DATE
DATE
If Peter was the writer, the letter’s date has an upper limit imposed by the apostle’s death, which can scarcely have been later than about A.D. 68 (though a few scholars set the upper limit at A.D.). But it was apparently written not long before that death, for Peter speaks of it as imminent. The references to Paul show that several (perhaps all) of that apostle’s letters had been written, and that may suggest that he was dead.
These considerations would support such a date.
If the letter is pseudepigraphic, it may have been written later, and most scholars who take this view date it in the second century. It must be earlier than c. 150, for it was used by the author of the Apocalypse of Peter, which must have been written at about that time. Kummel thinks of it as coming from "the second quarter of the second century,” though he admits, "Every clue to a precise dating of II Peter eludes us.” 11