Authorship of the Petrine epistles

The authorship of the Petrine epistles (First and Second Peter) is an important question in biblical criticism, parallel to that of the authorship of the Pauline epistles, since scholars have long sought to determine who were the exact authors of the New Testament letters. Most scholars today conclude that Saint Peter was not the author of the two epistles that are attributed to him and that they were written by two different authors. Dale Martin 2009 (lecture). . Yale University. Accessed 22 July 2013
Lecture 24 (transcript)
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Peter's ability to write

An issue common to both epistles of Peter, as well as various non-canonical works that claim to be written by Peter, is whether Peter even had the capability to write them. Peter is described in as "uneducated and ordinary" (NRSV), with the Koine Greek ''agrammatoi'' () literally translated as "unlettered" likely meaning "illiterate". More generally, Peter is agreed to be a fisherman from Capernaum, a comparatively small and likely monolingual town. In the era of Roman Judea, literacy was rare, the ability to write rarer still, and the ability to write detailed philosophical tracts (rather than simple receipts and contracts) rarest of all. What advanced literacy training did exist was almost exclusively taught to the children of the elite in large towns such as Jerusalem, rather than fishermen in small towns. As such, most scholars find Acts' claim that Peter was uneducated credible. While it is of course possible that Peter embarked upon adult education later in his life after the time period Acts described, such a feat would have been highly unusual for the era. Even if Peter did pursue education later in life, there is little indication that Peter would have learnt or spoke fluent Greek in his livelihood before Jesus's call, as multilingualism was generally only seen in towns closely involved in trade. So Peter would not only have had to learn writing, but also a new language.

There exist a number of possibilities whereby Peter could have been the source of the epistles attributed to him without directly writing them. The "secretary" hypothesis is the most common of these, that Peter either dictated to a literate associate or perhaps even just summarized the gist of his thoughts while the secretary turned it into a proper Greek letter. In one version of this, Peter did learn spoken Greek, but dictated the letters to a secretary capable of writing Greek. This still assumes a truly impressive leap in education for Peter late in his life; the epistle 1 Peter is in fluent Greek and the author well acquainted with the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament.

Another version that assumes less of Peter is that he dictated in Aramaic, while the secretary translated to Greek. An issue against this possibility is that the letters do not show signs of Aramaic speech patterns turned into Greek ones; if this occurred, then the secretary modified the message sufficiently well to turn the passage into Greek idiom and style rather than Aramaic idiom and style. Another raised possibility is that a Greek-writing associate of Peter was summarizing his general thoughts yet essentially writing the letter themselves. Finally, it is possible that the author was a disciple of Peter who wrote later in Peter's honor, especially if the date of composition is believed to be well after Peter's death (such as 2 Peter). The issue with the final two is that the letters directly identify themselves as being directly from Peter; if a coauthor was involved, the letters would be more properly identified as coming from the coauthor under Peter's guidance or inspiration. Additionally, for the final possibility of a disciple writing in Peter's honor, any proof that such an unknown author indeed knew Peter closely, rather than simply giving his own personal views to Peter, has long since vanished.

First epistle

Author identifies himself as Peter

The author of the First Epistle of Peter identifies himself in the opening verse as "Peter, an apostle of Jesus", and the view that the epistle was written by St. Peter is attested to by a number of Church Fathers: Irenaeus (140–203), Tertullian (150–222), Clement of Alexandria (155–215) and Origen of Alexandria (185–253). If Polycarp, who was martyred in 156, and Papias alluded to this letter, then it must have been written before the mid-2nd century. However, the Muratorian Canon of ''c.'' 170 did not contain this, and a number of other General epistles, suggesting they were not yet being read in the Western churches. Unlike the Second Epistle of Peter, the authorship of which was debated in antiquity (see also Antilegomena), there was little debate about Peter's authorship of the First Epistle of Peter until the advent of biblical criticism in the 18th century. Assuming the letter is authentic and written by Peter, who was martyred ''c.'' 64, the date of this epistle is probably between 60 and 64.

Theory of Silvanus as author

One theory is that 1 Peter was written by a secretary such a
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or by Silvanus, who is mentioned towards the end of the epistle: "By Silvanus, our faithful brother, as I account him, I have written unto you briefly" (5:12). In the following verse the author includes greetings from "she that is in Babylon, elect together with you," taken for the church "in Babylon", which may be an early use of this Christian title for Rome, familiar from the Book of Revelation. Some scholars argue that there is no evidence that Rome was called Babylon by the Christians until the Book of Revelation was published, i.e. c. 90–96 AD and therefore conclude that Babylon on the Euphrates was intended. See also Syriac Christianity.

Use of Greek and Hebrew

Many scholars believe the author was not Peter, but an unknown author writing after Peter's death. Estimates for the date of composition range from 60 to 112 AD. Most critical scholars are skeptical that the apostle Simon Peter, the fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, actually wrote the epistle, because of the urbane cultured style of the Greek and the lack of any personal detail suggesting contact with the historical Jesus of Nazareth. The letter contains about thirty-five references to the Hebrew Bible, all of which, however, come from the Septuagint translation, an unlikely source for historical Peter the apostle, but appropriate for a Hellenized audience; thus the use of the Septuagint helps define the audience. The Septuagint was a Greek translation that had been created at Alexandria for the use of those Jews who could not easily read the Hebrew and Aramaic of the Tanakh

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