From: David L. Moore (dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Thu Jun 27 1996 - 14:41:07 EDT
Alan Repurk wrote:
>
> David L. Moore wrote:
> >
> > In the case of the passage from 2Pet. 1:1, there may be factors that
> > should be considered which might clarify the meaning and make such a last-resort
> > technique as Joos describes unnecessary. In NT times, there was already a long
> > tradition in Egypt of ascribing deifying names to rulers. When Rome extended
> > its rule to Egypt (and possibly even before that and for their own reasons) the
> > Roman emperors began to use self-deifying names and titles. These are very
> > similar to the titles ascribed to Jesus Christ in 2Pet. 1:1. It may be that
> > this was a way to express that Jesus is Lord in a society that demanded that its
> > subjects acknowledge Caesar as lord.
> > Regards,
> > David L. Moore
>
> Considering the target audience was to the Jews (According to John Nelson Darby,
> quotes to follow) would Peter have been making a secular reference like this ?
> Also, the context of the second verse makes it clear that God and Jesus are two
> distinct individuals. Should one give more weight to external evidence that to
> internal (contextual) evidence ?
>
> With Joo's theory, it would appear that even if some distraction caused the audience
> to pay less than full attention to verse 1, verse two would certainly clear up
> any misconceptions they might have had as to Peter's message. That's what I
> call 'redundancy' !
Just a quick note on external and internal evidence: The historical situation
and common language usage contemporary with the Writings we are considering are context
just as the rest of the text itself is. Moulton and Milligan (_The Vocabulary of the
Greek New Testament_, s.v. SWTHR) cite the following inscription from Ephesus dated to
48 A.D. in reference to Julius Caesar: QEON EPIFANH KAI KOINON TOU ANQRWPINOU BIOU
SWTHRA which might be translated, "God made manifest and providing saviour for the
nessecities of human life." This sort of similarity of language seems compelling to me;
and a perusal of inscription, and official proclamation texts shows that the use of such
titles is not at all uncommon.
-- David L. Moore Director Miami, Florida, USA Department of Education dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com Southeastern Spanish District http://www.netcom.com/~dvdmoore of the Assemblies of God
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