Norman Hillyer’s recent commentary on the Petrine epistles and Jude is both concise and incisive even in its exegesis of difficult verses. His volume, written from an evangelical perspective and based on the New International Version, is most appropriate as a text for undergraduate biblical students and as a supplement to personal Scripture reading for educated laity. I perceive four benefits of this commentary for such a readership.

Hillyer is not persuaded by arguments against the authenticity of 1 and 2 Peter. His succinct defence of the traditional views on the authorship of these letters and Jude (see ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–21) is one benefit of his commentary. No reason exists, he says, why one cannot assume that the claims of the Petrine letters themselves to apostolic authorship (1 Pet. 1:1; 2 Pet. 1:1) are true. The frequent objection that a Galilean fisherman could not have been fluent enough in Greek to write 1 Peter is easily countered by Hillyer. Having been the head of a fishing business in cosmopolitan Bethsaida and having preached to Greek-speaking audiences for over 30 years, Peter was probably quite conversant in that language by the time he wrote 1 Peter (c. ad 63) and 2 Peter (the early 60s). Jude, likely the brother of James and Jesus, probably wrote his letter before ad 62.

A second benefit of 1 and 2 Peter, Jude is the format of the exegetical sections of the commentary. The author has divided each letter into portions of four to five pages on average. These portions comprise discussions of at least one verse, but not more than eight. Each unit includes a verse-by-verse commentary that is supplemented by more detailed ‘additional notes’ on linguistic, textual and background matters. The brevity of each unit means that reading time is kept at a minimum for one seeking information on a particular passage.

Another value of this commentary is the wealth of background that the author brings to the letters from the OT, Jewish intertestamental works, and other literary sources. The current interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls and their bearing on an understanding of the NT is reflected in Hillyer’s book: 32 references to texts in the Scrolls appear within the index.

Hillyer sheds light on the strange references to imprisoned spirits (1 Pet. 3:19–20) and fallen angels (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6) (see pp. 118, 193, 244–245). In Peter’s and Jude’s time, such allusions would not have been mysterious as they are to us. The references are to the Watchers of the pseudepigraphical 1 Enoch (a work popular in the first century). These wicked angelic beings are bound under the earth till their judgment (see 1 Enoch 6:1–8; 7:1–6; 10:1–16; 12:1–16:4; 19:1–2; 20:2; 54:4–5). Against the background of 1 Enoch introduced by Hillyer, the cryptic statements of Peter and Jude are more intelligible.

Colourful examples of extrabiblical usages of words that are found in the Petrine epistles and Jude are another instance of the value of Hillyer’s commentary. Typical is his note on ‘faultfinders’ (mempsimoiroi) in Jude 16 where he cites Lucian, Cynic 17 (and Paul, 1 Tim. 6:6), in order to delineate the traits of such people. The Greek word in Lucian refers to the one who does not want what he has and longs for what he has not, even wishing the season were the opposite: the converse attitude of Paul’s godliness with contentment!

The generally solid nature of the volume is not offset by its weaknesses, for they are few. They ought, however, to be mentioned. Hillyer’s plan that partitions the letters into small segments does not allow the reader to see the overall design of the documents. An outline of each letter would have been useful. The exegesis appears basically sound and I dispute his interpretation only on one point. At 1 Peter 3:1–6, the commentator suggests that ‘the meaning of the wife’s submission to her husband concerns the sexual relationship and should not be taken in a more general and oppressive sense’ (p. 92). (The admonition to husbands in 3:7 carries the same particular sexual sense, p. 98.) The passage itself, however, indicates that the wife’s submission is in respect to general Christian behaviour (vv. 1, 4, 6).

Only a pair of typographical errors flaw the commentary (p. 105: ‘p. 00’ should be ‘p. 7’; on p. 268: ‘met’ should be ‘meet’). I found only one inaccuracy: the theory that 1 Peter is a baptismal liturgy places the baptism between 1:21 and 22 (F.L. Cross, 1. Peter: A Paschal Liturgy (1954), pp. 38–39), not between 3:21 and 22 as Hillyer states (p. 6).

The indices to subjects and to biblical and extrabiblical materials are exhaustive and the ‘for further reading’ list should prove quite helpful. Hillyer’s commentary is certainly a valuable addition to the literature on the epistles of Peter and Jude.