2 Peter
On the Second Epistle the American Committee have a little more to say, but not much. In 1:1, they prefer marg. to the text, and therefore would have them exchange places. Is not this a singular choice? Even G. Wakefield, heterodox as he was, translated as the Revisers. No scholar who has adequately weighed the construction contests that the omission of the second article admits of two persons strictly united in joint agency, where the phrase does not describe a single person. Contextual scope must, decide which is intended; but even where it is a unity of two before the mind rather than one person, which is expressed by the one common article, the phrase seems impossible unless both stood on precisely the same platform of nature or position. Now I am disposed to believe that in the Epistles of Peter, as in that to the Hebrews, the inspired writer meant to strengthen those addressed in the great truth that Jesus was the Jehovah of Israel, the true God, no less than the Father. The righteousness in question was His faithfulness to promise in bestowing faith on them; for it could be said to the Jews, beyond any other people under heaven, “To you is the promise and to your children, and to all that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Him.” Of them only, since Abram, is there at all times a remnant according to the election of grace. Again no notice is taken of that common fault in the Revisers, the needless enfeebling indefinite article of ours twice over. Our tongue does not require “a” before “servant” or “bondman"; yet it seems harsh to omit in English “the” before “righteousness,” though Mr. Green does so. “In” the righteousness might mislead, because here it would tend to convey the idea of righteousness as the object of faith, according to a favorite dream of Calvinistic theology, which is in no way meant, as even the Puritan Dr. John Owen candidly acknowledges. God was righteous in giving them faith no less precious than the apostles' according to His promise to the fathers. “By” in the Geneva V. is legitimate, or even “through,” though this last might be taken as the mere means (διά); whereas it is their God and Savior's fidelity to His word, in virtue of which He secured their believing. If “in” were thus understood, it would be all right, as in ver. 2, where the form of the phrase is not quite the same as in 1 and is correctly given in almost all versions. The reading in 3 is not altogether sure, B K L and the great majority sustaining the common text, Erasmus and the Compl. edd., Stephens, Beza, Elzevirs &c. whilst à A C P, a decent little corps of cursives (at least 12), and a very weighty portion of Vv. support ἰδία ("by His own"). The difference in result is however much less than it might seem at first; for what after all is the dogmatic distinction between “through glory and virtue,” and “by His own glory and virtue?” Little or nothing beyond emphatic appropriation of glory to God, in order to enhance its bearing on the believer's call by it. But how came the Authorized Translators to make so stupendous a blunder as to render διὰ δ. “to” glory? They were misled by the Geneva V., as it was by Beza, who knew the reading approved of by most modern, critics, yet rejected not it only but the unequivocal meaning of his own text in deference to his theological idol. Hence he sets Rom. 9:23; 15:723And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, (Romans 9:23)
7Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. (Romans 15:7); 1 Cor. 2:77But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: (1 Corinthians 2:7); 1 Thess. 2:1212That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:12), &c. against διά here in its regular sense, and will have it used for εἰς! as in Rom. 6:44Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)! both, it need scarce be added, baseless and very reprehensible blunders, to the ruin of the truth conveyed by the Holy Spirit. But he is right in taking ἀρ. of man (as in 5), and not of God, the plural in 1 Peter 2 having quite a different force, whatever Dean Alford may have urged. We are not like Adam who had to abide in his first estate, but sinned. Neither are we like Israel under the government of the law given by Moses to control and condemn. We are called out of our evil and ruin by God's own glory in hope, which demands meanwhile virtue, i.e. energy in refusing our own will or ease. Ben-gel did not understand the passage. The “your” is uncalled for six times in 5-7, while the small point is noticed of changing “love of the brethren” into “brotherly kindness” as in the Authorized Version, and the former is relegated to the margin. Of still less significance seem the suggestions as to 17, 18, of “was borne” and “borne” for “came” and “come,” though of course the literal meaning, with the omission of the marg.” “. Without doubt the Authorized Version is less accurate than all its predecessors in 18. This voice we (emphatically) heard come, “borne,” “uttered,” from heaven, not “which came” merely. It is better it should be, as the Americans suggest, “by the Majestic glory"; so Winer had long ago remarked (Moulton's ed. 462), “all other explanations being arbitrary.” Luke 1:2626And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, (Luke 1:26) means “by” or “of” God, not “from,” if the reading were certainly ὑπό. In 20 no remark is made on the vagueness of “private” interpretation, any more than on the dubious text of 21.
In 2:13 they would for “love-feasts” read “deceivings” and say, in marg.” “Some ancient authorities read love feasts.” Assuredly it is strong, in a New Testament that aspires to universal use (dislodging the Authorized Version) to adopt a reading on the very slender testimony of Acorr B and a cursive, with perhaps the Vulgate and some other ancient versions, vague enough in all conscience, as against all other authority, and hence adopted only by Lachmann, Tregelles, and the recent Cambridge editors. There seems in fact little to detain in this chapter. But one might have expected that the anarthrous form of the Greek in the last verse might have had a notice, “A dog” returned, &c. and “A sow” when washed &c.
On 3 they are wholly silent. Yet the first verse seems to invite correction. “This [is] now, beloved, a second letter I am writing to you.” As the first was written to the Christian Jews in Asia Minor, so was the second for the same parties: a fact which has no small bearing on der. 15 and the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews. God would give the simple a divinely formed conviction without going beyond the bounds of scripture. Paul's epistles too, including that written to the Christian Jews, were scripture.