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An Introduction to the New Testament by Richard Heard

His is a fairly balanced presentation, and I can live with that, even though he obviously favors early date and apostolic authorship.

However, such arguments as, for example, that Peter was a cousin of Jesus, and had a successful trade in a city where Greek was the lingua franca of the trade, are rather weak defense of Petrine authorship.

Just about any merchant in Cozumel (Mexico) speaks some English because of the large number of tourists from North America who visit the place. That doesn't make these merchants proficient English speakers with very polished grammar and excellent vocabulary. Rather they speak to "just get by" (and to get you to buy their merchandise!).

The idea that after Pentecost the Apostles all of a sudden could speak Greek like highly educated philosophers and be thoroughly familiar with the Greek Septuagint rather than the Hebrew Bible is just simply not true, since it Mark who followed Peter and who wrote down what Peter must have told him (since Mark did not know Christ personally).

Mark's language, syntax, grammar, etc. is poor. Could it be because he was writing down what Peter told him? Or because mark was a "simple and unschooled" man (as Acts refer to Peter), or perhaps both were?

The HS certainly did not tell Mark that one does not go from Sidon to Galilee via Tyre, especially because there was no road at that time leading form Tyre (to the north of Sidon) to Galilee (southeast of Sidon). Just as the HS did not tell the OT authors that bats are not 'fowl' (as they are called in the OT).

Being a successful fisherman does not make one educated and highly sophisticated.

The argument that certain Sylvanus, who is suspected to be Silas, a follower of Paul, is feasible, but not probable, given that Paul makes no mention of Peter, as Paul's mission to the Gentiles was essentially different from that of Peter (to the Jews).

Neither did the time favor such a conflation, as it did at tne end of the century. And neither did the historical events, while Peter and Paul were still alive, in Asia Minor (present day Turkey) necessitate a Petrine Epistle, when this was a domain of Paul's.

Note that the author says "If the tradition of Peter’s martyrdom at Rome under Nero is accepted,..." in other words myth which is not a fact by any stretch, then we can conjecture the Epistle was written in the earlier part of the 1st century.

In other words we really don't know, and the Church has no evidence other than popular tradition as to its veracity of being of apostolic authoriship. So, we can say, if we accept popular tradition...then we can consider it apostolic..." and that is no proof of anything other than to being our choice, and not a fact.

And until something is established by sufficient evidence to be a fact, doubt is justified and prevails. In other words, I can's simply, say I believe there are unicorns on Jupiter; I actually have to show sufficient evidence supporting my claim in order to claim it as fact.

And I posit that such proof lacks not only in the case of 1 Peter, but in the entire Bible.