Why does the “Peter” of 1 Peter sound like Paul but not Peter? This is at the heart of the question of why a pseudonymous author who was claiming to be Peter would have written this particular letter.   It’s a perplexing matter in part because nothing much about 1 Peter sounds like what we would expect from Peter, as we know him otherwise from the New Testament. This will take a few posts to explain.  The following is largely taken, with edits (including the omission of the footnotes), from my longer study Forgery and Counterforgery (Oxford University Press). ****************************** Apart from the name “Peter” at the outset of the letter and possibly the reference to Rome (“Babylon”) at the end, there is nothing in the book of 1 Peter to tie it specifically to the Petrine tradition.  This makes the book decidedly different from lots of other non-authentic writings of the New Testament, the Deutero-Pauline epistles (Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus) whose authors clearly strive to sound like Paul, and [...]

When it comes to the question of whether Peter, the disciple of Jesus, was likely to have written 1 Peter, as I indicated in my previous post, a major issue to consider is the fact that in antiquity MOST people could not read, let alone write, let alone compose a sentence, let along a five-page essay, let alone in a foreign language.  But weren’t Jews the exception?  Didn’t Jewish men all know how to read and write?  It turns out, the answer is no. Again, this is taken from my fuller study, Forged (HarperOne). The fullest, most thoroughly researched, and widely influential study of literacy in Palestine during the period of the Roman empire is by Catherine Hezser.[1]  After examining all of the evidence Hezser concludes that in Roman Palestine the best guesstimate is that something like 3% of the population could read, and that the majority of these would have been in the cities and larger towns.   Most people outside of the urban areas would scarcely ever even see a written text.   [...]

Now that I have laid out the major themes and emphases of 1 Peter in my previous post, I can move on to the questions of who wrote it, when, and why.  The final issue in some ways is easiest, at least when it comes to the overarching purpose of the letter.  As we have seen, the author is concerned about Christians’ reactions to their persecutions, and is intent that they give their opponents no grounds for opposition but lead upright lives, being a “witness” to those who challenge their faith, and imitating Christ in suffering unjustly.  Whoever wrote the letter, and when, it seems reasonably safe to assume this was the major reason for it.  We will see later, however, that there may be at least one less obvious reason as well. For the issues of who wrote it and when, I provide here is largely based on my more extended study, Forged… Why The Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are (HarperOne). The book 1 Peter is allegedly written [...]

In this series providing overviews and discussions of each of the books of the New Testament “in a nutshell” we come, following the canonical sequence, to another gem, the book of 1 Peter.   In this post I will focus on its major themes and emphases, and then in subsequent posts deal with a number of critical questions about it, such as who wrote it and when, and why, if it claims to be by Peter, it sounds so much like Paul. First, a one-sentence fifty-word summary. First Peter, is a letter allegedly written by the apostle Peter to gentile Christians scattered throughout Asia Minor who are suffering persecution, urging them to remain true to their faith and to suffer only for upright behavior, in imitation of Christ and in anticipation of his imminent return in judgment.   Now I can provide a fuller account of this short but intriguing book.  Here is an edited account taken from my book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Oxford University Press. ************************ The [...]

In my previous three posts I’ve argued that the author of the book of James really does want his audience to think he is “James, the brother of Jesus,” but that in fact he was someone else.  In modern parlance, that means the book is a “forgery.”  Ancient Greek did not use the English word forgery, of course, but the terms they used for this kind of book were just as judgmental and, even, ugly. But why would someone forge this book, claiming to be James knowing he wasn’t? The first thing to notice is to reaffirm the one of the first things that we noticed (!):  the book appears to appears to attack a form of Pauline Christianity that stresses the importance of “faith alone” for salvation.  For this author, “faith without works is dead,” and if someone doesn’t live in ways that are beneficial to others and pleasing to God, they cannot be saved, however much faith they claim to have. This is especially seen in what is arguably the most famous passage [...]

Here I conclude my string of posts dealing with whether James the brother of Jesus wrote the book of James as the book itself implicitly claims.  Again this is taken from my more academic study Forgery and Counterforgery, but I've edited it a bit for an audience of regular folk instead of irregular scholars. In my previous post I talked about how our ancient sources everywhere talk about the major concerns and interests of the the historical James and his focus on the Torah and keeping the law.  Does this book reflect any of his widely known  interests? ****************************** The book of James hints toward a James-like audience, as it is addressed to “the twelve tribes”  (that is, faithful Jews scattered throughout the world).  What is striking is that none of the cultural or cultic concerns of James of Jerusalem is in evidence in the book.  Just the opposite.  The book is thoroughly concerned about the “Law,” but not about the aspects of the Law that James himself is reported to have been interested in. Here, [...]

In my previous post I summarized the major themes and emphases of the five-chapter letter of James, one of the Catholic Epistles.  I now want to get into the questions of Who Wrote It, When, and Why.  This will take a couple of posts, and I've decided to give a fuller scoop in this case than usual, by citing how I discussed the matter in my book Forgery and Counterforgery. I think the discussion is accessible to the non-expert.  I have edited it a bit here, in paret to make it more more user-friendly). This issue is rather important for anyone interested in the history of early Christianity.  Do we have a writing from Jesus’ own brother?  Now *that* would be interesting! ****************************** The letter of James begins simply enough: “James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion, greetings” (1:1).  A number of persons are named James in the New Testament, including the father of Joseph (Jesus’ “father,” Matt. 1:16), the son of Zebedee [...]

In this “New Testament in a Nutshell” thread I come now to the intriguing book of James, long one of my favorites among the Catholic epistles.  At one point in my earlier existence, I liked the book so well that I memorized it.  Don’t ask me to recite it now; that was 50 years ago. Even so, I still think it is a terrific book.  And now I realize it is intriguing for all sorts of reasons I never would have imagined back when I was able to recite it at a drop of the hat. I start here with a one-sentence, fifty-word summary. The Book of James consists of ethical instruction for followers of Jesus who are to live in ways pleasing to God as a way of demonstrating their faith, since anyone who thinks they can be saved only through what they believe does not understand that “faith without works is dead.” For the rest of this post, I will summarize the major themes and emphases of this short, five-chapter book, which, hey, [...]