Diogenes the Cynic

Clement doesn't explicitly say that Peter was martyred in the sense that he was executed...just that he fought the good fight (in Clement's mind) and then "went to his glory." That doesn't have to mean that he was executed for his beliefs. Does Clement ever say that Peter was in Rome? If not, then who killed him? Aside from Nero's alleged scapegoating of Christians after the fire, I'm unaware of any other campaign to kill Christians in the 60's.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, yalla,

I said ca 110 CE sounds about right to me for the early edition of Mk, because I'm generally a late dater of the gospels. I see Lk as the closest to the earliest Christian gospel (minus Lk 1-2, and some other stuff here and there).

I didn't base what I said on the ''handwashing" argument, although it might help. The problem I have with the ''handwashing" argument is that one cannot assume that all Jewish communities everywhere changed their everyday habits all at once. This is not what the anthropological and sociological evidence in general would support.

AFAIAC the ''handwashing" passage might have been added to Mk as late as the 3rd century. It just sounds very late...

Cheers,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

No, robto, I support the originality of Luke. For more about this, check out this article,

http://www.trends.net/~yuku/bbl/earluke.htm

and some other files on my webpage.

All the best,

Yuri.

andrewcriddle

'and having thus borne his witness' in Clement is KAI hOUTW MARTURHSAS 'Martyr..' words come to have a technical meaning of witnessing by ones death but this is probably after Clement. However in conjunction with the earlier statement about the 'pillars' 'and they struggled in the contest even to death' KAI hEWS ThANATOU HThLHSAN (where 'Athl.. words also become used in Christian circles to refer to martyrdom) the passage does seem to be about dying for ones beliefs.


Clement himself does not say that Peter was in Rome. (His statement later in chapter 5 that Paul 'came to the limits of the West bearing his witness before the rulers' may imply that Paul suffered in Rome, and his references to general persecution in chapter 6 are generally supposed to be about the Neronic persecution in Rome. )

Andrew Criddle

yalla

I have problems accepting the claim generally made that the epistle known as I Clement was written c 96Ce as is so frequently asserted when I search references to the epistle.
It appears to me that such a dating is made on flimsy grounds and should be subjected to a high level of doubt.
Similarly the claims I usually encounter as to who this "Clement" was seem to be based on very little, if any, solid evidence.
Ignatius similarly is a shadowy figure, about whom little is known that is not attributed to speculation of a much later date.
I recall spin dating both Ignatius and Polycarp to c161 which, if correct, puts these 2 at a considerable remove if trying to use them as sources for any alleged events of a century earlier.

In short, as andrew seems to suggest, neither offer any real value as witnesses to Peter or c100 "history".
cheers
yalla

robto

So, how do you explain the sandwich stories on your hypothesis?

andrewcriddle

The dating of 1 Clement to c 96 CE may well be questionable, although some would argue for a somewhat earlier rather than a somewhat later date.

However the beginning of chapter 5 followed by an account of Peter and Paul, does seem to claim that the writer is describing things within living memory.

It would IMO be unusual for a writer to refer to things over 60 years ago in such a way.

Andrew Criddle

robto

Apologies if this has been mentioned already, but there's also the temple reference in 1 Clem 41
Since this is all in the present tense, one would think that the sacrifices in the temple are still going on, which would imply a date before 70 AD.

yalla

Or the general tone of episcopal monarchism and the presumed right of Rome to pass comment and show authority to other churches could be seen as emanating from a considerably later perieod, say mid 2C for argument's sake.
And setting a context in times past and then writing, from the past, consistent with that earlier time, is a common practice, the gospels for example are set decades before their writing but attempt to maintain an appearance of being written in the former time.
Which all goes to show that we need to look at the datings for all these works critically and not accept the given orthodoxy blindly.

Yuri Kuchinsky

As I said already, it's possible that Mk copied some 'sandwiches' from Lk, and then added some more 'sandwiches' of his own.

IMHO any number of hypotheses can be offered to explain these types of things without finding any sort of a definite answer. So I don't think this is a very good way to clarify the Synoptic relationships.

Regards,

Yuri.