EPILUSIS 2 Peter

EPILUSIS

2 Peter 1: 20

on interpreting prophecy and scripture

τοῦτο πρῶτον γινῶσκοντες

ὅτι πᾶσα προφητεία γραφῆς ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως οὐ γίνεται

this thing first knowing

that every prophecy of writing

of personal / private selfish implied loosening / solution not happening

Peter is about to tell about how to spot a false prophet ….

by prophecy of writing he means the Old testament prophets but many people have interpreted this as the Scriptures as a whole including the New Testament.

So why is this important? The next word is ἰδίας which is one of those Greek words you have to check the context of usage of for it can mean private or personal and usually with an implication of selfishness involved.

Some take this as meanng only mnisters and scholars should interpret scripture but others say it means not to interpet scripture to support your own personal views?

Note the use of ἐπιλύσις

Peter is talking about using scripture to look for solutions to problems or maybe condemning the sort of reading that looks for secret codes or those who claim their “loosening” of a verse is the word of God and then proceed to behave in away that shows their opinion.

Ἐπιλύσις means release loose solve explain and interpret.

How to assess interpretations. Peter gives us a guide.

False prophets and teachers disrupt religion deny jesus are greedy and make profit off their followers and they are self willed full of bravado speaking evil … judge them by their actions.

Think carefully about the Greek and English and be careful how you teach others.

And do read the whole of chapter 2 ?

This poster has an M.A. in Classical Greek and also blogs on Classical Greek culture and other related matters.