Toto

Peter - the idea that Mark heard Peter preach in Rome appears to come from Clement, who appears to have flourished around 130-40 CE according to your website. Clement's testimony is preserved only by the unreliable Eusebius. It there any reason to give this any credibility? You quote Laurence Welborn in the Anchor Bible Dictionary as writing "The account of the deaths of Peter and Paul in chap. 5 is not that of an eye-witness."

Is there any reason to think that the Peter of the Gospels was a historic figure?. In the Book of Acts, he is released from prison by an angel - should we give the rest of Acts or the Gospels any more credibility that we would give this supernatural event?

A "Peter" or "Cephas" is mentioned in Paul's letters, but he appears to be subordinate to James, and Paul does not pass on any information that leads us to believe that Peter knew a historic Jesus.

The historical sources that place Peter in Rome are fanciful and of dubious historic reliability. Most seem to have been invented by the church of Rome to backdate its authority to an earlier time and to an associate of the HJ. See Arthur Drews, The Legend of St. Peter.

Given all this, the idea that the author of the Gospel according to Mark heard anything at all from Peter who knew Jesus is pure speculation.

Vinnie

Toto, I think you mean Papias rather than Clement and 1st Clements is a first-century work.

Peter, what are we discussing? Whether or not the author of Mark may have ever at some point heard Peter preach? Or are we discussing the veracity of this statement attributed to Papias:

What is it? Latter or former?

Vinnie

Peter Kirby

Hello Toto,

The idea that Mark heard Peter preach does not come to us from First Clement but rather from Papias of Hierapolis (in a quote by Eusebius as you note) and from Irenaeus, who had read the Exegesis of the Oracles of the Lord written by Papias. I have not said that the tradition reported by Papias is reliable.

The epistle of 1 Clement is dated as late as 140 as a maximum but is dated at 95 by tradition and is assigned a date earlier than 70 as a probability by some such as our own Michael Turton, as put forward by Alvar Ellegard.

If there were no Jesus known to Peter, then the tradition that the Gospel of Mark contained some of Peter's preaching would have to be false. But it is not necessary to play the Jesus Myth card in order to doubt this particular tradition. Is the story related by Papias about Mark improbable on its own? And if so, why is that? To say that it is not reliable is one thing, and to say that it is false is another, especially when a statement is deemed unreliable if the document which contains it has any errors. Vinnie said, "Mark was not based on what Peter said. The second century tradition is inaccurate." I look forward to any elaboration by Vinnie on that statement.

Vinnie writes: Peter, what are we discussing? Whether or not the author of Mark may have ever at some point heard Peter preach? Or are we discussing the veracity of this statement attributed to Papias:

We are discussing the authorship of the Gospel of Mark. Feel free to state whatever it is you think is true or false in the traditions.

best,
Peter Kirby

Toto

I got the factoid that Clement of Alexandria was responsible for the allegation that the gospel of Mark was supposed to be based on the preaching of Peter in Rome, from Wells' book on St. Peter, which I cited above. Wells argues that the legends that place Peter in Rome appear to have been constructed to shore up the authority of the Catholic Church, and that there is no reason to think that Peter was ever in Rome. He specifically attacks the conclusion that some have drawn that I Clement is evidence for Peter being at Rome. This does not prove that Papias was wrong, it is true, but it gives us a reason to discount the evidence.

{edited to add: Eusebius seems to report that both Papias and Clement claimed that Mark wrote, based on contact with St. Peter.

from here

Fr.Andrew

During a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the 7th century, Arculf, bishop of Gaul, claims to have discovered the marks left by Jesus' knees in the soil of Gethsemane.

(from Marcello Craveri who quotes from Dalman's Die Worte Jesu)

Haran

Toto, that quote did not come from Eusebius. I doubt that it came from Clement of Alexandria (a different person from the Clement of Rome who was responsible for 1 & maybe 2 Clement).

The quote that you gave came from "Secret Mark", a very doubtful source. The translator should have given it away even if the quote wasn't recognized - "Morton" (i.e. Morton Smith).

Let's take a look at the paragraph from the source before the quote again. I'm going to split it up:

The short paragraph started off with a separate topic...Clement of Alexandria quoted by Eusebius. Ok. This statement by itself is not really too confusing, but when combined with the next two sentences, it leads one to think that Eusebius preserved the quote:

This is an obvious reference to "Secret Mark. And, as a matter of fact, "Secret Mark" is where this quote comes from:

Wieland Wilker's "Secret Mark" page

I very much doubt the authenticity of "Secret Mark". I have reasons for believing it might have been forged (but no proof, so it must remain speculative). I can quote sources that make a good case for Morton Smith forging "Secret Mark" if anyone wants to look them up.

MaximusDementis

It got into the bible because the bible is fiction. And you can do that sort of thing in fiction. You can even put what people were thinking and feeling in fiction.

Vinnie

What evidence do we have that John Mark was the "interpreter" of Peter? What evidence that he authored GMark? Are there any independent second century witnesses to this? Justin's "Memoirs of Peter" seems to be dependent on Papias' statement. The only possible evidence as far as I can see is Papais.

NJBC: "What does "interpreter" (hermeneutes) mean? Is the comment about the order of material an an apology for differences among the Gospels? Why did papias go on to insist on the accuracy and veracity of the Gospel? Although such questions do not warrasnt cavalier dismissal of the Papias tradition about Mark, they warn against naive reliance upon it." [p. 596 Harrington]

If not for the Papias reference would any scholar today think of arguing that Mark is based on an eyewitness account?

Kummel wrote that several decades ago but I see no evidence that the material at the basis of Mark reflects direct contact with eyewitness preaching and the scholars that I read don't seem to think so either. Form criticism and some of the arguments for sources behind certain Marcan material would seem to be at odds with "Mark wrote down accurately but not in order all that Peter remembered or he rememerbered of Peter". This is how "Gospel formation" is inferred from the finishes product (see Sanders, Historical Figure of Jesus p 58-61]. Mark consists of movable pericopes, not eyewitness reminiscing. The literary evidence seems to suggest that Papias or whoever he received this information from was mistaken.

Also, sometime i nthe second half of the second century Ptolemy wrote this in a letter to Flora :

"If God permit, you will learn in the future about their origin and generation, when you are accounted worthy of the apostolic tradition which we also have received by succession, because we can prove all our statements from the teaching of the Savior." (Ptolemy to Flora #7.9).

Koester writes, "It seems that apostolicauthority for the esoteric traditions of Jesus' pronouncements was especially favoured by Gnostic writers." (ACG, p. 32) Slightly later, Koester also states regarding Papias on Mark that "The terminology of "remembering" is deliberate and, as Vielhauer had already remarked about Papias, it is part of the controversy with the Gnostics. Gnostic writers were composing their written documents on the basis of the claim that they remembered well from the apostles and from those who had followed them. It was important that such books could claim to rest on legitimate memory and that they carried apostolic authority." [p. 34] Futher, Koester writes that "Papias, The Gospel of Thomas, The Apocryphon of James, and even Ptolemy's Leetter to Flora show that apostolic authority, appealed to with the names of specific apostles, played a role in the transmission of sayings of Jesus, especially in Gnostic circles." [p.62]

These quotes from koester do not warrant cavalier dismissal of Papias' comments on the author of GMark's relation to Peter's preaching but I am wondering why I should trust them?

Brown in his Intro tho the NT says its possible that someone named Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark but that Mark was later amalgamated with John Mark. This would seemingly lend some credibility to Papias' statement (aka showing it was not woven from whole cloth) while at the same time accepting the literary evidence which seems to strongly suggest that Mark is not based upon eyewitness reminiscing.

Anyone have any "pro" arguments for the veracity of Papias' statement? That Mark (a non-eyewitness and non apostle) is attributed the Gospel and not Peter himself would seem to completely fail.

Vinnie

Toto

Sorry about my confusion. (Have to stop posting at 2 am). I will try to track down the source of Wells' claim. The book does speak of Clement of Alexandria and then almost immediately turns to the story of Peter's martyrdom in Clement of Rome. I need to be more careful.

And I agree with Haran that Secret Mark is questionable, although the current scholarly opinion for some reason seems to accept it.

Haran

Thanks.

I'm not sure that I agree with your statment about current scholarly opinion. It seems to imply some sort of consensus on "accepting" the document. I'm not sure how you'd define "accept it", but I've seen quite a few who address it in a rather negative light, several mentioning that it might be a forgery.