The New Testament's Most Doubted Book

No New Testament book faced more sustained doubt in antiquity than 2 Peter. Origen in the 3rd century noted its authenticity was questioned; Eusebius in the early 4th century placed it among the disputed writings, reporting that it was not counted among the accepted scriptures by all; and Jerome, later in the 4th century, observed that many rejected it specifically because its style differed so noticeably from 1 Peter, a stylistic argument modern critical scholarship still makes in nearly identical terms. Its eventual acceptance came gradually and by broad consensus rather than through any single decisive argument, and once accepted its canonical standing has never again been seriously questioned in any major tradition.

Modern scholarship's case for a 2nd century date rests on several converging points beyond the stylistic contrast with 1 Peter: its close literary dependence on Jude, its reference to a false teaching about the delayed Parousia that fits better in a later generation genuinely puzzled by unfulfilled expectation than in Peter's own lifetime, and its treatment of Paul's letters as an existing, quasi-scriptural collection already subject to competing interpretation. The letter remains, even among scholars confident in that later dating, valued for its distinctive image of believers becoming "partakers of the divine nature," language that became central to Eastern Orthodox theosis theology.