ChristShepherd wrote:
The earliest canon of NT Scriptures does not include 2Peter. It is dated to the third century and yet 2Peter was not known. Ths shows that it was a very late forgery.
http://everything2.com/title/Muratorian%2520canon
Christ Shepherd
I don't see that anyone has responded to this, and it is a good point that I believe warrants consideration. It is quite true that 2 Peter was a later addition to the canon, but not entirely accurate that the Muratorian Canon implies it was unknown. The Muratorian canon does not list works like the didache or the Gospel of Matthew or the Epistle of Barnabas, each of which are indisputably earlier than the canon. Silence does not mean ignorance, it just means that the text was not considered to be canonical by the author. Given that some churches today still do not accept the work, we should not be surprised to find ancient attestation to a canon without 2 Peter. 2 Peter was certainly written by the time of Origen (c. 240AD), as he acknowledged the disputed nature of 2 Peter. This means that 2 Peter was already in widespread circulation in order to create a controversy. Moreover, Origen might be an earlier witness than the Muratorian canon (whose dating is contested... our earliest extant manuscript is much later than Origen).
In fact, the majority of complete older codices that we have contain 2 Peter, indicating the practice of including 2 Peter in the canon regardless of official lists. For example, the Bodmer Papyrus, the Codex Vaticanus, and the Codex Sanaiticus all from the 3rd - 4th centuries contain 2 Peter. Certainly, the dates might be later than the Muratorian canon, but they are some of the earliest extant NT codices. Is it likely that 2 Peter, if so spurious and late, would be present in each of these earliest codices despite their widespread geographic origination? Can we not expect these codices to in fact represent older textual traditions, or are we to believe that each codex is an original version of a textual tradition, and each simultaneously adopted 2 Peter for the first time? I appreciate the turn to text and canon criticism, but I do not believe that the Muratorian canon conclusively proves anything.
On an unrelated note, I think we have bypassed a very important presupposition to this entire question: the nature of doctrine/language. Though spiritual/literal meanings have been discussed, a deeper question requires us to ask what the purpose of this (or any) doctrinal statement or theological claim might be. We have a few options here that would sidestep entirely this debate:
(1) Kierkegaard: To Kierkegaard the essential doctrines of the Christian faith and message (a three-but-one God, a God-man, death leading to life) were intentionally designed by God so as to be so absurd to human logic as to require a blind leap of faith into the arms of God, which in Kierkegaard's mind was the only existential solution to the human dilemma. The contradictions of the second coming would not be a problem for him. They would be evidence of God's design.
(2) Luther: Luther considered Christianity to be fundamentally about paradoxes, which were the primary way that the finite human mind could understand an infinite human God. Man is
simul iustus et peccator (simultaneously just and sinner), the law is simultaneously given for humanity's salvation and condemnation, humans are simultaneously responsible and bound in will. Not to mention the "absurdities" of Kierkegaard above were interpreted as paradoxes by Luther. Perhaps the question of the second coming is simply another paradox intended to do something quite distinct from allowing us to mark our calendars in advance.
(3) Wittgenstein: Though the early Wittgenstein admittedly claimed we should not speak about what we do not know (hence rendering this entire forum a waste of time in his mind), the later Wittgenstein coined the idea of the "language game." Language (and perhaps doctrine and theology) are like a game. Specific claims, even if nonsensical from a literal standpoint, still perform important functions in larger philosophical, cultural, ethical, noetic, and existential ways.
(4) Post-Liberalism: Much similar to Wittgenstein, post-liberals like Lindbeck and Hauerwas would focus not on the locution of eschatological doctrine, but on the perlocution of it (to interpret post-liberalism through the lens of ordinary-language philosophy). What is significant is not the propositional truths of eschatology, but rather how these truth claims shape the worshipping community of Christians as a dialectical embodiment of the doctrines on which they fixate.
(5) Process Theology: If doctrine is not an eternal decree from God, but rather can change with time (which is quite possible if we take seriously Process Theology's claim to God's mutability) the two contradictory statements taken (according to historical criticism) from two distinct time periods could represent an unfolding revelation from God.
What's the point with all these options? I merely wish to point out that the premise of this entire post is subject to question depending on the way you look at doctrine and language. If, at the end of the day, one side conclusively proves the logical and textual incompatibility of Jesus' NT eschatological claims, it doesn't necessarily invalidate the significance and importance of said passages. That being said, I think the textual verdict is still out, and I certainly don't subscribe to all of the above notions. And yes, I recognize that to a large extent they are legitimizing theories, but they are the same sorts of legitimizing theories that are buttressing metanarratives in fields like philosophy, linguistics, and semiology against the nihilistic tide of postmodernity.
