Peter, Paul, and Canon: A New Look at 2 Peter 3:15-16

John H. Niemelä
Message of Life Ministries
Knoxville, TN

I. INTRODUCTION

How can one be sure that the twenty-seven NT books included in standard Bibles are the books that were inspired by the Holy Spirit and intended by the Holy Spirit to comprise the NT canon? Unfortunately, many answer with circular arguments, since most views depend upon the judgment of the post-apostolic church as proof. Is the standard view—that Christianity determined which books belong in the NT only after the apostles all died—true?

Every couple of years, I taught New Testament Introduction at two seminaries. Though convinced of the validity of the twenty-seven-book NT canon, I would not have wanted to debate a knowledgeable advocate of an alternate view. Why? My standard proofs all left something to be desired.

However, in 2004, I heard Zane Hodges briefly sketch out the implications of 2 Pet 3:15-16. That passage moves the issue of canonicity to the earliest years of church history—during the apostles’ lifetimes. The post-apostolic church did not discover the canon. Rather, it rediscovered the canon, which had already been known during the first century. Christianity needs to understand 2 Pet 3:15-16 and its implications.

II. THE MEANING OF CANON

The Greek word kanōn means “a rule or standard.” Both Gal 6:16 and Phil 3:16 illustrate this sense:

And as many as walk according to this rule (kanōn), peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God (Gal 6:16).1

Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule (kanōn), let us be of the same mind (Phil 3:16).

Kanōn became a technical term for Bible books: thirty-nine in the OT; twenty-seven in the NT. Charles Ryrie rightly sees canonicity as arising at the moment of writing, not later (when councils made pronouncements):

It is essential to remember that the Bible is self-authenticating since its books were breathed out by God (2 Tim 3:16). In other words, the books were canonical the moment they were written. It was not necessary to wait until various councils could examine the books to determine if they were acceptable or not. Their canonicity was inherent within them, since they came from God. People and councils only recognized and acknowledged what is true because of the intrinsic inspiration of the books as they were written. No Bible book became canonical by action of some church council.²

Unfortunately, Ryrie’s discussion of “Decisions of men” and “Debates over canonicity” focus exclusively on the theoretical and historical.³ That is, rather than addressing the question: “How can one be certain today of the twenty-seven book NT canon?” he merely rehashes what systematic theologians already discussed.

As a test, imagine someone from churches that reject 2 Peter, 2–3 John, Jude, and Revelation (such as the pre-Philoxenus Syrian Church).⁴ He could agree with Ryrie’s “Decisions of men” and “Debates over canonicity” sections while rejecting these five books from Scripture. Ryrie’s discussions are good as far as they go, but are unlikely to help the one questioning the canon’s extent. Second Peter 3:15-16 offers the basis for a solution.

III. OUTLINE OF THIS PAPER

I will use the following outline:

1. The apostolic authorship of 2 Peter
2. Analyzing 2 Peter 3:15-16
3. Developing a model of canonicity from 2 Peter 3:15-16

IV. THE APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF 2 PETER

Liberals deny that a collection of Paul’s letters could have existed during Peter’s lifetime. They assert that such a corpus arose in the second century. This leads them to reject 2 Peter’s being Petrine. Joseph Mayor is typical:

This [2 Peter 3:15-16] surely must be regarded as an anachronism on the assumption that it was written by St. Peter, who is generally believed to have been crucified before the death of Nero in June 68 A.D.
[1] It is certainly most unlikely that St. Paul’s epistles would by that time have been collected into a whole,
[2] and still more unlikely that they should already have been placed in the same category with the old Jewish Scriptures…
Taking all these things into account, I think 125 A.D. is about the earliest possible date for 2 Peter.⁵

Mayor formulated a two-step process. Gathering Paul’s epistles into a collection was his first step. Regarding that corpus as Scripture was the second stage. This led him to view 2 Peter as identity theft. If he were right, 2 Peter would belong to the pseudepigrapha (spurious writings) and should be excluded from the canon.

F. Crawford Burkitt presupposes the same two phases when he links Marcion with the second (not the first) phase. The bottom line, once again, is that he denies that 2 Peter is apostolic:

Marcion’s share in [1] the collection of the Pauline Epistles must remain doubtful. But there can be little doubt that he was the first [2] to canonize the New Testament…Marcion is the first to come before us with a collection of Christian writings which are treated as Scripture, that is, as works out of the words of which doctrine can be proved.⁶

Raymond Brown dovetails with Mayor and Burkitt:

…a number of “afters” point to a date [for 2 Peter] no earlier than ca. 100, e.g.:…
[4] after there was a collection of the Pauline letters (II Pet 3:15–6) which probably did not take place much before 100.
[5] after those were letters that were seemingly being reckoned as Scripture (3:16: “as they do the other writings [Scriptures]”)—a development attested for Christian writings in the early 2d century…
Yet within the dating spectrum of AD 100–200, nothing cited in this paragraph requires a date [for 2 Peter] after the first half of the 2d century. Thus, a date of 130, give or take a decade, would best fit the evidence.⁷

Liberals deny the existence of a collection of Paul’s letters during Peter’s lifetime, so they reject 2 Peter’s authenticity. Burkitt doubted that Paul even kept a personal copy of any epistle he wrote:

But there is no great probability that S[t]. Paul himself made a collected edition of his letters, or even that he kept copies of those that he sent. He may have done so, but there is no evidence. It is indeed wholly uncertain how or when these letters were first brought together into a Corpus.⁸

Although Burkitt regarded the date of the collection as “wholly uncertain,” he claimed that it was gathered after Peter died. He would deny that Peter could refer to “all of Paul’s letters.” Liberals deny that such a collection existed in Peter’s day.

V. ANALYZING 2 PETER 3:15-16

Several issues in 2 Peter (emphasizing 3:15-16) rebut liberal views of it. This section considers the following:

1. How might both Peter and Paul have written previously to 2 Peter’s audience?
2. Does graphē mean “Scripture” in 3:16?
3. Did Peter have difficulty understanding Paul?
4. Does evidence for an early Pauline corpus exist?

A. How Might Both Peter and Paul Have Written Previously to 2 Peter’s Audience?

Two preliminaries require attention: Peter’s antecedent writing to these readers and Paul’s antecedent writing to them. One must then consider whether 2 Pet 3:1 equates the addressees of 2 Peter with those of 1 Peter.

What is Peter’s antecedent writing? Second Peter 3:1 calls this the second letter from Peter to this group. It is quite possible (even likely) that 1 Peter also addresses the same recipients. If so, 2 Peter’s destination was Asia Minor (cf. 1 Pet 1:1). The other option is that Peter’s prior letter to the addressees of 2 Peter is no longer extant.⁹

What is Paul’s antecedent writing? Second Peter 3:15 says, “Our brother Paul…wrote to you.” Conservative writers have explored this from two standpoints,¹⁰ but I propose a third:

1. That the addressees of 2 Peter were the original recipients of one of Paul’s thirteen (or fourteen?)¹¹ NT epistles.
2. It could be a letter from Paul to this group that has not been preserved, or
3. Paul recycled a copy of one of his epistles (that had originally been sent elsewhere).

Paul may have¹² recycled 1 Thessalonians. That is exactly what Zane Hodges proposes:

Up to this point Peter has done little more than to hint at this deliverance in 2:9. But as he and the readers well know, Paul discussed this deliverance in some detail. The epistle Peter especially has in mind is 1 Thessalonians (in Greece).¹³

As background to the citation, Hodges suggests that 2 Peter addresses the recipients of 1 Peter:¹⁴ dispersed pilgrims in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (modern Turkey, east of the Bosphorus) according to 1 Pet 1:1.

How does one reconcile Peter’s saying that “Paul wrote [1 Thessalonians] to you [inhabitants of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia]”? Actually, the answer is simple: Years earlier, Paul had sent 1 Thessalonians to Thessalonica of Macedonia. Now, in Peter, it says that Paul also sent a copy of 1 Thessalonians to these people in Asia Minor.¹⁵ The recycled-letter view takes seriously Peter’s words that “Paul wrote to you,” while recognizing that Thessalonica is not in Turkey.

B. Does Graphē Mean “Scripture” in 3:16?

Frederic Henry Chase offers insightful observations on 2 Pet 3:16, showing that Scripture is the necessary referent of graphē here. After a good start, his final sentence [underlined] errs by denying the existence of a collection of Paul’s epistles during Peter’s lifetime. He views 2 Peter as a forgery. If Peter had offered wiggle-room, Chase would have welcomed it. Instead, Chase balks at Peter’s powerful case:

They [several “general non-technical” examples of graphē [writing, Scripture] adduced by earlier scholars] present no parallel to the absolute use of the word in the plural. The phrase hai graphai [the writings or the Scriptures] used absolutely points to a definite and recognized collection of ‘writings,’ i.e. the Scriptures. If any further assurance of this is needed, it is given (a) by the context—the word streblousin [they twist] shows that the writings were authoritative, and that their support had at all costs to be secured, and (b) by the added word loipas—tas loipas graphas [the other Scriptures] compare Sir[ach]. Prol[ogue]. ho nomos kai hai¹⁶ prophēteiae kai ta loipa tōn bibliōn [the law and the prophets and the rest of the Scriptures]; Iren[aeus]. ii. 28.7, ‘Dominus manifeste dixit et reliqua demonstrant Scripturæ [The Lord clearly said and the Scriptures show the truth].’ From the kai [and—in 2 Pet 3:16] and the tas loipas—hōs kai tas loipas graphas [and the other Scriptures]—we are obliged to infer that the Epistles of St. Paul are regarded as Scripture. Again, the fact that St. Paul’s Epistles are regarded as Scripture, together with the phrase en pasais epistolais [in all epistles], leads to the further conclusion that the writer of 2 P[eter] possessed not merely isolated letters of St. Paul, but a collection of his Epistles, to which, as authoritative documents of the faith, appeal was made. It is impossible to suppose that [1] a collection of St. Paul’s Epistles had been made and [2] that they were treated as Scripture during the lifetime of St. Peter.¹⁷

Despite a horrendous concluding sentence, Chase perceptively demonstrates that Peter is discussing Scripture.

One can strengthen Chase’s case by considering 2 Peter 2. That chapter excoriates false teachers, mentioning examples from the OT Scriptures in which God judged evildoers but delivered the righteous. The link between chapters 2–3 is that both discuss individuals who twist what God said in authoritative Scripture.

2 Pet 2:5: Noah (Genesis 7)
2 Pet 2:6: Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19)
2 Pet 2:7: Lot (Genesis 19)
2 Pet 2:15: Balaam (Numbers 22)

Interpreters who water down graphē here¹⁸ by referring to them as mere writings ignore evidence by Chase and his book’s emphasis upon proofs from authoritative Scripture.

C. Did Peter Have Difficulty Understanding Paul?

Even Donald Guthrie seems to think that Peter confesses that “some things are hard [for Peter] to understand” in Paul’s letters:

…this self-candour of Peter’s is a factor in favour of authenticity. It is surely not very surprising that Peter, or any of the other original apostles for that matter, found Paul difficult. Has anyone ever found him easy?¹⁹

Although Guthrie’s statement seeks to support Petrine authorship, he imagines that Peter himself found Paul difficult. Context denies this. The phrase hard to understand means easy to misunderstand. That is, Peter says that “some things are hard [for untaught and unstable false teachers] to understand.” These are the ones who misunderstand Paul’s eschatology and confuse others. Confusion results from twisting Paul’s meaning. Context does not suggest that Peter struggled to understand Paul.²⁰

D. Does Evidence for an Early Pauline Corpus Exist?

To answer this question, I will discuss two issues:

1. The apostles did not view their epistles as private letters, and
2. The functioning of Paul’s team.

1. The Apostles did not view their epistles as private letters

Colossians. Paul mentions the nearby towns of Hierapolis (Col 4:13) and Laodicea (2:1; 4:13, 15, 16ab) several times in Colossians. Hierapolis to Colossae by way of Laodicea is an 18½ mile walk,²¹ so one would travel between them only occasionally. But Paul wanted someone to make the trip in vv 15-16:

Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea, and Nymphas and the church that is in his house. Now when this epistle is read among you, see that it is read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that you likewise read the epistle [written by me that will be taken]²² from Laodicea.

Paul wrote a letter to Colossae and another to Laodicea but urged both congregations to share their letters.²³

Philemon. Paul names Philemon, but also addresses his wife, his son (apparently) and their house church. Also, vv 3, 22ab, and 25 have plural forms of you, so Philemon was not the sole recipient:

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our beloved friend and fellow laborer, to the beloved Apphia, Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house [at Colossae] (Philemon 1-2).

Ostensibly, this was a personal letter to Philemon, but Paul greets others, including their house church (at Colossae). The Colossians (including Philemon) were to share their letter with Laodicea and vice versa. Paul did not view these as private letters; they were to be shared within the Lycus Valley.

Galatians. Paul addressed Galatians to the churches of Galatia. Paul likely sent several copies, so each congregation could have one:

Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead), and all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia (Gal 1:1–2).

Once again, Paul did not intend his letter to benefit one church only.

Romans. The fifteen uses of aspazomai (“greet”) in Rom 16:3-15 address at least fifteen distinct congregations in Rome.²⁴ All those congregations needed Paul’s epistle. Apparently, Phoebe delivered multiple copies of Romans.

The Seven Churches. Of course, Revelation is not Pauline, but it appears that the apostles viewed many of their letters as open ones. In this case, seven churches were the recipients of Revelation: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

In addition, seven verses (Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22) repeat the following:

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

New Testament letters were not private documents but were meant for sharing.

What about Ephesians? A few Alexandrian manuscripts (P46, a, B) lack the words “in Ephesus” in Eph 1:1. This, and the lack of a personal greeting, lead some to call it a round-robin letter, not addressing one locale. David Black counters that not only Ephesians, but also 2 Corinthians, Galatians, and 1–2 Thessalonians lack greetings. He also notes that the two Pauline books with the most extensive greetings (Romans and Colossians) address locales that he had not visited.²⁵ The Majority Text solidly supports including “in Ephesus,” while the UBS text gives their bracketed text a {C} rating. Single brackets in the UBS text mean that three committee members favored the reading and two opposed it.²⁶

Ephesians (and other NT books) were distributed from the earliest times in their original form (designating the recipients of the autograph). That is, subsequent copies (excepting a few defective Alexandrian manuscripts) contained “in Ephesus.” Similarly, many sermons distributed electronically today identify the church in which they were preached. The fact that the YouTube (etc.) video names the church where the message was recorded does not preclude distribution to people outside that congregation.

2. The functioning of Paul’s team

People often think of Paul’s organization as quite small, but comparing Acts with Paul’s epistles paints a different story. Of course, Paul himself traveled, but his letters’ prologues and epilogues mention team members known to a given church. Sometimes Acts records team members accompanying Paul to various cities; sometimes their solo trips receive mention in Acts or an epistle. However, Paul also names people known to a church for which the NT mentions no visit from Paul’s team. After a close analysis of Philippians in 2007, I concluded that the NT mentions only a fraction of team-member trips. (Nothing like a modern postal system existed in Paul’s day. Couriers were vital for communication). Philippians refers to a number of trips by couriers between Rome and Philippi:

1. Philippians 1:30 is when word reached Philippi about Paul’s imprisonment.
2. The church sent Epaphroditus to Paul in Rome (Phil 4:18).
3. Epaphroditus became deathly ill while in Rome (Phil 2:26).
4. Word of Epaphroditus’ being ill reached Philippi (Phil 2:26).
5. Word reached Epaphroditus in Rome of the Philippians’ concern (Phil 2:26).
6. Epaphroditus carried the letter to the Philippians to Philippi (Phil 2:25, 28).
7. A month later, Paul was released from house arrest (Acts 28:30-31).
8. Paul soon sent Timothy to Philippi, as he had planned (Phil 2:19-23).
9. Paul planned to travel to Philippi soon afterwards (Phil 2:24).

A one-way trip from Rome to Philippi took about eight weeks. These nine trips occurred during the two years of Paul’s first Roman imprisonment. However, besides Paul’s concern for Philippi, he ministered through his team to churches all over the northeastern Mediterranean, despite imprisonment.

The following pattern emerges regarding the network of churches that Paul oversaw:

1. Paul would send someone (e.g., Timothy) to a church with a letter for it.
2. Timothy would give his emissary the letter.
3. Timothy would minister there as Paul instructed.
4. Meanwhile, the church would write a letter to Paul.
5. Timothy would carry it to Paul.
6. Timothy would debrief Paul on the circumstances at that church.
7. Paul would write another letter to that church.
8. The process would repeat from point 1, perhaps using a different emissary.
9. At some point, Paul would send Timothy to another church.

Paul’s team members came and went. He wrote letters based on reports from his team members who visited churches, on reports from churches (cf. 1 Cor 1:11), or on questions asked by churches via letters (cf. 1 Cor 7:1, 25; 8:1, 4; 12:1; 16:1, 12; 1 Thess 4:9, 13; 5:1; 2 Thess 2:1).

To illustrate Paul’s team members’ travels, the following is a list of those whose known travels brought them to at least two cities and at most six cities. Several people (like Barnabas and Luke) accompanied Paul extensively, but the ones listed here are ones whose travels may not come to mind. Those who accompanied Paul for lengthy periods in Acts would require much space here.

Team Member	Locations*
Apollos	Corinth, Ephesus
Aquila and Priscilla	Antioch, Caesarea, Cenchrea, Corinth, Ephesus, Rome
Crescens	Galatia, Rome
Demas	Colosse, Rome
Epaenetus	Achaia, Rome
Epaphras*	Colosse, Rome
Epaphroditus	Philippi, Rome
Erastus	Corinth, Macedonia
Gaius	Derbe, Ephesus, Troas
Lucius*	Antioch, Rome
Mark*	Colosse, Cyprus, Ephesus, Rome
Mnason	Caesarea, Jerusalem
Onesimus	Colosse, Rome
Onesiphorus*	Ephesus, Rome
Phoebe	Cenchrea, Rome
Silvanus	Corinth, Thessalonica
Titus	Corinth, Crete, Dalmatia, Jerusalem, Rome
Trophimus	Ephesus, Miletus
Tychicus	Colosse, Ephesus, Rome

*Paul often extends greetings from team members. Presumably, he named only those team members known to the recipients. Thus, it is likely that those members had traveled as Paul’s emissaries to that city. Asterisks signify implied travel.

3. Section summary

The foregoing section is entitled: “Evidence for an Early Pauline Corpus.” It has two subsections:

1. The apostles did not view their epistles as private letters.
2. The functioning of Paul’s team.

This section has demonstrated that NT letters (including Colossians, Galatians, and Romans) were not private letters. It also shows that Paul’s team traveled widely. These facts underlie the next section’s hypothesis—a simple and conservative explanation of 2 Pet 3:15-16.

VI. HYPOTHESIS: THE APOSTLES DISTRIBUTED THEIR OWN LETTERS²⁷

At first glance, the title may not suggest a new approach. That is, everyone acknowledges that Paul sent Romans to Rome, Philippians to Philippi, etc. Yes, all recognize that Paul was in charge of sending the autograph (the original of a given letter) to the original addressees. The hypothesis looks beyond the autograph to the sending of early copies to other locales.

The proposal is that each author oversaw the distribution of copies of letters to additional churches.²⁸ Each author determined which books would be distributed beyond the original addressees (and which would not).²⁹

Readers may wonder, “What is the benefit of this hypothesis?” Remember that liberals deny the plausibility of:

1. A collection of Paul’s letters existing during Peter’s lifetime, and
2. The idea that such a collection would be regarded during Peter’s lifetime as Scripture, on par with the OT.

How might this be illustrated? The clearest statement of the traditional model from a conservative standpoint is from Lewis Sperry Chafer. Presumably, he believed that the recipients of Paul’s letters knew that these letters were Scripture. However, under Chafer’s model, most churches might only possess one or two Pauline letters for several decades. Thus, a corpus of Paul’s letters would be a late development. (Apparently, he never wrestled with the chronological problem that 2 Pet 3:15-16 would pose for his view).³⁰ Chafer said:

…for many years the writings which were current and effective in one locality did not reach all localities. It is probable that no church came to possess a complete copy of all that enters into the New Testament canon until early in the second century. All copies of portions of Scripture were handwritten and few, indeed, could possess these treasures³¹ [emphasis mine].

Paul’s first letter was written in AD 49. Peter apparently died no later than June of AD 68.³² Based on Chafer’s model, the whole process (following) would need to have occurred in less than nineteen years.

1. Paul wrote the following and sent them to their addressees:
   Galatians (49)
   1–2 Thessalonians (51)
   1–2 Corinthians (56)
   Romans (56-57)
   Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon (61-62)
   1 Timothy (62)
   Titus (66)
   2 Timothy (67)
2. The addressees held their books tightly for a time, not sharing them.
3. Decades elapsed before any church would have more than one of Paul’s books.

By contrast, under this article’s hypothesis, it is reasonable to suppose that most churches had Galatians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Corinthians, and Romans before Paul’s first Roman imprisonment began (AD 60) and, by AD 63, would have had Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and 1 Timothy as well. Peter could logically speak of all of Paul’s epistles.³³ The hypothesis provides a reasonable and powerful antithesis to the liberal characterization of 2 Pet 3:15-16 as an anachronism. The Pauline letters existed as a corpus during Peter’s lifetime. This truth is the central thesis of this article.

VII. ADDITIONAL BENEFITS OF THE HYPOTHESIS

The traditional model has additional difficulties, which the hypothesis resolves.

A. Explaining One-Chapter Letters Being in the Canon

Unless the one-chapter letters (Philemon, 2–3 John, and Jude) were widely distributed, imagining their being identified as Scripture decades after writing is difficult. By contrast, if their authors sent them to others (not just to the original addressees), they would be recognized as Scripture.

B. Explaining Why Personal Letters Are in the Canon

The traditional model does not give a rationale for the inclusion of 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, or 2–3 John in the NT. However, if their authors distributed them widely from the very start, that is another story.

C. Resolving Local Variations in the Canon

The literature focuses attention on local variations in the canon. For example, the Syrian church initially rejected certain NT books––2 Peter, 2–3 John, Jude, and Revelation––from its canon. Not until AD 508, when Philoxenus commissioned a Syriac NT, did it accept these books.

The resolution is simple. After Pentecost, the focus of ministry (other than in Israel proper) was in the northeastern Mediterranean. Under the proposed hypothesis, the multiplication of local assemblies in that area would be accompanied by multiplication of Greek manuscript copies (initially produced under apostolic direction).

Over time, interest in translating the NT into other languages (e.g., Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Gothic, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, Old Slavonic)³⁴ would arise. Certainly, one would not imagine the apostles supervising the translation, production, or distribution of translated manuscripts. The translation of (for example) Syrian likely occurred (1) in Syria and (2) after the apostles died, so apostolic supervision would be lacking. The translator chose not to include 2 Peter, 2–3 John, Jude, and Revelation, a local decision that differed from the practice of Greek-speaking churches. Such a move would properly be viewed as an abandonment of the twenty-seven-book canon. Scholarship has not rightly appraised the alternate canons of some non-Greek speaking locales. Some churches in non-Greek speaking areas abandoned the twenty-seven book canon and substituted their own. Greek-speaking regions are where the NT documents’ apostolic activity took place,³⁵ so their voice has priority in issues of canonicity.

VIII. CONCLUSION

2 Peter 3:15-16 is a pivotal passage. Liberals write it off as an anachronism because they cannot imagine a collection of Pauline writings being regarded as Scripture during Peter’s lifetime.

Both liberals and conservatives often imagine apostles as sending their writings only to the original addressees. If so, the NT epistles would have started out as private letters. Rather, the apostles viewed open letters as Scripture. This is evident in Colossians, Galatians, Romans, and Revelation. Furthermore, the functioning of Paul’s ministry team evidences many subordinates going to-and-fro in ministry as Paul writes and receives letters from churches. This interaction provided a vehicle for distributing copies of letters to locales other than the original addressees. Such a model is a simple and reasonable response to liberal charges that 2 Pet 3:15-16 is anachronistic. Instead, Peter would have been familiar with most (or even all) of the NT books written prior to his death. That passage in Second Peter enables us to be confident that every book in our twenty-seven-book NT is the Word of God.

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¹ Unless otherwise noted, Scripture translations are by the author.
² Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1986), 105.
³ The idea of testing the canonicity of books lies outside the scope of Ryrie’s book, Basic Theology. However, discussions of canonicity tend to be historical and abstract. They do not assist anyone seeking to double-check the Athanasian (twenty-seven book) canon. However, the evidence to verify it exists.
⁴ In AD 508, Philoxenus, bishop of Mabbûg (Manbij, Syria), commissioned a new Syriac New Testament. Metzger, Canon, 219, notes its “inclusion (seemingly for the first time in Syriac) of the four smaller Catholic Epistles as well as the Book of Revelation.”
⁵ Joseph B. Mayor, The Epistle of St. Jude and the Second Epistle of St. Peter. Greek text with Introduction, Notes and Comments (London, ENG: Macmillan, 1907), cxxvi-cxxvii. The entire citation appears in one paragraph in the original, but the rearrangement highlights how 3:15-16 leads him to date it at least sixty years after Peter’s death.
⁶ F. Crawford Burkitt, The Gospel History and Its Transmission (Edinburgh, SCT: Clark, 1906), 319-21.
⁷ Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, The Anchor Bible Reference Library, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1997), 767. Emphasis in original.
⁸ Burkitt, History, 317. Corpus refers to “multiple works of an author.”
⁹ In that case, it would have been a private letter, as were the letters to Corinth mentioned in 1 Cor 5:9 and 2 Cor 7:8. Private apostolic letters may well have been inerrant, but they were not canonical. That is, the apostles did not distribute them to the universal church.
¹⁰ The opinion of Brevard S. Childs, The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1985), 473, must be rejected, “Paul’s letters are received as having been addressed to them (3.15, ‘our beloved brother Paul wrote to you’). The canonical function has shifted the weight from the original historical addressees to the present community of faith, by whom they have been transmitted.” Childs denies that Paul wrote directly to the addressees of 2 Peter. Second Peter 3:15 must not be interpreted as denying that Thessalonica was the original destination of 1 Thessalonians.
¹¹ If Hebrews were Pauline, he would have fourteen epistles. Hebrews 2:3-4 is fatal to the theory that Paul wrote it. Paul would never say that he received such things from men (Gal 1:12). Also, Paul always signed his epistles with a distinctive signature (2 Thess 3:17; cf. Gal 6:11). Hebrews would be the sole exception to that pattern. Reconciling Pauline authorship of Hebrews with 2 Thess 3:17 is not possible.
¹² This reconciles all the data, but it is unwise to be dogmatic that it is the only possible solution.
¹³ Zane C. Hodges, “2 Peter,” in The Grace New Testament Commentary, ed. Robert N. Wilkin (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2019), 585. Emphasis mine.
¹⁴ Hodges, “2 Peter,” 577.
¹⁵ By analogy, people sometimes ask me questions about various topics. If the question would require a lengthy answer, I often send an electronic link to old articles of mine.
¹⁶ For some reason, Chase rewrote the phrase with nominatives, instead of genitives. In doing so, he used a feminine article with ‘prophets.’
¹⁷ Frederic Henry Chase, s.v. “Second Epistle of Peter,” in James Hastings, A Dictionary of the Bible (New York, NY: Scribner’s, 1911), 3:810.
¹⁸ Yes, the word can (in other contexts) refer to non-Scriptural writings, but not here.
¹⁹ Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 4th ed. (Leicester, ENG: Apollos; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1990), 827.
²⁰ Peter had already been preaching an eschatology for thirty years that aligns with what Paul taught. Cf. John H. Niemelä, “Acts 1:8 Reconsidered: A Stub Track, a Siding, or a Main Track?” JOTGES 24 (Autumn 2011): 49-63.
²¹ W. M. Ramsay, s.v.––in “Roads and Travel” (in “NT,” in A Dictionary of the Bible, ed. James Hastings [New York, NY: Scribner’s Sons, 1907]), Extra Volume, 386––asserts that fifteen [5280-foot] miles was an absolute maximum per day for ordinary travel on foot under the best of circumstances.
²² I added bracketed words to reflect my understanding that this is a letter from Paul.
²³ Apparently, the letter to Laodicea had pertinence to neighboring Colossae, but (unlike his canonical letters) was not reproduced for wider distribution by Paul’s team.
²⁴ See John H. Niemelä, “Evidence for a First Century ‘Tenement Church,’” JOTGES 24 (Spring 2011): 99-116; John H. Niemelä, “Introduction,” in Zane C. Hodges, Romans: Deliverance from Wrath, ed. Robert N. Wilkin (Corinth, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2013), 13-18.
²⁵ David A. Black, “The Peculiarities of Ephesians and the Ephesian Address,” Grace Theological Journal 2 (Spring 1981): 59-73.
²⁶ See John H. Niemelä, “So You May Come (or Continue?) to Believe (John 20:31),” JOTGES 29 (Spring 2016): 78-79, and 79, nn. 13-15, for evidence that the notation in the UBS apparatus signifies that three of five members of the UBS committee favored “in Ephesus” as original.
²⁷ Zane Hodges taught a module on Majority Text Theory at Chafer Theological Seminary in 2004. He briefly set forth the basic tenets of the hypothesis that this article presents. Most of the thoughts are the result of reflection and study since that brief portion of a lecture twenty years ago.
²⁸ I do not mean that Paul ran the mail room and the photocopier (using modern terms).
²⁹ The letter to the Corinthians that preceded 1 Corinthians (mentioned in 1 Cor 5:9) and the one that came between 1 and 2 Corinthians (mentioned in 2 Cor 2:7) were not authorized to go beyond Corinth. Those, unlike Scripture, were private letters. Biblical writers knew when they were (and were not) writing Scripture. This article argues that other letters from Paul to Philippi preceded the Philippian epistle. These were private letters. The Apostle John in 3 John 9 mentions a private letter that he wrote. It was never intended to be part of the NT.
³⁰ Chafer held Scripture in high regard. He would not have knowingly played into the hand of liberals.
³¹ Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology (Dallas, TX: Dallas Seminary Press, 1947), 1:91.
³² Nero died in June AD 68. Peter likely also died while Nero was emperor.
³³ Guthrie, Introduction, 824, notes, “The ‘all’ in 3:16 need mean no more than all those known to Peter at the time of writing.” However, all clearly implies a substantial number. When Peter wrote, he could have known of eleven, twelve, or even thirteen.
³⁴ These are some of the early versions of the NT for which manuscripts exist.
³⁵ Of course, Paul went to Rome and presumably to Spain, but most of the activity of apostles within the NT is to Greek-speaking regions. The fact that the NT autographs were Greek reinforces this. Priority must be given to the Greek-speaking church in considering canonicity.