If God is 'timeless' why would He constrain Himself to the Roman understanding? He surely knew when He had Peter pen this it would be used for all His time? More than that, this chapter is where Peter describes the three heaven/earth ages. So it is not limited to the Creator's methodology of keeping time to the Roman understanding.
I didn't say timeless, better to say Eternal God, "constrains" himself to Roman understandings. Far be it: God is not "in" Time, and exceeds all human understandings.
The Roman era was roughly a millennium after Abraham, and roughly seven centuries after God's revelation of Himself to Moses. I was simply trying to indicate that at the time of which we are speaking — the communication of the Holy Scriptures to the People of God — peoples' notions of TIME (stated as a numerical measure) were even more primitive than our notions of TIME still are today.
Rather my point was the very opposite. God does not "constrain" Himself to whatever the prevailing human understanding is in any era — which would be to "bring Him down" to the human level. He is trying to "bring us up" to His level, in anticipation of that "time" when we shuck our mortal bodies and join Him in the Kingdom of Heaven, by virtue of the Sacrificial Atonement of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ alone. All we need for this is sufficient understanding that we might hear His Holy Word, Incarnate in Jesus, so to be saved. I say "sufficient" understanding, not "exhaustive" or "complete" understanding.
We do not know as God knows, and being finite mortals, cannot.
The focus should be on God speaking to His own, in terms they can understand. I believe this is an on-going process, now and always. Under the tutelage of His Holy Spirit, our knowledge of Him can grow. But it will never be complete knowledge, this side of the grave.
Your thesis, on the other hand, seems to suggest that God's TIME — which is TIMELESSNESS — can be completely, exhaustively reduced to the categories of human understanding. I do not believe this is possible. There is an insurmountable categorical difference, a difference of incalculable orders of magnitude, between our Eternal God and His finite creature, Man.
May I suggest, rather, that in the final analysis, God's Salvation does not depend on a person's taking a "final exam" of what the person knows of God, and whether or not it is "correct." Salvation does not depend on what a person knows, rather it depends on how a person lives....
And as Jesus Christ Himself tells us, the criteria of Salvation consist, simply, of two things: Loving God with one's whole heart and soul and mind and strength; and one's neighbor as oneself.
I see a lot of Christians "quarreling" over which Church is the true custodian of Christian doctrine, often in a most unneighborly way. It is my prayerful hope that that will not be the case on this thread.
For our God is a God of Love — and who lives in Love, lives in God, and God in Him — in the here and now, and in the hereafter.
I give my testimony, for whatever it's worth to you, dear Just mythoughts. May the peace and love of Christ be with you always!
Thank you for writing!