05_Biblica_1_H_Collins_Layout 1 05/11/12 12:19 Pagina 420 420 C. JOHN COLLINS much overlap between them, there are also variations, but such dis- cussion need not delay us here. The two texts agree in adding (rea- sonably) to the biblical account the detail about people carrying on their normal lives, heedless of their danger. They also deviate from LXX wording when they describe the destruction wrought by the flood: “the flood came and swept them all away ” (Matt 24,39); “the flood came and destroyed them all” (Luke 17,27). Neither of the verbs, and , appears in the LXX version of the Noah story; but neither is, on its own, a surprising paraphrase. The case of Hebrews 11,7 is similar. There Noah “constructed an ark for the saving of his household” ( ). Though the LXX does not use the words “constructed” ( and “saving” ( ), nor does the Hebrew supply any that might be rendered that way, these terms are still reasonable as a paraphrase of the account. Jose- phus, Antiquities, 1, 76-77, also writes of how God suggested to Noah a “means for salvation” ( , namely that he “constructed an ark” ( ) 35. The Petrine letters present a different situation, where the variations from LXX wording seem to indicate that the readers should recognize allusions to non-biblical flood stories. I will begin with 2 Peter, and then go on to 1 Peter. The actual authorship of these letters is controversial; even though traditionalists attribute them both to Peter the Apostle, many moderns, including relatively traditional ones who connect 1 Peter to Peter himself, consider them the products of separate authors 36. Al- FELDMAN, Josephus, Antiquities, 29 n. 184, notes that Lucian likewise uses the term for Deucalion’s “salvation”. Nevertheless, there is no reason to believe that Lucian influenced Josephus (who wrote earlier), or that Josephus influenced the author of Hebrews. It is possible that the cognate noun “construction” was in Philo’s original Greek of his Questions and Answers on Genesis 2.1, regarding the construction of the ark and of the human body (so Ralph Marcus’ note on the Loeb edition, based on the Armenian version). Even so, the author of Hebrews uses the verb enough times in the whole of his book (3,3.4; 9,2.6) that without other indications we may simply put this down to his own preference. Further, this verb is apparently common in descrip- tions of ship building and outfitting (so BDAG, s.v. , 2.) E.g., J.N.D. KELLY, A Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and Jude 36 (Black’s New Testament Commentaries; London 1969) and R. BAUCKHAM, Jude, 2 Peter (WBC; Waco, TX 1983), who nevertheless allow for some con- nection with Peter in Rome (even if it might be tenuous).