05_Biblica_1_H_Collins_Layout 1 05/11/12 12:19 Pagina 425 425 NOAH, DEUCALION, AND THE NEW TESTAMENT To put it another way, the author of 1 Peter aims to foster Chris- tian endurance by helping his readers to connect their sense of being heirs of an ancient great escape to their reception of God’s redemp- tive activity in Jesus. Second Peter seems pretty clearly to show a similar aim. In fact, the context of the first flood allusion (2 Pet 2,4-5) makes the lesson explicit: If God did all these things recorded in Genesis (2 Pet 2,4-8), “then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the un- righteous under punishment until the day of judgment” (v. 9). Likewise in 2 Peter 3, the same God who made the world and judged it by the great flood is fully able to bring his final judgment at the appointed time. The delay is not because God is slow, but — like the delay with the great flood — is due to God’s merciful wish for people to come to re- pentance. The author makes his behavioral goal plain when he asks, “What sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?” (2 Pet 3,11). To connect the biblical story with the Gentile stories can serve to enhance the readers’ feeling for the reality of the ancient events, and thus to strengthen their resolve for the present and future. * * * Jewish authors in the Second Temple period, as well as early Christian authors after the New Testament, made connections be- tween the biblical story of Noah and Gentile stories of the flood, including Greek stories involving Deucalion. They did this when their apologetic purpose called for it, namely to show the actuality of the biblical events (and sometimes to correct the Gentile ways of telling the story). A prominent version of the Deucalion story appears in Plato, and these Jewish and Christian authors show some familiarity with that version of the story. Indeed, Plato’s use of terms that resonate with the LXX account, such as “destruc- tion” and “destroy or corrupt”, invites the connection. Although the New Testament authors never make an outright al- lusion to the Gentile flood stories, they do use wording that allows a knowledgeable reader to discern an allusion. Evidence from the textual and historical contexts of these “discerned allusions” in 1 and 2 Peter suggests that the authors intended them. At any rate they certainly provided a ground for their successors in early Chris- tianity to go ahead and make the connections explicit.