Peter J Leithart. Promise Of His Appearing. 2004.
"Another difficulty with Chilton’s treatment is that he is content to point to passages where the destruction of the “heavens and earth” is obviously used to describe an historical event, the collapse of a political-religious order. It is increasingly acknowledged among New Testament scholars that this language can be used in this metaphorical sense, but it also has to be established that Peter is using this terminology in this way. The language of resurrection, to take a parallel example, can be used to describe Israel’s national resurrection (e.g., Ezek. 37), but the church has never taken the resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15 in this sense. I cannot say that this commentary moves from possibility to absolute certainty, but I hope to show that within 2 Peter the probability that Peter is using the terminology metaphorically is quite high." (page 5)
