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The Letters of 2 Peter and JudeRelevant and arrestingTHE LETTERS OF 2 PETER AND JUDE It is a pleasure to be able to commend this excellent commentary on 2 Peter and Jude, bringing to completion Peter Davids’ long-term goal of commenting thoroughly on the General Epistles. It fits easily into the Pillar series, being scholarly, meticulous and widely read, all the time being based on the NIV, and evidently showing that it has been preached and acutely applied. This is a commentary that shows it has been the product of a lifetime’s faithful study. Davids’ work stands up well against the most impressive of commentaries on these letters, Richard Bauckham’s in the Word series. Davids interacts with a wide range of authors, but it is perhaps in engaging with Bauckham that he shows off best his scholarly generosity. He shares Bauckham’s views on an early Palestinian (Galileean, for Davids) provenance for Jude, and finds the evidence for the author being Jesus’s brother compelling. On 2 Peter he is (rightly, in my view) suspicious of Bauckham’s theory that it is a pseudepigraphical Testament: it might be pseudepigraphical (although he doubts it), but a Testament is quite the wrong genre. On issue after issue he carefully lays out all the available evidence, paying particular attention to the Old Testament Apocrypha, and attempts to steer a coherent line through; what emerges are two enormously relevant letters for the contemporary church. It is one of those commentaries where even if one disagrees with the author’s conclusions, he has put opposing views with such honesty that one can be sure he has understood them. He is capable of an arresting turn of phrase, which will easily find its way into a sermon, which is where I suspect it originated. And he is frequently capable of original insights and surprising connections which will help even those who are familiar with the texts. I have very few reservations about this excellent commentary. Sometimes the forays into the extra-biblical material lead into such dark woods that it is difficult to follow the clear path through the letter; occasionally I felt that evidence from elsewhere hindered him from seeing a more vibrant set of connections within the letter; and on more than a few occasions he felt the evidence was inconclusive and left matters hanging. There is a limit to how often that can be done without there being damage to the overall structure. In particular, I felt he did not fully address the question of why these letters quote the Apocryphal material so frequently: there has to be more of an answer to be found in the use the false teachers made of this material. Nevertheless, it is a welcome addition to the pastor’s shelf, a mandatory companion to Bauckham and a necessary supplement to other commentaries. It will fulfil the author’s purpose if the end result is these two letters being heard in our congregations. Chris Green, © Evangelicals Now - February 2008 |