Malachi151

I was just reading 1 Peter due to another thread talking about the "hung from a tree" lines, and some things struck me.

Firstly, 1 Peter is obviously not written by Peter, its pseudonymous and written after the destruction of Jerusalem. This is widely agreed upon.

Secondly, the letters references to Jesus seem to be completely based on the Gospels, Pauline letters, and "Old Testament".

For example:

Red = Pauline material
Blue = "Old Testament"
Green = Gospel of Mark

So one again, in terms of knowledge of Jesus and the events of his death, we seem to be presented with material from a very narrow range of sources, none of which themselves had any first hand knowledge of of this event. I think that 1 Peter is actually another very strong piece of evidence for JM. Here we have yet another author who is telling the account of the death of Jesus in the 1st century who has no information about the event outside of other material that itself can be shown not to be based on real accounts.

Malachi151

Also of interest are statements of witness in 1 Peter, such as the following:

So, here we have a claim of having witnessed Christ's sufferings, but based on the content of the material we can easily conclude that this is not in fact the case.

So, did this person intent to imply that he was an eyewitness to the crucifixion? (an outright lie) Was he saying something more spiritual in nature? Did he only mean that he was a witness in a spiritual sense and he was not trying to imply that he personally saw "the" real crucifixion?

PhilosopherJay

Hi Malachi151,

Yes, it does seem that the writer of 1 Peter 2 is not making a reference to a recent political event.

However, I am not sure if he is getting anything from Mark's gospel.

Note Isaiah 50:

and 53:

So the statement, "When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats." could very well come directly from the author's reading of the Hebrew Scriptures and Mark or Mark's sources could be taking it from 1 Peter 2.

It is interesting that the gospels all disagree on this issue. Matthew has chief priests, scribes, elders and the crucified robbers insulting him. Mark has passerbys, chief priests, and the crucified robbers insulting him. Luke directly contradicts Mark and says that the passerbys did not insult him, but the rulers (chief priests) soldiers, and one of the two thieves did. John has nobody insulting him. In the Gospel of Peter, it is the Jewish People who insult Jesus.
[QUOTE]
Matthew:

Mark

Luke

Peter
Putting these texts in order logically, my best guess would be that 1 Peter 2 and John come first because 1 Peter 2 is just picking up on the Hebrew Scriptures and John does not even do that. The Gospel of Peter comes next as it assigns blame to all the Jewish people for insulting the Christ. Mark comes next as it adds the "chief priests" and the "robbers" to the Jewish people ("passerbys") as those who insulted him. Matthew eliminates the passerbys and divides the insulters into chief priests, scribes and elders, as well as keeping the robbers in the mix. Luke adds in the solders, but goes further than Matthew in specifically stating that the passerbys did not insult him. Besides exonerating the passerbys, he also exonerates one of the robbers.

Here is a list with the order going from earliest to latest based on who the text claims is insulting the Christ:

1) Isaiah: some unknown people
2) 1 Peter 2: some unknown people
3) G. of John: Nobody insults the Christ while he is crucified (Apparently the writer missed the passage in Isaiah where this happened).
4) G. of Peter: some unknown Jewish people.
5) G. of Mark: some unknown Jewish people (Passerbys), the High Priests and the Robbers.
6) G. of Matthew: High Priests, Scribes, Elders, and Robbers
7) G. of Luke: High Priests, Roman Soldiers and one of two thieves.

(I am assuming that the later text writer has read the next earliest. This does not apply in the case of John, so he could be earlier than 1 Peter 2.)

We can see here how a rhetorical statement slowly evolves over several hundred years into a vivid and precise narrative through minor changes, additions and deletions.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Malachi151

Its a translational issue. I was using the NIV for 1 Peter. If you compare NIV to NIV or NRSV to NRSV you see the similarities. The real question, which I can't anwser, is what it looks like when you compare the Greek to the Greek.

From the NIV:

aa5874

What is "Pauline material" in the so-called Epistles of Peter? Is it whatever you imagine "Paul" wrote?

I imagine that "Paul" wrote nothing in the so-called Epistles of Peter.

Malachi151

No, its the source that the author of 1 Peter was referring to when he wrote his letter.

andrewcriddle

The Greek for "derided him" in Mark 15:29 is EBLASPhHMOUN AUTON from BLASPhHMEW the Greek for "he was reviled" in 1 Peter 2:23 is hOS LOIDOROUMENOS from LOIDOREW

Andrew Criddle

Malachi151

So, Andrew, would you say than that there is any reason to view 1 Peter 2:23 as based on or influenced by Mark 15:29?

andrewcriddle

Hi Malachi

Assuming FTSOA that Mark is not based on 1 Peter then either the similarities come from use of a common source or from use of Mark by 1 Peter.

IMO the similarities cannot be explained purely on the basis of independent use of the Hebrew Bible and Paul by Peter and Mark. On the other hand Mark and 1 Peter don't seem to have the type of similarities that one would expect in the case of direct borrowing. For example Isaiah 53 is important to both but they use it in substantially different ways; and there does not appear to be much parallelism at the verbal level.

I would explain things on the basis of a common tradition (whether or not historically accurate) that Jesus was in fact silent at his trial. Since you are IIUC reluctant to accept this sort of pre-Markan tradition, you will probably disagree.

Andrew Criddle

Malachi151

I can't agree or disagree at this point, since I simply don't have enough information.

My study Bible says that 1 Peter was most likely written in the late 80s and that its pseudonymous.

So if we grant that this was written after the Gospel of Mark, then we have to examine the possibility that the statements made in 1 Peter are reliant upon the Gospel of Mark, either directly or indirectly.

Now, if 1 Ptr 2:24 were significantly textually similar to Mk 15:29 then I think it would be clear that 1 Peter is based on GMk, however, as you point out, that doesn't appear to be the case actually.

This doesn't preclude the possibility that the author of 1 Ptr's "knowledge" of the crucifixion comes from Mark, it just doesn't appear to clearly confirm that possibility.

1 Peter says that Jesus bore his sins on the tree, not on the cross. So, it seems that a more proper question is, did the author get this idea from Galatians, did he get this idea from the Hebrew scriptures, did he get this idea from traditions that were themselves based on either of those things, or did this idea come from this person's witnessing of Jesus being hung from a tree or on the passing down of eyewitness accounts of Jesus being hung from a tree, or is the use of "tree" here just another word for cross?

Likewise, does the claim that Jesus was derided come from Isaiah 53, from the Gospel of Mark (who pulls it from Psalm 22), from traditions based on GMark, from the author's eyewitness account, or from some other tradition based on eyewitness accounts?