Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Vorkosigan · 09-13-2004, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Because he uses 2 Peter as a letter that meets his criteria of silence, yet 2 Peter (as our own Peter Kirby has pointed out) knows the gospel of John (2Pet.1.14), for two easy examples.

Here's 2 Peter 1.14

since I know that I will soon have to put it aside, as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me.

This is the Gospel of John? Where?

In any case, Theophilus of Antioch knows a Gospel of John that does not appear to have the narrative of Jesus in it.

Vorkosigan

Rick Sumner · 09-13-2004, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Here's 2 Peter 1.14

since I know that I will soon have to put it aside, as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me.

This is the Gospel of John? Where?

Jn.21.18. Jesus prophesies the death of Peter. 2Pet.1.14 is an allusion to that prophecy. Not only does he know John, he knows a John with the interpolated ending.

You'd have a hard time convincing me that 2Pet.1.17 isn't a reference to Mk.1.11 and par while we're at it. It would be rather odd if that saying was simply floating about on its own. 2Pet.1.18 refers to the transfiguration. It would be a rather impressive series of coincidences if 2Pet does not know the canon.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Vorkosigan · 09-14-2004, 03:08 AM

Quote:

Because he uses 2 Peter as a letter that meets his criteria of silence, yet 2 Peter (as our own Peter Kirby has pointed out) knows the gospel of John (2Pet.1.14), for two easy examples.

Quote:

Jn.21.18. Jesus prophesies the death of Peter. 2Pet.1.14 is an allusion to that prophecy. Not only does he know John, he knows a John with the interpolated ending.

What we have here is the usual clash of presuppositions. In 2 Pet 1:14 Peter refers to his own death, which Jesus has made "manifest" to him. There isn't anything there that conflicts with Doherty's thesis that Peter is getting his info via channeling it from Jesus. What is the meaning of the Greek verb? Does it mean "told?" It seems to be "show" "make manifest" etc. There is nothing that suggests earth about that.

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You'd have a hard time convincing me that 2Pet.1.17 isn't a reference to Mk.1.11 and par while we're at it. It would be rather odd if that saying was simply floating about on its own. 2Pet.1.18 refers to the transfiguration.

Yes, it would be odd that an early Christian would cite Psalm 2:7 in this context, wouldn't it? After all, 1 Clement did it, and Mark did it.

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It would be a rather impressive series of coincidences if 2Pet does not know the canon.

Another historicist presumption of this debate is that wherever there is dependence, it is always the epistles that depend on the canon (the foundational-ness of the canon is always assumed, never proven. It is these presuppositions that Doherty asks you to give up). I am not saying that t John depends on 2 Pet, but I am saying that it is an unquestioned assumption that those who deploy it need to be aware of.

In any case, the cite in the Transfiguration scene, itself built out of several OT scenes, does not run the way 2 Pet has it. In Mark's Transfiguration, God says:

7: And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, "This is my beloved Son; listen to him."

The writer of 2 Pet has conflated the baptism scene and the Transfiguration scene. If he has a gospel in front of him, why did he do that? Another possibility is that the quote has been brought into alignment with the canon, a common problem, as Ehrman points out on p266-7 of Corruption, 1:1 of this letter has been adjusted in certain manuscripts. The letter has been worked over. Metzger (Commentary) points out that this very passage, 2:17 has been conformed to Matthew (at least that's how I read what he's saying). The scribes were clearly willing to adjust the texts. It is not the writer of 2 Peter but his transcribers who know the gospels. I believe the oldest text of 1/2 Peter is p72, which is a 3rd-4th century text.

Doherty discusses this passage here. Doherty shows how this passage can be seen to fit his ideas...

"Now, in 2 Peter, any idea that this scene had taken place during Jesus’ earthly ministry has to be read into things. The writer supplies us with no such context. Moreover, no mention is made of the presence of Moses and Elijah, or of Peter’s suggestion that three tabernacles be set up, or that the voice came out of the clouds, features found in all three Synoptic versions. Nor is any mention made of Jesus’ clothes or face being illuminated, features which might better identify the figure in the writer’s mind as a human one. All this makes it highly unlikely that he has drawn his knowledge of this “incident�? from a Gospel account."

..and so on. It doesn't seem like this is the slam-dunk case you think it is. In fact, it doesn't seem to be a case at all.

Vorkosigan

Rick Sumner · 09-14-2004, 04:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

What we have here is the usual clash of presuppositions. In 2 Pet 1:14 Peter refers to his own death, which Jesus has made "manifest" to him. There isn't anything there that conflicts with Doherty's thesis that Peter is getting his info via channeling it from Jesus. What is the meaning of the Greek verb? Does it mean "told?" It seems to be "show" "make manifest" etc. There is nothing that suggests earth about that.

It stretches credulity to suggest that they've done this independently.

Quote:

Yes, it would be odd that an early Christian would cite Psalm 2:7 in this context, wouldn't it? After all, 1 Clement did it, and Mark did it.

Surely you don't expect to compare 1Clem.36.4 with this? There is no voice from the heavens in 1Clem. Clement is citing scripture. 2Pet and Mk. have strikingly similar narrative elements.

Besides which, I have no problem suggesting Clement knew the gospels. I wouldn't point out too many points of commonality between them if you want to hold the converse

Quote:

Another historicist presumption of this debate is that wherever there is dependence, it is always the epistles that depend on the canon (the foundational-ness of the canon is always assumed, never proven. It is these presuppositions that Doherty asks you to give up). I am not saying that t John depends on 2 Pet, but I am saying that it is an unquestioned assumption that those who deploy it need to be aware of.

If you'd like to suggest that 2Pet pre-dates the GJohn, I'm all ears, and will quite probably take up the converse.

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In any case, the cite in the Transfiguration scene, itself built out of several OT scenes, does not run the way 2 Pet has it. In Mark's Transfiguration, God says:

The writer of 2 Pet has conflated the baptism scene and the Transfiguration scene. If he has a gospel in front of him, why did he do that?

Nobody said he had them in front of him. What I said was that he knew them. If he's conflated the baptism with the transfiguration, then it seems he does know them.

And as you're keen on pointing out, and as I certainly agree, Luke had Matthew in front of him, and look at what he came up with!

Are you suggesting that the transfiguration was not fabricated by Mark? As near as I can see, of course Mark made it up. And if 2Pet knows a narrative that Mark made up, he knows Mark (or something derived from Mark).

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Now, in 2 Peter, any idea that this scene had taken place during Jesus’ earthly ministry has to be read into things. The writer supplies us with no such context.

And yet with all the striking parallels already noted, it seems a much greater effort to read things out. Again, either he knew the canon, or we have a series of incredibly coincidences.

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..and so on. It doesn't seem like this is the slam-dunk case you think it is. In fact, it doesn't seem to be a case at all.

You are suggesting to me that Peter, wholly independently of the canon, is familiar with some version of the transfiguration, with a prophecy of the death of Peter, and with clearly redactional elements of the baptismal narrative?

That strains credibility. If we're going to start declaring things independent by convenience, when do I get to start?

You need to explain how these narratives developed independently. Failing that, the reasonable conclusion is that 2Pet knows Mark. How you can see that this is the necessary precondition with Q, but can't here, is beyond me.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Intelligitimate · 09-14-2004, 05:47 AM

I also thought Doherty's use of 2 Peter was odd, considering that it is almost universally considered a second century forgery. Even Jerome didn't believe it was actually written by Peter.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/2peter.html

Peter Kirby · 09-14-2004, 05:53 AM

It's part of a larger problem, what are the criteria by which we determine whether an author heard of and/or accepted the existence of Jesus on earth? Some consideration of the methods involved would be good (obviously there will be some straightforward indications for having heard of, but it might be claimed that this does not imply acceptance, and the negatives--not having heard or not accepting--are notoriously tricky). I think we could work on this in a new thread.

best,
Peter Kirby

Intelligitimate · 09-14-2004, 06:17 AM

Yes, that does seem tricky. But the author of 2 Peter seems quite dependent on the Gospels to me.

2 Peter 3:10 - But the Day of the Lord will come; it will come, unexpected as a thief.

How is this anything but an allusion to Mt. 24:43/Lk. 12:39?

Rick Sumner · 09-14-2004, 06:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Intelligitimate

Yes, that does seem tricky. But the author of 2 Peter seems quite dependent on the Gospels to me.

2 Peter 3:10 - But the Day of the Lord will come; it will come, unexpected as a thief.

How is this anything but an allusion to Mt. 24:43/Lk. 12:39?

I'd suggest that of course it is, but we can't start with that and work toward claiming dependence in response to Doherty. What we need are narrative elements (such as the transfiguration) or redactive elements--the fact that it's interpolated is even better--such as Jn.21.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Toto · 09-14-2004, 11:34 AM

This has been split off from the Earl Doherty to speak on Sept 11 thread.

For reference, Doherty discusses 2 Peter here as part of 20 missing references to Jesus where a reference would be expected, and also in Transfigured on the Mountain:

Quote:

A Second Century Silence

Scholars date 2 Peter anywhere between 80 and 125 (occasionally even later), but most (e.g., Koester, Mack, Kelly, Sidebottom) lean to a date one or two decades into the second century. The letter cannot be too early, for the author has lifted out passages from the epistle of Jude and worked them into his own piece, and Jude is definitely the earlier writing. Nevertheless, 2 Peter still speaks of Christ as an entity to “have knowledge of�? (1:3, 1:8, 2:20, 3:18), implying revelation rather than historical memory, and there are notable silences which indicate that the writer has no concept of an historical Jesus and is unfamiliar with the Gospel story.

Among these silences is 1:20, where the writer says that “no one can interpret a prophecy of scripture by himself.�? Yet Jesus is represented in the Gospels as showing how to do this. Another is 2:1, a warning that “you will have false teachers among you,�? which fails to include any mention that Jesus himself had prophesied this very thing. A glaring omission is found in 3:10: “But the Day of the Lord will come, like a thief.�? Matthew and Luke (from Q) both have Jesus using the identical image, but the epistle writer gives us no hint of this. J. N. D. Kelly (Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and Jude, p.368) states: “Christ had Himself likened the coming of the Son of Man to the surprise break-in of a thief, and the vigorous image soon fixed itself on the primitive catechesis.�? Yet something seems missing in this “vigorous�? transfer to early Christian tradition, for neither 2 Peter, nor Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:2, can bring themselves to mention that Jesus had been the source of such an image; both also seem ignorant of the term Son of Man. (Revelation, in its two allusions to the thief image—3:3 and 16:15—does not assign it to an earthly Jesus in his ministry.)

A very telling silence appears in 3:2:

Remember the predictions made by God’s own prophets, and the commands given by the Lord and Savior through your apostles.

Here the writer seems to lack a sense of Jesus having recently been on earth, issuing predictions and commands in his own physical person. Instead of saying that the Lord had spoken these commands during his ministry, and the apostles had passed them on, the writer is somewhat ambiguous, suggesting that the apostles served as mouthpieces for commands received through revelation or simply through personal judgment of what the Lord wanted. In fact, the parallel between the two phrases in the above verse, the former speaking of God making known his predictions through his prophets, and the Lord and Savior through his apostles, suggests that both God and Savior are using revelatory channels.

Finally, we might note that 2 Peter is a polemical document, primarily concerned with countering accusations and contrary opinions from certain scoffers and errorists (e.g., 1:16, 3:3-4). Apparently these “brute beasts�? are concerned solely with the Lord’s power in the present and future, and nothing of his incarnated past, for the author of this epistle never addresses any point of dispute concerning Christ’s life and teachings. No word or incident from the preserved memories about Jesus of Nazareth is offered to counter their objections, no miracle witnessed by many to answer the accusation that the power of the Lord Jesus Christ is based merely “on tales artfully spun�? (1:16). And it is certainly a curiosity that nowhere does this author, who writes in Peter’s name, play his best trump card by appealing to the fact that he (Peter) had been a follower of Jesus in his earthly ministry and his chief apostle. (Helmut Koester, in his History and Literature of Early Christianity, p.295, refers to 1:14 as “the tradition that Jesus had predicted Peter’s martyrdom.�? But the verb here is not one of speaking, it is deloo, to reveal, make clear, which places it without much doubt in the realm of revelation.)

Transfigured on the Holy Mountain

But there is a key passage in this epistle which clearly demonstrates the writer’s unfamiliarity with both the Gospel story and the figure of an historical Jesus. Here is 1:16-19 in full, courtesy of the NEB:

(16) It was not on tales artfully spun that we relied when we told (gnoridzo) you of the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and his coming (parousia); we saw him with our own eyes (literally, we became eyewitnesses) in majesty, (17) when at the hands of God the Father he was invested with honor and glory, and there came to him from the sublime Presence a voice which said: ‘This is my Son, my Beloved, on whom my favor rests.’ (18) This voice from heaven we ourselves heard; when it came we were with him on the sacred mountain.
(19) All this only confirms for us the message of the prophets, to which you will do well to attend, because it is like a lamp shining in a murky place, until the day breaks and the morning star rises to illuminate your minds.

Commentators have traditionally seen this as a reminiscence of the Transfiguration scene as recorded in the Synoptics: Mark 9:2-8, Matthew 17:1-8, Luke 9:28-36. But this claim can easily be discredited.

. . .

Thus, indications are that the writer is recounting a visionary experience attributed to the apostle Peter. He knows of a tradition which says that Peter, while with other apostles (here unspecified), had seen the spiritual Christ. Note that there is no mention here of any change to Jesus; we do not have a human figure taking on the appearance of a heavenly one, as in the Gospel scene. Verse 16 simply says: “we saw him in his majesty.�? This witness was accompanied by the hearing of a heavenly voice, which further bestowed “honor and glory�? upon that majesty. (The NEB is misleading when it separates the “honor and glory�? from the voice, implying the Gospel idea of the human figure being transformed. Rather, the Greek states that it was God’s words which constituted and conveyed the honor and glory. Most translations view it this way, or take it ambiguously; the sentence is grammatically awkward, lacking a main verb.)

. . .

and more.

So it seems that Doherty has at least considered the issue of whether 2 Peter is dependent on the gospels.

Toto · 09-14-2004, 04:09 PM

I am not sure why showing that the author of 2 Peter knew the gospels would automatically disprove Doherty's use of this epistle.

Doherty dates the gospels to the late first century and 2 Peter to about 120. He believes that Mark (and presumably the other gospels) were originally understood as allegory, not as history. So if a few phrases were lifted from Mark or John, this might show that the author of 2 Peter knew the gospels, but it would not prove that this author believed in a historical Jesus.

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09-14-2004, 05:47 AM	#5
Intelligitimate Banned Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: USA Posts: 464	I also thought Doherty's use of 2 Peter was odd, considering that it is almost universally considered a second century forgery. Even Jerome didn't believe it was actually written by Peter. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/2peter.html

09-14-2004, 05:53 AM	#6
Peter Kirby Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: the reliquary of Ockham's razor Posts: 4,035	It's part of a larger problem, what are the criteria by which we determine whether an author heard of and/or accepted the existence of Jesus on earth? Some consideration of the methods involved would be good (obviously there will be some straightforward indications for having heard of, but it might be claimed that this does not imply acceptance, and the negatives--not having heard or not accepting--are notoriously tricky). I think we could work on this in a new thread. best, Peter Kirby

09-14-2004, 06:17 AM	#7
Intelligitimate Banned Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: USA Posts: 464	Yes, that does seem tricky. But the author of 2 Peter seems quite dependent on the Gospels to me. 2 Peter 3:10 - But the Day of the Lord will come; it will come, unexpected as a thief. How is this anything but an allusion to Mt. 24:43/Lk. 12:39?

09-14-2004, 04:09 PM	#10
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	I am not sure why showing that the author of 2 Peter knew the gospels would automatically disprove Doherty's use of this epistle. Doherty dates the gospels to the late first century and 2 Peter to about 120. He believes that Mark (and presumably the other gospels) were originally understood as allegory, not as history. So if a few phrases were lifted from Mark or John, this might show that the author of 2 Peter knew the gospels, but it would not prove that this author believed in a historical Jesus.

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