Loading...History or Legend? Fact or Fiction? A bit of both? It’s hard to know how to understand stories about the apostle Peter found both inside and outside the New Testament. I began with some examples yesterday, involving his allegedly raising people from the dead. OK, probably fiction, but still – presented as fact! I pick up there with this post, taken from my book Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene (Oxford University, 2006).
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Regarding paragraph four, can you elaborate about the terms “Son of God” and “Son of man”? My understanding is that the first refers to Jesus but not the second.
Both are used of Jesus in the New Testament Gospels, fairly extensively; but neither one has a single meaning. ROUGHLY speaking, “Son of God” typically refers to someone who is in a close relationship with God through whom God manifests his will on earth (e.g., the King of Israel); “Son of Man” appears to be a reference to a cosmic judge of the earth coming at the end of the age, as described in Daniel 7:13.14.
Simon Magus sounds more fun.
Off topic: Is it the case that Justin Martyr and Irenaeus viewed the Eucharist as the actual body and blood of Christ?
Justin says in ch. 66 of is 1st apology: “For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these…. we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.”
And Irenaeus in Against Heresies (not sure which part): “He, who was the perfect bread of the Father, offered Himself to us as milk, [because we were] as infants. He did this when He appeared as a man, that we, being nourished, as it were, from the breast of His flesh, and having, by such a course of milk nourishment, become accustomed to eat and drink the Word of God, may be able also to contain in ourselves the Bread of immortality, which is the Spirit of the Father.”
Thank you
They may have done, but they don’t explain what they actually mean by it or how they’re imagining it. It would be a mistake probably to assume they mean the same thing as later theologians who developed views of transubstantiation, since those views were based on sophisticated Greek philosophical categories not familiar to the 2nd century fathers. You get something in Ignatius as well that is worth thinking about, from about forty years before Justin, when he calls the eucharist the “medicine for immortality.”
Just noting that in Eastern Orthodox Church theology the consecrated bread and wine are believed to be the body and blood of Christ but no attempt is made to define it in philosophical terms. It’s a “mystery.”
In Revelation 22:3-4 NRSV “and his servants will worship him; THEY WILL SEE HIS FACE, and his name will be on their foreheads.”
(Referring to the people being mentioned in these verses but, possibly also to people alive today?)
Question: “they will see his face” could this also be spiritual too (i.e) the person is in the book of life, their soul is now with God (see his face) in heaven but is still alive on earth.
Or only applies to the dead that have gone to heaven and are with God. What is the meaning of “see his face” how has it been used to meaning in other verses in the bible, could it possibly apply to both of these scenarios?
It’s referring to the “slaves” of God and Christ who have come through the tribulation and are now resident in the new Jerusalem; they will look upon the face of Jesus? God? Both? It’s ambiguous. If it means “God” that would mean that in the new heavens and earth one would be able to do that (they can’t die of it, as in the OT, since, well, they can’t die)
The 144,000 in revelation chapter 7:4, is it really 144? Or has it always meant and accurately translated 144,000?
It pretty clearly says 144,000 and then specifices that it entails 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel.
“possibly the most important task is not the rather dry academic exercise of separating history from legend but is rather to understand what the stories were trying to accomplish on their own terms, that is, to see what the storytellers wanted to achieve by telling the stories the ways that they did.”
I agree that this is true. But it seems that the people of the 1st century and all the way to today have always taken the stories in the Bible to be literally true. And any story outside of the Bible is legendary.
Almost all of the church attending Christians that I know would say that they believe all of the stories in the Bible to be historically accurate. Is this what you find with most of your first year students?
Yup! But it’s not the most important thing to do, possibly!
“It is not the case that the New Testament presents us only with facts and the books outside the New Testament present us only with pious fictions.”
Absolutely!
I think the early source in relation to Peter (Cephas) is “the gospel according to Paul”; in other words, all we can know about Jesus and his disciples is worked out from the “authentic” Pauline letters. In 1 Corinthians, Peter (Cephas) is clearly portrayed as Jesus’s most important follower, mentioned four times, and remarkably, he is the first to see the risen Christ (1 Corinthians 15:5). By contrast, James is only mentioned once (1 Corinthians 15:7), and no other followers of Jesus are mentioned by name.
However, in Galatians, things changed dramatically. In Galatians 2:9, Peter falls second to James among the “pillars”. Then comes the so-called “Antioch incident” in Galatians 2:11-16 and the depiction of Peter is strikingly different.
“Did Peter really “DRAW BACK and separate himself, fearing the circumcision party” (Galatians 2:12)?
The great Peter? The first follower of Jesus (Mark 1:16) and the first witness of his resurrection? Drawing back out of fear? From whom? Just “certain men… from James.”
Peter’s behavior in Galatians 2:12 is absolutely incompatible with his alleged position as a “pillar” of the Jerusalem church three verses before.
Maybe Paul was exaggerating.
Or maybe Galatians 2:12 is entirely historical. By the time of the “Antioch incident,” Paul was a nobody in the Antioch Christian community, and Peter was merely a visitor from the Jerusalem church, someone with no authority but who shared new insights with Paul regarding the spread of the cult among Gentiles.
But how did these two relatively insignificant figures become the foremost apostles of early Christianity?
Firstly, I do not believe in the concept of “independent attestation”. Regarding the New Testament, I think (almost) all roads lead to Paul and his close collaborators.
Secondly, Paul was arguably one of the greatest deceivers of all time.
Hi, Bart
Three questions if you can kindly expand on them:
1) Why do Christians regard the atrocities, ill treatments, immoral acts done and uttered by God in the OT justifiable only because they have their own *context*? What could the contexts even be for such terrible things?
2) Why do Christians not keep *all* the commandments and rules of the OT, but instead say the law does not need to be kept entirely because of 2 reasons (I’m not sure if there are others):
a) Some are just cultural/context generated
and
b) By the sacrifice of Jesus it is not necessary. What biblical reference does this have? Where did the separation from the OT law originated?
3) Jesus says/implies that there are those who will enter and those who will NOT enter in God’s kingdom (black and white). Now, what do you think he means when he says “(these people) shall be called *least* in the kingdom of heaven (and the others) shall be called *great* in the kingdom”. It sounds like there are degrees or preferencial rewards for those who will nevertheless *enter*, but have done something *better*. What do you think Jesus meant?
Thank you, Bart!
1. Depends whom you ask. The biblical view is that God needed to make sure that his people of Israel were not contaminated by the evils and false worship practices of other peoples (and so they had to be destroyed) and that he was a just God who required justice; if people violate his laws, that’s not his fault.
2. They can point to passages like Romans 10:4 and Mark 7:19
3. Not sure, but it sounds like some will get in but at a lower status. This became a standard Christian view eventually. It’s not clear if that is something Jesus said or something that Matthew puts on his lips.
Hi Bart,
What does the word Jesus mean in greek and aramaic? It’s a bit complicated to find a simple answer to it. I found (but not sure) that it means “God saves” – if it is so do you think his name was really Jesus or was something made up to fit the ideology?
And what relationship does it have to the name Emmanuel found in the profecies told about Jesus? Why wasn’t he named Emmanuel?
The English name Jesus is a translatin of the Greek name IESOUS, and in both cases it’s a name, and like most names doesn’t necessarily “mean” anything (e.g., what does Bob mean? It means someone named the guy Bob!). BUT you’re right, it has a semitic root. The Aramaic Yeshua comes fromthe Hebrew Joshua which means something like “Yahweh is Salvation.” That Jesus’ name can be “called” Emmanuel is different from “his name *is* Emmanuel.” It’s a metaphor. Emmanuel means “God is with us” in hebrew, And Jesus’ name and very being are God’s presence with his people.
Emmanuel as Jesus’s name in the metaphorical sense? That’s an interesting interpretation.
Yup, it means “God is with us.” In Jesus, for the Christians, God is with us, and so his name (Jesus = God is salvatoin) and person God is with us so his name is *called* that.
Saw this quote below recently and it seemed relevant. I have enjoyed learning from you how the Bible we have today came to be what it is!
“Nothing spoils a good story like the arrival of an eyewitness.”
Mark Twain
Ha! I decided (just on Sunday) to reread Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, to set up (with the latter) my reading of Percival Everett’s new “James,” which looks great!
Just ordered Percival Everett’s – James….great recommendation thx!