Toto

It would help if this thread were not so cryptic.

I gather that Johann Kaspar believes that Acts 12 is an indirect reference to Peter's execution by Herod, except that the author of Acts provides an Angel who rescues Peter from prison. In support of the idea that Peter actually died, we see that the people at the "house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark" refused to believe that he was at the door, and thought that he must be an angel. In addition, Peter disappears from the narrative after this.

This is plausible, but since we know that Acts is fictional, it is hard to know if this represents some historical event incorporated into Acts, or if it came directly from the imagination of the author, who has invented a Herodian persecution of Christians to further the plot.

Where did Josephus write about an execution of Simon Peter?

yummyfur

I think we probably posted at the same time, so you missed my post that explains who Jospehus is talking about.

Toto

Yes, we cross posted.

Jay Raskin published an article in the Journal of Higher Criticism A DISCOVERY, THE CRUCIFIED, SIMON, ZEALOTS, AND ESSENES identifying this Simon with Simon Peter. But after the paper was published he claimed he had changed his mind.

Johann_Kaspar

Do you believe in rescueing angels?
As for Theudas there is a chronological discrepancy between Josephus and Acts. Here the discrepancy is that Acts place the event under Agrippa II while Josephus under Tiberius Alexander.
to sleep = to be dead.
angel and later = like the resurrection of "Jesus", the first persons to see the resurrected are women and nobody wants to believe them. Then the "resurrected" goes away...
Other character, same story. I can agree that Acts is mainly if not only mythology (like in this story of the death of Simon), but there could be something in the background. But what exactly?
Nobody saw the similarities between the ends of "Jesus" and "Peter"

S.C.Carlson

OK, thanks for clearing that up. Has this particular idea been pubilshed at all?

Johann_Kaspar

Thanks for the link... it is interesting...
Only a pity that he seems to reinvent the wheel... At least one (French) author was thinking along that line... making of "Jesus" the son of Judas the Galilean and brother of Simon and James... and with much more in depth analysis of the texts...

Toto

I don't think that it is original with me, but I don't recall where I first read it.

Toto

Which French author is that?

yummyfur

Thanks for that link, I skimmed it briefly

There's not much to support it except the name, if one was going by that, one could say, maybe Simon was executed in Rome(in the most lavish execution, as part of Vespasian and Titus's triumph), and was Simon bar Giora the Tyrant, one of the leaders of one of the Jewish factions in Jerusalem during the Jewish War.

Also Raskin seems to have not to have noticed that Manahem, the son(or grandson) of Judas of Galilee, who plays an important role in the Jewish War, can be connected to Simon bar Giora. Simon bar Giora takes over after Manahem death, as leader of Manahem's faction at Masada for awhile, but when they won't all follow his more grandiose schemes, leaves with some of them to form a new faction.

S.C.Carlson

Oh, OK. I'm trying to keep up with the various theories of what did or did not happen to Peter. For example, Michael Goulder has a different take on it, arguing that Peter was never martyred: "Did Peter ever go to Rome?", Scottish Journal of Theology 57 (2004): 377-396.

Stephen