Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
2 Peter 3:1-18, Scoffers, the flood and the day of fire
Scoffers will ask where the promised coming is, since everything goes on as it has since creation. Peter answers that the world once made by God's word was destroyed by water and is now kept for fire on the day of judgment; the Lord does not count time as people do, and he delays out of patience. The day will come like a thief, and the readers wait for new heavens and a new earth, as Paul too wrote in letters some twist like the other Scriptures.
2 Peter 3:1-18, in every translation this tool compares.
Peter answers scoffers who say the promised return of Christ will never come because nothing has changed since creation. He replies that the world God made by his word was once destroyed by water and is now being kept for judgment by fire, and that God measures time differently and delays out of patience, wanting people to repent. The day will arrive suddenly, so believers should live holy lives as they wait for a renewed heaven and earth, and beware of those who twist Paul's letters. Whether the world is to be destroyed or renewed is debated.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/day-of-the-lord\/","n":"The day of the Lord","s":"The prophets spoke of a coming day when God would judge the world and rescue his people. Paul calls it the day of Christ, giving Jesus the place the prophets gave to God.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-abyss-and-bound-angels\/","n":"The Watchers, the flood and the bound angels","s":"Most Jews of the period read the sons of God of Genesis 6:1-4 as angels who took human wives before the flood. Their books, above all 1 Enoch, had the guilty angels bound under the earth in darkness until the judgment, and 1 Peter, 2 Peter and Jude speak of that prison.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sages-and-philosophers\/","n":"Philosophers and their schools","s":"Stoics, Epicureans and other schools taught a whole way of life in lecture halls and marketplaces. A traveling teacher with a message about God would be heard, and judged, as one more philosopher.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/present-age-and-age-to-come\/","n":"This age and the age to come","s":"Jews divided history into the present age, under the rule of evil nations, and the age to come, when God would rule unchallenged. The sufferings expected before the change were called birth pangs.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/jewish-ways-of-reading-scripture\/","n":"How Jews read Scripture","s":"By the first century Jews held a known body of sacred writings, roughly the Old Testament, to be God's true word. They taught it to children from infancy, read it aloud in the synagogue and explained it, and Greek-speaking Jews called it the sacred writings.","r":""}
Who the fathers of 3:4 are is read two ways: the first Christian generation, which would point to a later date (reported by Wright and Bird), or, as Carson, Moo and Morris argue, the Jewish patriarchs. The scoffers' world had rival accounts: Epicureans that God does not act in the world, Stoics that "the universe would be resolved into periodic fire" and remade (Keener; the cultural backgrounds article on ancient philosophies). Jewish tradition held that the next destruction would be by fire (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes), and Jews before Jesus already explained God's delay as room for repentance (Wright's commentary). Whether the world is destroyed or renewed is read differently: Keener and Carson, Moo and Morris take Peter to mean destruction; the cultural backgrounds notes say Jewish thought more often looked for renewal; the ESV Study Bible prefers the earliest reading, will be found, and transformation, though Westcott and Hort thought that reading a corruption (Carson, Moo and Morris); Wright and Bird read laid bare. Wright's commentary takes will be found as original, from two of the best manuscripts, calls a burned-up world closer to Stoicism, and reads the elements as probably the sun and moon.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introductions to 2 Peter 3:1-7 and 3:8-13, and on 2 Peter 3:3, 3:4, 3:5, 3:6-7, 3:8, 3:9, 3:10, 3:12, 3:13 and 3:15-16
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 2 Peter 3:1-16, 3:3, 3:5, 3:7, 3:8, 3:9, 3:10, 3:12, 3:13 and 3:16
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 2 Peter 3:10
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 32, Date of 2 Peter, and The Argument of 2 Peter, section 6
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 20, 2 Peter, The Fathers, Text, The Contribution of 2 Peter, and notes 12-13
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Ancient Philosophies
- N. T. Wright, Early Christian Letters for Everyone, comment on 2 Peter 3:1-10
