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The Author's Motive for Writing

The Author's Motive for Writing

Excerpt

‘Peter’s’ concern, however, extends far beyond the brief span of life still left to him: he will make the effort (again his favorite verb spoudazein, as at 10a: cf. also 5a) to see that, even after his departure, his correspondents (here he seems to be envisaging the Church generally as well) may be able on all occasions to recall these things. In other words, he plans to leave behind him a permanent testimony to which they can refer; there is perhaps a hint that apostolic writings were not only treasured but read at services. For departure (exodos) as a dignified euphemism for death, cf. Lk. 9:31 (Jesus’s death, foreshadowed at the Transfiguration); Wis. 3:2; 7:6; Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 1. 1 (of the deaths of Peter and Paul). At first sight the cast of the sentence, with its future tense, seems to imply that he is promising a further work, and on the theory of Petrine authorship commentators have often identified this either as some document now lost or as Mark’s Gospel, which the ancient Church (e.g… 

Kelly, J. N. D. The Epistles of Peter and of Jude. London: Continuum, 1969. Print. Black’s New Testament Commentary.

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