Jude, 2 Peter

Kraftchick's ANTC commentary has real strengths — readable prose, solid rhetorical analysis, and useful engagement with the Hellenistic background of 2 Peter — but it is weakened by a persistent bias against the letters' sharpest theological claims, which surfaces at nearly every significant exegetical decision. Most strikingly, the preface connects the letters' rhetoric about divine judgment and the distinction between the faithful and the "ungodly" to the 9/11 attacks, warning that "these texts can be used for harm" — an extraordinary insinuation, without precedent among commentaries on these letters, that frames canonical Scripture as potentially dangerous before the exegesis even begins. This same instinct to soften and qualify runs through the commentary proper. God's judgment is consistently reframed as sinners forfeiting their status rather than incurring the active wrath of a holy God; Käsemann's verdict that 2 Peter corrupts the Pauline gospel into institutionalised moralism is treated with unwarranted sympathy, with Kraftchick's concession that the letter's theology is "not particularly daring" implicitly validating the core charge that Bauckham and Schreiner decisively reject; and at 2 Pet 2:1 the claim that condemned false teachers retain intact redemption is simply self-contradictory. Exegetically, the confident assertion that pseudonymity is near-universal consensus overstates the case — Bauckham, Kraftchick's primary source, argues for the authenticity of Jude, noting that the author's self-description as "brother of James" rather than "brother of Jesus" is far easier to explain on authenticity than pseudonymity, since a pseudepigrapher would naturally have invoked the more prestigious connection. At two critical Christological texts (Jude 4; 2 Pet 1:1), Kraftchick ignores the Granville Sharp rule — that a single article governing two singular nouns connected by kaiidentifies them as the same person — which would render "Master and Lord" and "God and Savior" as unified titles for Christ; the cost is particularly high at 2 Pet 1:1, where the rule yields one of the New Testament's clearest direct ascriptions of deity to Jesus. His reading of Jude 7 follows Bauckham's minority view that Sodom sought sex with angelic beings rather than engaging in homosexual activity, without adequately engaging Schreiner's compelling counter that the Sodomites didn't know their visitors were angels. Best used cautiously and alongside Bauckham (WBC), Schreiner (NAC), or Green (TNTC).

 

Mit diesem Kommentar verfolgt die Reihe Abgingdon New Testament Commentaries auch weiterhin das Ziel, profunde Informationen in rasch zugnglicher Art und in kumenischer Ausrichtung bereit zu stelle n. Das Zielpublikum sind theological students, pastors and other church leader s (9). Hierdurch wie auch durch die im Vorwort (910) angefhrte Struktur und Zi elsetzung der Reihe ist auch dem Kommentar von Steven J. Kraftchick ber die beiden schwierigen, in der Forschung lange wenig beachteten und in Gemeinde und Gottesdienst heute stark vernachlssigten Texte des Judasbriefs (Jud) und zweiten Petrusbriefs (2Pet) vorgegeben. K. stellt in einem persnlichen Vorwort (1112) seinen Bezug zu den beiden Texten vor, ausgehend von seiner eigenen Befremdung nach der ersten Lektre hin zu der Befrchtung, dass die radikale Sprache in Ju d und 2Pet fr religise Menschen, also sinnbildlich fr die eigentlich e religise Radikalisierung ei nzelner missbraucht werden knnte. Diese potentielle Rolle von Religion wi rd seit den schrecklichen Ereignissen des 11. September 2001 immer wieder diskutiert. Eben deshalb ist dem Autor stark an einer kontextuellen Erklrung der Rhetor ik beider Texte aus ihrem historischen Kontext heraus gelegen. Damit wird schlie lich auch die Vorgehensweise deutlich, die K. [Full Review]