Is 2 Peter clearly a forgery?

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fathers could mean "ancestors" and "scriptures" could mean as understood by the Apostles.
there I fixed it.

it is probably not written by peter.
but it is possible that it is.

because you stacked the deck with the word "clearly"
then possible wins the day.
because I fear you will not see it clearly
as long as there is a tiny ledge of possibility
to build a defense of the received view on.

"the orthodox view could be true hence the orthodox view must be true"
seems to me to be your mode of analysis.
this is how the minds of the faithful work and there is nothing wrong with that.
-Jake

^^^^

Sorry my meaning was not clear. Your view of the way faith views subjects is quite accurate. However, I would not support the view that 2 Peter is most likely a forgery. I think, based on the evidence, that it is most likely not and that a legitimate case can be made defending its authenticity; at least to the point where the argument against it is broken up.

I think orthodox must be true unless impossible is a wrong formulation.

91 is after all a thinking scholar - I think we may grant that, as JakobVirgil is within the pale of thinking scholars if my sensors have not been maladjustment, and I think I am a thinking scholar even if I am not Descartes to conclude that necessarily I am.

And in my experience thinking scholars [and would all scholars were thinkers, though I thank God not all thinkers are scholars] of any type, including mine and that to which I suspect 91 belongs, do not simply leap to the top of orthodoxy carrying Fay Wray and defy the aeronauts.

But we all, thinking scholars included, rank data sources including other scholars; some kinds of observations are seen as more reliable, reports from some observers are more credile than others because of what we know of the source. In Linguistics, I will believe Bloomfield before Pike; I will believe Pike before Chomsky. I may believe Chomsky before Hell freezes over.

On an issue like the attribution of NT books to this hand or that, I have not myself done the legwork. No checking manuscript traditions, no careful analyses of style in the Greek and older Syriac [I admit I don't know whether it would pay to bring in Coptic and Armenian, but I would not figure Jerome in on THIS question though I do on matters of nterpretation].

So I have to operate of second-hand inputs and subjective impressions of content. In this situation, I tend to rank Evangelical text criticism last of the thtree main inputs, because much of it [not all, but enough] is axe grinding, working to bolster scriptural inerrancy as a prime value. Mainstream secular text criticism next - some very astute scholarship there, but they tend to be splitters, and I know too well how mainline scholarship works having observed it in action all my life. Wherefore I will generally - it is of course case by case - tend to find Catholic text criticism the most likely to influence my tentative conclusions.

I would expect on the evidence that 91's process is similar, and that he too in his provisional conclusions will tend to flow with the sources he has found most probably reliable pending
the next shipload of data.

Just as my brother will assume that peer-reviewed materialists are the best source of data where he is not himself investigating.

A case in point. I once repeatedly commented to a certain one about certain driving practices. I was ignored. One day the person told me of a great revelation about driving. The same message delivered from another source - one deemed reliable - was received.

Infuriating, but there it is.

^^^^
Well said.

I this is why am an agnostic
my aspie brain can not help treating
each belief systems -reading as as possibly valid.
and therefore none of them
it becomes a game of choose your axioms.
(but really choose your results).
I am not equiped to choose a side in a post-modern world.
thats why I do applied math.
thats why all my papers are refutations rather than constructive.
and why I will prolly not get tenure.
I just can not feel sincere espousing strong viewpoints.
-Jake

^^^^^^

Christian particularism can look strange to a postmodern mind. The uncertainty of postmodernism seems to mesh quite well with religious tolerance. To the outsider the idea that one's own beliefs might not be true seems to allow enough doubt for other religions to legitimately coexist with one another. Personally I think this is a terrible view; doubt is a very unreliable house and seems to be unfit to be the place in which we shelter our tolerance.

The great failure of postmodernism is that it provides no moral foundation for tolerance. The idea that one might be wrong in one's beliefs is entirely intellectual, the idea that intolerance is wrong is an idea so powerful that true coexistence can be built upon it. For me, postmodernism is the wrong approach to tolerance. Rather the idea that man is made in the image of god (or whatever deity(s) you choose or is instinctively valuable through ancestor or even the universe), is all but a universal constant among all religions; from this it can be absolutely established that man has worth fully apart from doubt. Under this view, the person who is intolerant is moving against the laws of his/her own faith. For the postmodern approach to religious coexistence to work, the person must doubt, for the religious approach to work; one must believe. The latter seems far more useful in relation to religious tolerance.

I have witnessed several agnostics and atheists endeavor to promote tolerance through this mechanism of doubt. Some, seem to think that if they can just get the theist to doubt, then they will adopt the view that; since they might be wrong they ought to be more humble towards the beliefs of others. The result I have witnessed from such efforts has been, what to the theist appears, indistinguishable from intolerance towards his/her own faith. The result leaves the theist feeling attacked and besieged; while the agnostic or atheist feels the theist intolerant or close minded.

It seems at least to me, the religious approach has the most merit and that people who wish to promote tolerance should recoil from the postmodernist approach. The desire to impart doubt often looks little different from the more disrespectful forms of religious proselytization. While the religious view; which hold that people are objectively valuable as ends in themselves can find tolerance and faith to be not just mutually compatible but a fantastic basis for one another.

^^^^

The interaction of Christian particularism with cultures of doubt goes back at least to when St. Paul got off the boat in Greece. Though it most likely started the moment Christ met Pilate.

Faith is bupkis.

ruveyn