If there were no New Testament scriptures for 1st Century Christians to use, then what is Peter talking about?

Question

In 2 Peter 3:15 & 16.

Skep-doc, the proofs your annotated Bible gave against Peter's authorship of His Epistles, works to the contrary.

Your examples prove that Peter indeed took the Bible literally.
They also prove the late date 2 Peter was written: all of Paul's Epistles were already circulated (and most likely copied) by the churches Paul started.

Also enough time had passed (over 30 years) and Jesus had not yet returned. So there needed to be some explanation as to what Jesus meant by His soon return. It was a logical question that had to be answered an entire generation after Jesus' assention.

Nice try, but you are way off the mark.

Answer 1

read the new testiment they all explain they were written at the time of Paul and Peter and used scriptures written then.
2 Tim 4:14
2 Thes 3:14
Col 4:16

Answer 2

Yes, what is Peter talking about?

These verses point to the fact that they were written at a time when Paul was dead and were directed to a gentile audience. Paul's letters were circulated before the Gospels. However if enough time has elapsed that Paul's writings are considered scripture, then perhaps the other scriptures being referenced are the Gospels, as well as the Old Testament

I really like verse 16.

Answer 3

The Scriptures began to be written shortly after the church expanded outside of Jerusalem. No biggie.

Peter didn't have to know when Paul was done writing to refer to his works. All of the Epistles to the churches were encyclicals. (i.e. they were shared around). That's why we have Sooooooo many copies of them.

Once the letters were read in Rome, Galatia, Phillipi, etc - they brothers carried them out to other places. Read the Epistles, as tho you were living in the time. Under the threat of persecution. They make a lot of sense when you put them in context.

Context is always determinitive of meaning.

Don't listen to these wise-crackers who think they know what late century some goofball "intellectual" claims they were written by some other person a hundred years later. These jokers don't have a clue. Take the books at face value, understand the context, and read it as it's meant to be (from the perspective of the addressee).

Peter knew Jude. Peter knew Paul. Barnabbas and Mark met up with Peter after leaving Paul. Mark had known Peter since he was a boy. They were spreading out across the world and news traveled on foot. They got word back and forth as people caught up with one another.

The humility of the writers meant they usually didn't refer to themselves in the first person in a direct fashion because the books weren't about them, they were about Jesus. That's why mark refers to himself only as a "boy in a linen cloth" and John only refers to himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" and Matthew refers to himself as "Levi" (to show that he was living in sin as a tax collector, not as he should have working in the temple).


You can take them at face value, or try to craft a pretext. Which one makes more sense?

Answer 4

i encourage to selection. in case you communicate of "custom based on the primitive church", then it begs to invite the question: shouldn't there have been greater epistles and/or gospels written via the certainly witnesses themselves --i.e., the Apostles James, the Righteous; Peter; Thomas; Philip; etc.-- fairly than specifically Paul's letters that are singlehandedly secure interior the Bible as all of us be conscious of it now? Why is that so? And basically precisely while did the Marian devotion come to the fore if no longer after the 10th century in basic terms? replaced into that component of custom via the primitive church too? yet it has taken an significant, if no longer, even a significant place between the laity immediately who say the rosary plenty many times. and that's a significant component of the church's traditions that the protestations began 5 centuries in the past... the present discovery of the lifeless Sea Scrolls has further much greater controversy, albeit quelled from public scrutiny, as to a pair of its contents that contradict with scriptural texts found interior the Bible. Curious minds would desire to be conscious of... Peace be with you.

Answer 5

The new testament was written during the first century, so it isn't true that NONE of the new testament was available. It's just that it wasn't ALL available to everybody during the whole century. Paul's letters are the earliest writings, and the earliest one was written around 50 CE, 20 years after Jesus.

Answer 6

Peter who?

The Gospel of Peter,the preaching of Peter, the Acts of Peter, and the Apocalypse of Peter are filled with idiosyncratic views of later local traditions that do not mix well. The New Testament letters attributed to him, on the other hand are firmly in the centrist tradition and completely out of character for the Peter that Paul allegedly knew.

Do you blindly follow dogma? Or do you engage your brain before starting to put your mouth into gear?

Wake up!

Answer 7

He is referring to letters from Paul. Many of his epistles were written before the gospels were.

Answer 8

Paul's letters. The books that ended up in scripture were letters Paul sent the early churches.

Answer 9

Second Peter for Skeptics

Although this epistle claims to have been written by Peter, Peter was almost certainly not its author. It is thought to have been written around 90-100 CE, long after Peter's death. The late date (probably the last of the New Testament books to be written) is suspected because:
1) verses 3:3-4 make excuses for the failure of the expected second coming of Christ,
2) the author refers to "all of the letters of Paul" in a way that indicates that Paul's epistles were already considered equal to "the other scriptures", and
3) the epistle depends upon the letter of Jude, which is thought to have been written around 80-100 CE.

Highlights:

* Lot, who in Gen.19:8 offers his two virgin daughters to a crowd of angel rapers and later (19:30-38) impregnates them, is called a "righteous man" in 2:8.

* The author believes the story in Numbers (22:28-30) about the talking a*ss. 2:16

* Those who lose their faith are like dogs that eat their own vomit. 2:22

* The author of 2 Peter is aware of the failed expectations of early believers. He knows that Jesus, who was supposed to come soon, didn't come at all. Many have begun to ask, "Where is the promise of his coming?" 3:4

* Paul's epistles are hard to understand. And that those who try to understand them, as with the other scriptures, do so "unto their own destruction." 3:16

EDIT
So I know Peter had to scramble for an excuse for the lack of Christs return...wouldn't want to make old Jesus out to be a liar, after all he'd promised to come back within the lives of his listeners....according to your Bible.

So what are the excuses now 2000 years later? They are starting to wear a little thin.

I wasn't contesting Peter was written many years after Christs putative life or that he had access to the letter of Paul. There was as yet no "bible" for him to believe in, but he likely knew the Torah, and was part of the early movement to try and connect Jesus with the OT.

I was supporting you.

To me it just proves that the very people who wrote the Bible ( and he wasn't Peter the Apostle, or even some guy called Peter) were just as deluded as the people who believe the Bible.

Answer 10

Letters that he wrote to different churches or groups of Christian people. Many of Paul's writings and letters are in the New Testament