Duke Leto

This is for Earl directly, although I dunno how frequently he checks this board.

Thinking a historian, there are a couple anomalies with the Jesus Puzzle that jump out at me, but I think Cephas/Peter is the one that gnaws at me the most. Here's how I read it:

1) In your chapters on Paul, you treat the Cephas of the epistles as a historical figure in the Jerusalem church.

2) In the chapters on Mark, Peter is treated as the other characters of the Gospel to be a whole cloth creation, as with Acts.

3) The common etymology of Cephas/Perter/Rocky etc. indicates that early christians identified the historical Cephas with the Gospel Peter.

4) Why? Was the Gospel Peter based on Cephas in the same way that the Gospel John the Baptist was based on the real Baptist? If he was of importance to the christian movement, who was he? What is the midrashic meaning of his inclusion in Mark?

The commonality of a historical personage described by Paul and the Gospel figure seems to me to be a major objection to the MJ theory, so I thought it ought to be addressed in greater detail.

Thanks and lemme say I really appreciate the work that went into The Jesus Puzzle.

spin

I have dealt with the issue of Peter and Cephas a number of times on this forum. As a starting point it is interesting to know that the Epistle of the Apostles lists Cephas and Peter as two distinct apostles. There is also patristic evidence that they were seen as separate people.

Paul usually refers to a person called Cephas as in 1 Corinthians and Galatians, but in the space of two verses of Galatians we find reference to Peter, these two verses I have written on before as being interpolated for many reasons both linguistic and narrative.

I have argued elsewhere here that the form Cephas can derive from the same source as has Caiaphas, whose tomb has been found in Jerusalem and the tomb contains Semitic forms of the name which allow one to see that also Cephas is derivable from that source.

Linguistic games are an ancient way to tie information together, so linking Cephas and Peter together through etymology is easily understandable if someone were linking Peter with Cephas.

As Paul is the earliest christian literature we have, we need to deal with the fact that he refers to a person called Cephas, while the gospels, written later talks of someone called Peter. What the evidence points to is that there has been cross fertilization, the interpolation of Peter into Galatians, the connection of Peter to Cephas in John. The gospels aren't interested in a Cephas. The synoptics know nothing of him.


spin

Ben C Smith

True. The Epistula Apostolorum (middle of century II) distinguishes between Peter and Cephas in section 2:

We -- John, Thomas, Peter, Andrew, James, Philip, Batholomew, Matthew, Nathanael, Judas Zelotes, and Cephas -- write to the churches of the east and the west, of the north and the south, declaring and imparting to you that which concerns our Lord Jesus Christ.

Again true. Eusebius writes of Clement of Alexandria in History of the Church 1.12.2:

Η δ ιστορια παρα Κλημεντι κατα την πεμπτην των υποτυπωσεων εν η και Κηφαν, περι ου φησιν ο Ϊαυλος· Οτε δε ηλθεν Κηφας εις Αντιοχειαν, κατα προσωπον αυτω αντεστην, ενα φησι γεγονεναι των εβδομηκοντα μαθητων, ομωνυμον Ϊετρω τυγχανοντα τω αποστολω.

And there is a story from Clement in the fifth of his Hypotyposeis in which he also says that Cephas, concerning whom Paul says: But, when Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to his face, was one of the seventy disciples, one who happened to have the same name as Peter the apostle.

I have pointed out before that, strictly speaking, the issue of interpolation in Galatians has (little or) nothing to do with the identity of Peter and Cephas. Each of the following options is live:

1. Galatians 2.7-8 is or contains an interpolation, and Cephas is a different fellow than Peter.
2. Galatians 2.7-8 is or contains an interpolation, and Cephas is the same fellow as Peter.
3. Galatians 2.7-8 contains no interpolation, and Cephas is a different fellow than Peter.
4. Galatians 2.7-8 contains no interpolation, and Cephas is the same fellow as Peter.

If we limit ourselves to the synoptics, this is true; if we include John, we have John 1.42, as you mention below.

This is possible. I do not see how the evidence necessarily points to it, though. The chart I gave above shows how a Pauline interpolation is really irrelevant to the issue of identity, and it is possible, simply on the evidence itself, that Peter and Cephas are in fact the same person, straddling two cultures and thus two languages.

Ben.

Toto

Earl Doherty visits here occasionally, but if you want to get his attention, email him directly. Check the www.jesuspuzzle.com website.

But I don't see this as a major problem with the JM theory, or even a problem at all. Early Christians identified a character known as James the Just with a biological brother of Jesus. Is this necessarily historical, or did those early Christians pursue a strategy of Christianizing Jewish figures? What makes more sense when you look at the practice of Christians in later years, as they took pagan figures and turned them into saints, and even today are trying to recast Thomas Jefferson as a Christian?

spin

I agree. One cannot use Galatians to equate the two.

You didn't need to say this. John doesn't talk of a protagonist in his narrative as Cephas. The text mentions that Simon would be called Cephas yet never is.

I think the evidence is indicative. The gospels don't talk about Cephas (yes, the name is mentioned once), while Paul, who doesn't talk of Peter, does talk of Cephas. Pointing to something doesn't make it conclusive, but what the evidence ummm, in its inconclusiveness, indicates.

The OP seems happy with the contrary position being conclusive. It certainly isn't so.



spin

Ben C Smith

Indicative... of what exactly? I can think of two mutually exclusive options:

1. Cephas and Peter are the same person; some authors preferred to call him Cephas, others Peter; at least one author mentioned that he was actually called both in real time.
2. Cephas and Peter are different people; some authors knew (more) of Cephas, others (more) of Peter; at least one author cleanly but illegitimately equated the two.

Let me add this much. I do not feel very qualified at this stage to comment on your proposed derivation of the Greek transliteration from Caiaphas, but if that derivation is considered unlikely then I think it becomes more probable that Cephas and Peter are the same figure, given the relative scarcity of the former. If, on the other hand, that is a likely derivation, then there being two different figures becomes more of a live option.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I agree that the equation of Cephas and Peter is not necessarily a blow in and of itself to mythicism. The mythicist can always argue (and often does) that personal discipleship to an historical Jesus was later predicated of a figure, Cephas (also called Peter), who was actually just an apostle of a legendary Christ.

Ben.

spin

Indicative that they weren't considered to be the same person at some stage.

That is despite the fact that early evidence shows that people didn't agree with you.

I don't know how one would determine the likeliness of the derivation. I showed that it was possible because people wanted to ignore the patristic indications that they were separate names and could refer to separate figures. At some stage the two names as referring to the one figure became the dominant position. That would explain the interpolation in Galatians as well as the clarification in Jn 1:42.

What we are left with is the person that Paul knew as a pillar of the Jerusalem messianists and the person who was a disciple of Jesus according to the gospels. What joins them is the similarity of name.


spin

Ben C Smith

The Epistola Apostolorum and Clement, certainly (at least).

Yet there is a handy explanation for why some might wish to separate Cephas from Peter: Paul rebuked somebody named Cephas; it might have been inconvenient to some to admit that Paul rebuked Peter, the prince of the apostles.

I think such a motive is at least as plausible as the motive to connect similar names, which of course I agree is also a possible motive.

Ben.

aa5874

But with that single mention of Cephas in the first chapter of John, the author tries to establish that Peter was called Cephas from the time he first met Jesus, and it was Jesus himself who gave Peter the name "Cephas", which in Greek means "a stone".

Now, as far as I understand, "Peter" and "Cephas" both mean, in Greek, "a stone".


(KJV) John 1.40-42, "One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.
He first findeth his own brother Simon and saith unto him, we have found the Messias, which is being interpreted, the Christ.
And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, "Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone."

So, Peter and Cephas appear to be the same persons, if John is true.