy which may now be

held confidently e3wj ou[ h9me/ra diauga&sh| kai\ fwsfo/roj a)natei/lh| e0n tai=j kardi/aij u9mw~n. This “day” can only be the day when the Lord would come

from heaven; the day when the parousia hope (cf. iii. 2f.), which some spoke of

with disdain, would be fully vindicated. The profhtiko\j lo/goj, then, referred

to that day; it was the prophecy of the parousia which the transfiguration had

confirmed, and how could that confirmation have been real unless on the mount

something of the parousia megaleio/thj had been witnessed by Peter, James, and

John?67

Boobyer does not explicitly say that the prophecy in question in 2 Pet 1:19 is Mark 9:1,

but he does seem to say it in so many words – he implies such an identification by calling

to\n profhtiko\n lo/gon the “prophecy of the parousia which the transfiguration had

confirmed”, and he strengthens that identification further by noting both that 2 Peter’s

appeal to the Transfiguration functions to prove the validity of that prophecy, and that the

synoptic Transfiguration accounts functioned to prove it.68

But Boobyer’s book was about the gospel of Mark, and his remarks on 2 Peter

were intended only as a sidebar. Thus he did not work out his understanding of 2 Peter in

65

Boobyer, St. Mark and the Transfiguration Story, 45. 66

Boobyer, St. Mark and the Transfiguration Story, 45. 67

Boobyer, St. Mark and the Transfiguration Story, 46. 68

The reason Bauckham did not include Boobyer’s view in his list of alternative interpretations of to\n profhtiko\n lo/gon (quoted above) is possibly that Boobyer’s book is devoted to understanding the gospel

of Mark rather than 2 Peter.

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more detail. I can only lament the fact that Boobyer’s interpretation of 2 Peter has not

had more of an impact. Although I came to my understanding of 2 Peter independently

of Boobyer’s work, this paper, in many ways, is really only enlarging on what Boobyer

tried to say seventy years ago.

Conclusion

Scholars usually assume that 2 Peter’s appeal to the Transfiguration supports the letter’s

defense of the parousia by way of functioning as a direct prophecy of the parousia – that

Peter’s witnessing the Transfiguration was in and of itself a guarantee of the parousia,

because the Transfiguration somehow (on its own) indicated that such an event would

take place. Such an interpretation has problems, however, and not merely with respect to

its requiring the unusual application of the term “prophecy” to the Transfiguration. A

somewhat different interpretation is much to be preferred: the “prophecy of scripture” to

which 2 Pet 1:20 refers is not the Transfiguration, but rather Jesus’ all-too-well-known

prophecy that some of those standing in his presence would not die until they saw the

kingdom “coming with power” (Mark 9:1). The Transfiguration is not the prophecy 2

Peter has in mind. Rather, it is the interpretive lens, for 2 Peter as for the synoptic

gospels, that would allow that prophecy to pass unscathed through later generations. 2

Peter’s defense of the Transfiguration thus serves to defend the synoptic gospels’ way of

dealing with Jesus’ prediction of an imminent parousia, against scoffers whose claim to

know better is based on reading those same gospels through a hermeneutic of suspicion.

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2 Peter represents a struggle between competing strategies for dealing with

eschatological disconfirmation.69

It may even be that the synoptics’ handling of the Jesus

logion in question represents one of the main reasons for the Thomasine community to

compose its own gospel, based mostly on material it found in the synoptic gospels, but

programmatically balking at that material’s transparent apocalyptic designs. Matthew,

Mark, and Luke were of no use to a community that faulted the synoptic tradition’s

clumsy resignification of Jesus’ promise to return within a generation.

69

According to Hans Conzelmann, “The author of II Peter can no longer proclaim this nearness as a

message. He must make an effort to hold fast to it, teach it, defend it apologetically; that is, he is to a

certain degree convinced of the nearness, but he does not really ‘believe’ it” (“Present and Future in the

Synoptic Tradition,” Journal for Theology and the Church 5 (1968) 26–44, esp. 27). Cf. Bauckham,

speaking of apocalyptic more generally: “Clearly the problem of delay was an inescapable problem at the

heart of apocalyptic eschatology, but the tension it undoubtedly produced was not a destructive tension. It

was a tension which the apocalyptic faith somehow embraced within itself. The problem was felt but it did

not lead to doubt” (“The Delay of the Parousia,” TynBull 31 [1980] 3–36, esp. 5). See Käsemann, Essays

on New Testament Themes, 169–95.