Monday, August 29, 2016

Priviged Planet:. New Study Suggests We are Alone in the Cosmos











In the paper, the three astronomers calculated the likelihood for advanced life as a function of cosmic time and concluded that we humans must be the first on the cosmic scene. In their calculation, they presumed that any life possibly existing in the universe must be like us in that its chemistry is carbon-base ...

Click on the link below
Are We Alone in the Cosmos?

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Book Review: No God But One by Nabeel Qureshi



Book Review:  No God But One: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence For Islam & Christianity

Posted by Clark Bates
August 27, 2016


      For those familiar with his previous writings, Nabeel Qureshi's biography as a Muslim Zealot turned Christian apologist has made him the overnight authority on Christian/Islamic Apologetics. As he recounted in his first work Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, Nabeel spent much of his life as a devout American Muslim, fervently seeking to spread the faith of Allah and his messenger Muhammad to all who would hear him. Raised to love Islam but faced with insurmountable questions after the events of 9/11, the author sought to investigate his faith and silence the doubts that began to permeate his thoughts and worship. Through multiple interactions with Christians and Muslims, over the course of four years, Nabeel's faith in Allah and the Prophet began to erode, while his realization and acceptance of Jesus began to increase. As he recalls,


“On August 24, 2005, when I could resist no longer, I bent my knee to Jesus and proclaimed my faith in Him. Soon after my family was shattered, and the next year of my life was by far the most harrowing I have ever endured. I was now an outsider, both to my family and to all my friends in the Islamic community.”1



      Having achieved a degree in medicine from Eastern Virginia Medical School, the author focused his sights on defense of the Christian faith, earning degrees in apologetics from Biola University and religion from Duke. Currently, Nabeel is pursuing his doctorate in New Testament studies from Oxford University and is an international speaker for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. The events that Nabeel describes in his premier writing are now parlayed into his latest work as a structured, point-by-point comparison of the Christian and Islamic faiths, with the ultimate goal of demonstrating the overwhelming reliability of Christianity and the need for Muslims worldwide to seek the truth.




      Separated into ten parts, No God but One addresses the various dissimilarities between the two faiths, followed by an epistemological analysis of each faith's claim to truth. Much of Nabeel's writing is contemporary with the debates circulating in the public sphere regarding Muslims and Christians worshiping the same God, the comparison of modern jihad with that of the Crusades, Muhammad as opposed to Jesus, the evidence for the resurrection of Christ, and the Quranic claims of divine origin and perfection. In so doing, the author provides a plethora of information for the Christian and Muslim reader, sandwiched between the harrowing account of a young Muslim girl's conversion to Christianity and its resulting consequences.



      Nabeel's method of approach creates a means by which the reader is systematically exposed to an increasingly monumental level of evidence, calling into question the very foundations of Islam. The author crafts arguments that include comparing and contrasting Sharia versus the Gospel, Jesus versus Muhammed, Trinity versus Tawhid (Allah is absolutely one), and the Quran versus the Bible. All the while interspersing his own personal life story into the content of each comparison, Nabeel provides the reader with an immersive experience that relates audience to narrator on an intimate level rather than merely offering data for consumption.



      Nabeel's earlier work, Answering Jihad, suffered slightly from a sense of hurried compilation. Admittedly, that work was produced within the period of a few months, but impressively carried a great deal of information. No God but One does not suffer from this in any way. From start to finish one gets the impression that great care and compassion has gone into each chapter. The author's desire to present his own journey to faith as the template upon which each challenge is made allows the reader to feel for those embracing the Islamic faith and long for them to see truth. As Nabeel states at the outset, “In rejecting the Source of Life, we bring death upon ourselves. This bears repeating: The result of sin is death because it is a rejection of the Source of Life.”2



      However emotionally effective this text may be, it does not remain at a superficial level. In dealing with the relation of Islamic Tawhid versus the Trinity, the author relays, both through his firsthand knowledge and investigative results, that, “the trinity the Quran is denying is actually tri-theism, three gods: Allah, Jesus, and Mary.”3 Challenging not only the logical difficulties that arise from the Islamic doctrine of Tawhid, namely the teaching that Allah can have no attributes and remain Tawhid, Nabeel turns the Islamic argument of Allah's transcendence on it's head, accusing Islam of creating a god made in the image of man: “If God created our minds, then He must be greater than their comprehension. Who are we to demand that He be simple enough for us to understand Him?”4



      The purpose of this book seems very clear, the faith of Islam cannot overcome the historical data and metaphysical claims upon which it survives. In contrast, the Christian faith is built upon metaphysical truth claims, grounded in the historical space-time event of the resurrection. In every avenue of inquisition the author finds Islam untenable and Christianity unwavering. However, his earnest desire to not abandon the faith of his birth reminds readers that this debate involves real people in desperate spiritual circumstances. Far from being a tool by which to browbeat non-Christians, Nabeel's book seeks to build empathy while simultaneously conveying truth.



      The target audience of this book is broad. It's readability makes it accessible to every layperson of either faith. At the same time, it's detailed information provides an excellent apologetic resource for the pastor, teacher or evangelist seeking to reach out to their Islamic neighbors or friends. While some Christians might find the apologetic used within to be cursory, so too might the skilled Muslim; however, for many of both worldviews a deep understanding of their faith's cardinal doctrines seems to be sincerely lacking in the West, and, as such, this book will continue to serve even them. This work may stand out as the author's crowning achievement, but it is too soon to be certain. As far as effectively conveying the reason for Christianity over Islam, Nabeel succeeds admirably. Doing so in a manner that engenders no hostility from the side of the writer is an even greater achievement, and is one that is successfully accomplished as well. As the author expresses it in his appeal to Muslim brothers and sisters, “Leaving Islam can cost you everything: family, friends, job, everything you have ever known, and maybe even life itself. Is it really worth sacrificing everything for the truth? The answer is simple: It depends on the value of truth.”5










1Nabeel Qureshi, No God but One:A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam & Christianity, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 23.

2Nabeel Qureshi, No God but One, 34.

3Ibid., 62.

4Ibid., 68.

5Ibid., 349.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

A Brief Defense of the Moral Argument




A Brief Defense of the Moral Argument

Posted by Clark Bates
August, 23, 2016

 

      What moral difference would it make if God did not exist? A large portion of society today would probably say, “None.” An excellent example of this is found in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. It says:

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”


Now compare this with the U.S. Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”


The point of agreement within these two worldviews is the objective value of humanity, but the area of discord is the source of this value. According to the U.N., objective moral value presumably comes by naturalistic processes. Humans are simply “born with it.” Whereas the Declaration of Independence asserts that this objective moral value comes from something greater, namely God.


      This is the heart of the Moral Argument for God. Formally stated it would sound like this:

      1. If objective moral values exist, then God exists.
      2. Objective moral values do exist.
      3. Therefore, God exists.
On the basis of this argument naturalism cannot account for objective moral values, such as those stated in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, because naturalism functions as a valueless process. The same naturalism that Tennyson called “Red in tooth and claw,” and that Richard Dawkins said in , “should not be used as a guide for society”, is a valueless process that cannot conceivably produce valuable personal beings.1 2


Let's examine each premise to see if the conclusion follows:


Premise 1: If Objective Moral Values Exist, God Exists.


      Now the only way to determine if this premise is true is if it can be demonstrated that naturalism cannot produce moral values and duties. Let's begin by defining what I mean by an objective moral value or duty. An objective moral value or duty is a an obligation to do what is right in a given circumstance regardless of one's personal opinion. It's often asserted that many atheists or non-theists are just as, if not more than, moral as Christians. This is used as evidence that belief in God is not necessary for morality to exist. This is absolutely true. You don't have to believe that God exists in order to be moral. But the argument before us is not that it is necessary to believe in God for objective moral values and duties to exist, but that for objective moral values and duties to exist God must exist. It has nothing to do with whether or not one believes in God, for all mankind is created with the same image of God regardless of their belief system and therefore all mankind is able to recognize the same objective moral standards.


     
       According to Sam Harris, “If there are psychological laws that govern human well-being, knowledge of these laws would provide an enduring basis of objective morality.”
3 What Harris is proposing is a form of “atheistic realism” which asserts both that the physical universe is all that is and yet objective moral values are brute facts that exist within it. The issue here is that what he's asserting is that metaphysical realities somehow exist within a strictly physical world and we should just not question that. To take it a step further, a moral obligation is a type of proposition, i.e. “Rape is bad.” We make propositions all the time, but they arise from our mind; Harris is insisting that these objective propositions somehow arise from mindlessness. This is a kind of expansion on the work of another atheist named Michael Martin who wrote that “One could affirm the objective immorality of rape and deny the existence of God with perfect consistency.” In both instances these men are making the claim that moral values and duties are just the result of human evolutionary development, however they are guilty of equivocating what “is” with what “ought” to be. It “is” true that mankind psychologically acknowledges laws (that exist apart from themselves mind you) that provide an enduring basis of reality. It “is” true that one can affirm that rape is wrong and deny God, but neither of these factors can answer “why” those things are true. They tell us that rape “is” wrong, but not why rape “ought” to be wrong. They confuse an is with an ought.



      To put it another way, the evolutionary process is primarily interested in survival, not in true belief. It can, and has been, argued that moral values help us survive, but this says nothing about whether those moral values are true, and for morality to be objective it must necessarily be true. We may believe, with the UN, that human beings have intrinsic value and that this has helped us survive, but this may still be false. We may believe in moral obligations as a means of preservation of the species, but this belief may be wrong. And if an appeal to objective moral values is going to be made, such an appeal requires that these values not only be real, but that they be true. For if they are not true, there is no longer an objective reason to abide by them. If naturalism fails to account for the “Why” of objective moral values and duties it cannot serve as adequate explanation for them.


Premise 2: Objective Moral Values do Exist


     The nihilist Friedrich Nietzsche famously, and rather dramatically, stated that “God is dead” in his “Parable of the Madman”, but even he recognized that with the destruction of God came the destruction of objective value. He wrote in that same parable,
 
"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”4


The existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre saw this too when he wrote,
 
“It is very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him.”5

      Now it's often claimed that objective morality cannot exist given the wide diversity of moral values throughout the world. However, C.S. Lewis, in his work The Abolition of Man, surveyed the basic moral precepts of various cultures and found at least 8 points of commonality with all. There were agreed upon moral laws regarding general and special benevolence, or kindness, an expected moral duty towards parents and the elderly, moral laws regarding justice, regarding integrity and truth, regarding mercy and generosity. In short, while differences in particular moral circumstances may exist in various cultures, there are multiple areas of cross-cultural common morality. As Frank Turek rather comically reiterates, Hindus believe that it is immoral to eat cows, whereas Americans do not. The reason that Hindus find it immoral to eat cattle is their belief in re-incarnation and the potential for that cow to be inhabited by an ancestor. Americans eat cows because we don't believe that Grandma is in the cow. However, while the practice is different the moral value remains the same, both Americans and Hindus agree, it's wrong to eat Grandma!


      While it might be en vogue to deny the existence of an objective moral law, it is impossible to live consistently with that belief. Our daily lives belie the reality of objective moral values. Our reactions to perceived violations reveal a sense of moral justice. You might say that you don't believe in an objective moral standard but if you've ever been the victim of theft or been in a hit and run accident you've filed a police report! You did this because you intrinsically acknowledge that it is morally objectionable for someone else to take your belongings or for someone to damage your car without retribution.

      Without an objective moral law there would be no standard for human rights. Just as we've seen in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, human rights are endowed by the Creator, making them unalienable, that is to say, inherent. When Nazi war criminals were brought before the Nuremburg trials they were convicted of violating human rights inherent to all people. If moral values and duties were merely subjective, the Nazis did nothing wrong. For them, the extermination of various races and people was the morally right action to achieve the Ubermensch (Supermen). The Allied nations could not accuse them of committing criminal actions unless a standard of moral values and duties exists beyond personal preference. What's more, any moment we as individuals or as a society declare one particular set of moral values deficient to another, we are claiming to know a standard by which they are measured.


      Let me ask you this, “Why do Black Lives Matter?” I don't ask that to be inflammatory. I agree that black lives do matter, but unless you have some objective moral standard by which to determine that they matter, there's nothing to protest. The sense of social injustice that we see rising up in various areas of this country point to the recognition of a universal standard of human value. Ironically, the political group that most often denies the existence of objective morality yet vociferously supports social justice movements are labeled “progressives”. The very name of which implies that a change in moral values must occur, meaning we are not living up to an unspecified objective moral standard that is claimed to not exist.


      Truth can be defined in many cases as that which best corresponds to reality. Objective moral values surface in every facet of our daily lives, bleeding through the reality of our existence. When someone consistently maintains a belief despite its being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality it's called being delusional. No matter how loudly one might shout down the existence of objective moral values or duties, the truth of reality will always prove them wrong.


Which brings us to:


Premise 3: Therefore, God exists


       In the absence of a naturalistic explanation for objective moral values and the verifiable existence of these same objective moral values, the explanation must exist beyond the realm of naturalism. The fact that moral values are equivalent to moral propositions means that they must be made by a moral mind that transcends our own in such a way that all of humanity can perceive it. In the same manner that physical laws cannot be asserted without being applied by a lawgiver, neither can moral law be acknowledged without a Moral Lawgiver. This Mind or Lawgiver is best understood as God. The rejection of such a possibility finds its existential bite in the accountability that necessarily follows. If there is a moral standard to which we are held, set by a transcendent Moral Lawgiver, then we are accountable to that Lawgiver. As C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity,


“It is after you have realized that there is a Moral Law and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power – it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk.”6
 

 

1Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., Canto 56,
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed.”


2Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 380-1.

3Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape: How Science can Determine Human Values, (Simon & Schuster, 2011), 215.

4Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Parable of the Madman”

5Jean Paul-Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism,” trans. Bernard Frechtman, (Carol Publishing Group, 1945).

6C.S> Lewis, Mere Christianity, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 31.

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Who Wrote the Book of . . . 1 Peter?



Who Wrote the Book of . . . 1 Peter?
Posted by Clark Bates
August, 6, 2016



      Having discussed the contested books of Paul and the authorship of the gospels, this series on New Testament authorship will now turn toward the writings of Peter. It may or may not surprise some readers to hear that both epistles that bear the apostle Peter's name are highly questioned, and in many cases, considered pseudonymous. This belief has arisen from the school of source criticism that gained prominence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, but recent scholarship has begun to demonstrate the inability of these conclusion to truly account for the authorship of the Petrine epistles.


      It has been the format of this series to present the case against traditional authorship, followed by a parallel case for it. I have decided that for this article and perhaps the next, the format will be more amalgamated in which each objection to traditional authorship will be challenged immediately. We will then conclude with a brief summary and discussion on additional evidence for the Petrine authorship of this epistle.

Who wrote 1 Peter?

      This question is, of course, the heart of the entire article, but given that 1 Peter begins with a salutation attributed to the apostle himself (1:1) it becomes glaringly important. The nature of pseudonymity has been discussed in earlier articles on Paul and will not be regurgitated here, but it has become a prevalent opinion with many modern scholars to accept authorship of this epistle by a Petrine group in Rome between AD 75 and 95, seeking to accurately represent the apostle's thoughts.1 For those that embrace a late dating to the book, the existence of such a group would be inevitable from a sociological standpoint, but even if this were a sociological inevitability, it does not explain why such a group would write in such a way.


      By way of example, both in the letter's opening and close, references are made to Mark and Silvanus (1:1; 5:12-13). Are these to be understood as pseudonymous fiction? If this epistle were carried by Silvanus, as has been suggested, how was he to represent the letter to its recipients, knowing it was a forgery? Even if we are to accept that the Gospel according to Mark is Peter's testimony, the author of the gospel does not presume to write it in the apostle's name. Perhaps more importantly, while a Petrine group of faithful followers might present an attractive alternative, there is no extant evidence from the first century that such a group ever existed.

Major Challenges to Traditional Authorship


      Almost all modern challenges to apostolic authorship can be contained within 4 categories: 1. The Greek of the epistle is to advanced for the apostle Peter; 2. The content of the book reflects a church structure and social environment that corresponds to a time decades after the apostle's lifetime; 3. The epistle reflects a dependence on the deutero-Pauline letters (those letters contested as pseudonymous in their own right) making its dating to be after them and thus beyond Peter's lifetime; and 4. Christianity could not have reached the remote areas of Asia Minor spoken of in the letter and become a target of major persecution until a decade after Peter had died.

      Taking each of these objections in turn, it must be acknowledged that the Greek of 1 Peter does appear to be of a higher quality than one would expect from a fisherman-turned-apostle. Most who support the earlier dating of this authorship will at least propose the use of a considerably more skilled Greek amanuensis. That being said, quality of language can be, to some extent, subjective. The letter is argued to have such features as, “polished Attic style, Classical vocabulary . . . and rhetorical quality. . . mak[ing] it one of the more refined writings in the NT.”2 But the question persists as to whether such language and style require an author formally trained in Greek, and whether or not the apostle Peter could have attained such skill in his lifetime.

     
      It has recently been noted that, within the syntax of the epistle, 1 Peter exhibits a clearly bilingual interference, consistent with a Semitic author for whom Greek is a second language.3 “This is perhaps the most telling feature of the Greek in 1 Peter, for a letter's syntax flows almost subconsciously from an author's proficiency with the language. . .”4 When the syntax of 1 Peter is paralleled with that of another Semitic author like Josephus we find that rather than demonstrating refined Greek understanding, the author was deficient to Josephus in multiple areas, including use of prepositions, genitive personal pronouns and the dative case with the preposition en. What this demonstrates is that the author of the epistle was likely of Semitic origin (thus limited to the area of Palestine) in the first century. He would not have been a Greek or Latin speaking Roman or from Asia Minor, making the pseudonymous authorship by a Petrine group less likely.

      The second argument against apostolic authorship is based on the addressed persecution and church structure of 1 Peter. Three emperors of note instituted Christian persecution in the Roman empire during the first century: Nero (54-68), Domitian (81-96), and Trajan (98-117). The nature of persecution in the book is far too vague to be used as a method of dating however. When examining the letter itself, the persecution listed appears to be limited to malicious talk, verbal slander, and false accusations (1:6; 2:12, 15: 3:9, 16; 4:12, 16). This form of persecution need not necessarily point to the level of martyrdom seen under the emperors mentioned and could easily refer to a time period prior to the escalation of government sanctioned and enforced persecution.


      The historian Pliny the Younger wrote approximately 60 letters tot he emperor Trajan over a three year period in AD 90, some of which concerned the persistent problem of Christianity. In these letters he recounted Christians abdicating their faith twenty years prior.5 If what is written in 1 Peter regards a less dire situation than that of Pliny then it must be written more than twenty years prior. Much of the debate around the persecutions centers on the “fiery ordeal” of 1 Peter 4:12. Those who claim t a late dating see this as a reference to Nero who used Christians as living torches to light the streets of Rome at night, but recent scholarship suggests this is more likely am acknowledgment to the philosopher Seneca, a contemporary of Peter, who wrote, “Fire tests gold, affliction tests strong men.”6 The image of trials as a testing analogous to fire smelting gold is characteristic of the epistle (1:7, 18; 4:12). Peter describes the trial as worldwide (5:9), which suggests a persecution faced by all Christians, not one executed by Roman officials in one place.


      This type of persecution was common in the early church.7 Most who hold to a pseudonymous authorship maintain that the letter was written after AD 70 but prior to the reign of Domitian. This is based on 1 Peter 4:15-16 which suggests that Christians were being arrested simply for being Christians, as though it were akin to a common thief, something argued to be impossible prior to Nero.8

      Regarding the church structure, it is stated that the use of the term episkopountes (overseeing) in 5:2 refers to the monarchical bishop of the second century. Given the history of this term, the above challenge is more of a case of reading a second century reality backward into the text. As far back as the book of Acts, the apostle Paul uses presbyteroi (elders) and episkopoi interchangeably. In Acts 20:17 and 28 the apostle exhorts the Ephesian elders (presbyteroi) to shepherd (promainein) the people of God because they are overseers (episkopoi)! There is clearly no distinction of terms here, nor any suggestion of official offices. Given that 1 Peter is not written tot a local body, but to a wide area likely covering a territory that would surpass a single bishop there is no reason to assume the later meaning is applied to the term here.

      Coming finally to the epistle's dependence on deutero-Pauline literature. First, it must be recognized that this claim assumes the pseudonymity of those letters, which is not a certainty. Second, the argument has been adjusted simply to 1 Peter's dependency on Paul the apostle as well. Even to assume this dependency would be to suggest a pseudonymous author from a Pauline school rather than a Petrine one, but this creates the added question of why this letter would not then be attributed to Paul instead of Peter? Some have sought to avoid this difficulty by explaining the dependence as an amalgamation of of Petrine and Pauline traditions in which “much Pauline tradition is now set forth under the name of Peter”, the assumed primary apostle of Rome.9 This view struggles some, first in its assumption that Peter was in a position of hegemony in the early church beyond that of other apostles, and second this must be assumed to have consistently developed within twenty years of his death.


      Notwithstanding these objections, Peter makes no reference to Paul or his letters in this epistle, and similarities that do exist are of terms and themes that could be less reliant on Paul and more understandably based upon a common faith and Christian tradition. The connection between the two apostles is strained. Too strained even to be a reliable objection to traditional authorship.

Secondary Support for Traditional Authorship


      A final note on pseudonymity must be mentioned. While the prevalence of pseudepigraphy has already been discussed, such writings were largely connected to certain genres. Primarily wisdom literature (Wisdom of Solomon) and apocalyptic (1 Enoch). 1 Peter is neither of these and the acceptance of pseudonymous letters as a genre is contestable. To argue that the book is pseudonymous while retaining a direct link to apostolic authority (as is often claimed) is unverifiable when the link can only be inferred, and merely consists of an attempt to remain skeptical while retaining some sense of authority.
However, even a motive of honoring the apostle by way of pseudonymity finds no support in the first century. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The spurious letter of 3 Corinthians, attributed to Paul, enjoyed acceptance until it was recognized as being non-Pauline. When a presbyter of Asia Minor was discovered as its author, he was not congratulated but censured and removed from church office.


      Lastly, the epistle of 1 Peter contains several allusions to the teachings of Jesus. While the value of these allusions in determining authorship is debated, the list ranges from thirty to at least fifteen. These verba Christi, as they are known, parallel teachings found in all four Gospels, but do not quote the Gospels which does not indicate a literary dependence but one of experience. On this topic, Gundry writes, “The most striking feature about the verba Christi in 1 Peter, however, is that they refer to contexts in the gospels which are especially associated with the apostle Peter.”10

Conclusion

      While more could be said regarding the geography of the intended recipients of this epistle, and even the theology within its text, sufficient is the discussion at this stage to close. As has been seen in may of the earlier articles, source-criticism has always sought to understand New Testament literature from a vantage point of skepticism. While this is not necessarily inappropriate, the result, as we see here, is too often one in which the critic will maintain skepticism even in light of insufferable difficulties. It is not a position of integrity to assert a skeptical position solely on the basis of group think or an unwillingness to admit previous error. The evidence must always lead those investigating to a conclusion, wherever it may lead. In the case of New Testament authorship, what we often see is a magnifying of contrary evidence against authorship and a diminishing of evidence for. However, when the data is objectively analyzed the traditional authorship rises above accusations as the more likely at best or inconclusive at worst.

1J.K. Elliott, Essays and Studies in the New Testament Textual Criticism, (Cordoba: Ediciones el Amendro, 1992), 127-30.

2Elliott, ESNTTC, 120.

3Karen H. Jobes, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: 1 Peter, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 7.

4Jobes, 1 Peter, 7.

5Pliny the Younger, Letters, 10.96.6.

6Seneca, On Providence, 5.10.

71 Thess.1:6; 2:14-16; 3:3-5; Matt. 10:16-20; Gal. 4:29.

8L. Goppelt, A Commentary on 1 Peter, trans. J.E. Alsup, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 39-45.

9M.E. Boring, Abingdon New Testament Commentary Series: 1 Peter, (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 43.

10R. H. Gundry, “Verba Christi in 1 Peter: Their Implications Concerning the Authorship of 1 Peter and the Authenticity of the Gospel Tradition,” New Testament Studies, 13 (1966-67), 349.