Ben C Smith

I am in the minority.

I think his selection is quite fair.

Ben.

robto

Hi, hatsoff - thanks for this thread. I have also felt dissatisfied with the arguments against traditional authorship for the letters.

It seems to me that if an author was dictating in Aramaic to an amanuensis who was translating into Greek then vocabulary wouldn't be an argument against Petrine authorship. The presence of rhetorical devices is hard to explain for an uneducated Galilean. But I don't know enough to say if such devices are present or to what extent.

Raymond Brown is meticulous about examining all sides of an issue, so if he says its a majority of scholars, I believe him. He's certainly no radical, either, so if he favors late authorship, it's not because of a theological preference.

JoeWallack

Simon's Sound Of Silence

Joseph:
Oh Ben, didn't you learn anything from:

Mark's View Of The Disciples

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Mark_14

Mark 14:27 (ASV)
"And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered abroad.

28 Howbeit, after I am raised up, I will go before you into Galilee."

Compare to:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/1_Peter_5

1 Peter 5:1 (ASV)
"The elders among you I exhort, who am a fellow-elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:"


JW:
A PriMary point of "Mark" is that Peter was Not "a witness of the sufferings of Christ":

When sufferings reared it's ugly head,
He chickened crowed, turned and fled.

1 Peter sez he was. These ("Mark" and 1 Peter) are not based on testimony from the same person. I Am sorry Ben, but you're going to have to choose one or the other. The language issues you are otherwise discussing here are trivial in comparison.



Joseph

"And the people bowed and prayed, to a theon god they made." - Simon, Paul & Mary

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

hatsoff

1 Peter 5:1 may not be referring to the trial and crucifixion, but simply Jesus' persecution. Anyway, Peter was reportedly present for the arrest and for the beginning of the legal proceedings. Even after he fled, he may have returned later on for the flogging and/or execution. It is therefore possible, however unlikely, that Peter was behind both GMark and 1Pet.

Ben C Smith

Yes. One of the things I learned was that I more often disagree than agree with you on your interpretation of Mark.

1. You misunderstand Mark. His point is that Peter and the rest did not boldly suffer with Jesus. Peter, who in Mark watches Jesus get arrested, follows in the gallery during at least part of the proceedings against him, knows that Jesus has been executed, and is promised a resurrection appearance (for your counterarguments are most unpersuasive on that point), is still a witness, in a loose sense, of the sufferings of Christ.

2. You misunderstand Peter. 1 Peter 5.1 (if it comes from his hand) is his own self-designation; the historian is not obliged to take it at full face value. He could be exaggerating or even lying. In this case, however, I believe he would be merely speaking loosely. The gospel of Luke has the same basic passion storyline as that of Mark (that is, Luke does not make Peter actually watch any more of the passion than Mark does), and on the most conventional views of synoptic relations Luke has certainly read Mark, and yet in Luke 24.46-48 he calls the disciples witnesses of a list of events, including the sufferings of Christ:

Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

If Luke, knowing the Marcan storyline, can call the disciples witnesses of the sufferings of Christ, then surely Peter can both remember that he himself ran away from suffering and insist that he himself is a witness of the sufferings of Christ.

If your point is that the two statements logically contradict, thus impeaching inerrancy, you can have your trophy and mount it on your mantle; I have no interest in debating inerrancy. But, if your point is that Mark could not, in fact, write his passion narrative as it stands and Peter simultaneously affirm his own witness, then I believe you are mistaken.

Ben.

Gamera

The lack of early references of 1 Peter is probative, though not dispositive in any sense.

I'm less convinced about the stylistic analysis. It seems to boil down to the claim that the Greek is too good and the author seemed to know the LXX too well.

First, authorship in the ancient world was not the same concept as it is now. It's unlikely Peter would have cared if a trained Grecophone took his text and polished it for him. Our modern sense of proprietary rights and individual voices for writers was pretty unknown in classic culture.

Second, there's a double speculation here about the LXX. The first is that Galilean fishermen would not be intimate with that text. Is there any evidence outside of Peter's letters about what Galilean fishermen read? I suspect everything we know about Galilean fishermen comes from Peter's letters. It would be more reasonable to assume that based on the letters Galilean fishermen had a good knowledge of the LXX. The second is that Peter had to have followed the norm. But just because there is a norm doens't mean ever body in society follows it. For all we know Peter was adopted by friendly local Greeks, who had a copy of LXX on their endtable. The variables of any particular person's education are so diverse that to argue against Peter's authorship based on references to the LXX seems like a stretch.

Ben C Smith

Probative of what? Could you expand on this? Thanks.

Ben.

mikem

The writer refers to himself as a "witness of Christ's sufferings", not "eyewitness" "Eyewitness" occurs at Luke 1:2, and 2 Peter 1:16, but not here. Here he associates himself with the elders as a "fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ." All he meant was that they were all "witnessing" to the sufferings of Christ as ministers of the gospel. He was not giving himself a special status as an eyewitness.

Ben C Smith

That is a good point to keep in mind. Thanks.

Ben.

pharoah

I Corinthians 11:13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ.

Revelations 2:2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:

I posted the above two verses to make the point that the author's identification of himself as Peter an apostle does not necessarily mean that he was claiming to be Peter THE apostle. The claim of apostleship was not limited to the 12 in the 1st century. If Paul decided that he was an apostle, certainly others did the same also. BTW, I'm not saying that the author was a false apostle.