Loading...QUESTION:
What do you make of the author’s reference to a Silvanus in 1 Peter 5:12? Could it be that this really is Peter saying he used a secretary to write this letter? I know you said there is little to no evidence that people used secretaries, but what do you make of this reference to a Silvanus?
RESPONSE:
Yes, this is a question that I deal with in my book Forged, and that I deal with at yet greater length in the book coming out in the fall, Forgery and Counterforgery. Several points are important to make about the question, but first a bit of background.
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Prof Ehrman, didn’t Cicero use his freed slave Marcus Tullius Ciro to edit his books? (“Therefore I am not so much surprised that Marcus Tullius erred in that matter, as that it was not noticed later and corrected either by
Cicero himself or by Tiro, his freedman, a most careful man, who gave great attention to his patron’s books.” (Noct. att. 15.6.1-2).) Prof. PJJ Botha writes in an article “‘I am writing in my own hand…’: Writing in New Testament Times” in Verbum et Ecclesia (vol 30, 2009), “Tiro’s duties included taking dictation, deciphering Cicero’s handwriting, revising and rewriting as well as managing the copying of texts.” While the letters of Peter is probably not written by him, didn’t Paul at least use a scribe? (Gal 6:11). It seems that most writers or scribes were slaves or freed men, while the elite (like Cicero) were better versed in oration. If I remember correct Josephus indicates in the War of the Jews that the Essenes tended to be scribes in a more Jewish setting, not Sadducees. What does one do with such information in terms of Christianity and the writing of the New Testament? (I suspect that a case could be made that most NT writers were of a socially low status, possibly slaves.)
Yes, you’re right about most of this. I deal with all these issues at length in my book; I may post a bit here or there (maybe on Cicero’s use of secretaries) at some point.
I would love that, I have already put an order at Amazon (a month or so, ago) for your book, which I see will only be published in December. South African luck, I will only get mine in the middle of January. We have a wonderful postal service.
Bart,
This leads to the next question. Given that there we only a few thousand Christians by the end of the first century, and most of them were from the lower classes with more than the average 70% to 80% illiteracy rate, can we narrow down who might have written the pseudepigrapha in the New Testament Canon? Is there enough first century literature/historical data around to make some scholastically valid theories?
My guess is that illiteracy among early Christians was well above 90%. Unfortunately, we know hardy *any* of the 10%! So, in short, no, we don’t have a clue who wrote these things….
Do you believe anything was of the oralistic traditions then in replace of writings for a period of time? I am patial to the Gospel of Thomas and Nag Hammadi writings as well as the Epistle of Barnabas and Enoch. I am new to the blog and there is a lot of information here. Apologies for any repetative questions. In dialogue with my brother, a soon to be graduate of RTS in Charlotte, I am well aware of corruptions in the texts/canon which he fervently denies. To me, Jeremiah 8:8 tackles this issue early on (nothing new under the sun). In your estimation what text do you feel have authentic teachings of Christ, if any?
I’m afraid I’m not sure what you’re asking. If you want to see my thoughts on Gospel of Thomas and the reliability of the Gospels, you might look at my textbook onthe NT, where I discuss these things. Best,
Could you elaborate further on your comment:
“Scholars now know that when an author says that he has written to people “through” someone else (as here in 1 Peter 5:12: διὰ Σιλουανοῦ), he means that the person named is the letter-carrier, who brought the letter and can vouchsafe for its contents.”
Since we are dealing with genitive singular here, it seems logical that the translation would be “through, throughout, by the instrumentality of” as opposed to “on account of, by reason of, for the sake of, because of”, if it were accusative. What piqued my interest here was the possibility of translating it “by the instrumentality of”. Since koine Greek doesn’t have an instrumental case (as far as I know and at least not one that is differentiated from other cases by the ending), it seems to me we cannot simply infer a translation purely from lunguistic reasons. So using Silvanus as an “instrument” could (in my mind) imply he is the “instrument of writing” or he is the “instrument of delivery”. So, what criteria is being used to determine he is simply the “instrument of deliver”. Why can we say then that he was just the “instrument of delivery”?
I have brought up the problem to some apologist of who the gospel writers could be in terms of 1st century literacy based on the work of Catherine Hezser and Meir Bar-Ilan. One frequent response is either they could have learned Greek between the time of the events in the gospels and when they wrote the Gospels. I’ve lived in Germany for 25 years and although I have published things in German it is still obvious that I am not an native speaker, so I discount this without a second thought. The next frequent response is secretaries. What do you call “Very very thin”. To what extent do we have any information at all that secretaries were used like this?
In a radio debate with Darrel Bock, he brought up the fact that Hezser classifies different levels of literacy, mentioning that tradesmen would have had access to official records and therefore necessarily would have been more literate. While this seems to be true, to me it implies that a fisherman was a “tradesman” in this context, which seems to me to be an absurd idea. It also seems that is an unsupported conclusion that Matthew would have been able to write Greek well enough to write a Gospel, simply because he was a tax collector. I certainly can do more than just count and keep records in German, but I do not have the rhetorical experience necessary to write something like the gospels, so it seems to me that Matthew may have been able to write a bit of Greek, but there is nothing to imply he could write anything substantial. I am curious about your views on this.
Yes, good points. I’ll try to post a couple of relevant things from my book about some of these issues.
Have you ever considered doing some vlogging?
Can’t say that I have. Sounds like a lot of work!
Granted, Peter might have been simply referring to Silvanus as having been the person who carried his (Peter’s) letter. But, IF Peter somehow survived persecution by Nero’s cronies; IF Peter, without formal Greek education, likely didn’t increase his Greek writing ability beyond that of a first century Palestinian fishermen, and IF 1 Peter is correctly dated to 80-110 CE (per Peter Kirby at earlychristianwritings.com), then isn’t it also likely that Peter (if he indeed lived to an such an advanced age considering his time and place) was UN-able to personally write letters?
Yes, Silvanus might have hand-carried Peter’s letter to the addressee, but I see no reason why he could not have performed both functions: secretary AND courier.
Yes, in the abstract that makes sense. The problem — it’s an enormous problem — is that Silvanus too was apparently an Aramaicl speaking Jew from Palesttine, so he too wouldn’t know literary Greek composition. And the bigger problem: we don’t have evidence of ancient secretaries writing this kind of letter for anyone (even though we have lots of evidence about what secretaries *did* do). I may post on some of the issues over the next week or so.
Noted. Thanks!
Hello, Bart! Where can I find evidence (article, book) for your comment: “Scholars now know that when an author says that he has written to people “through” someone else (as here in 1 Peter 5:12: διὰ Σιλουανοῦ), he means that the person named is the letter-carrier, who brought the letter and can vouchsafe for its contents.”?
I discuss it in my book Forgery and Counterforgery, pp. 248-49.
Dr. Ehrman,
1. In a debate you had with Licona, you said something to the effect that there is no evidence of any instances of secretaries receiving information from one language and translating it to another for the author.
Am I understanding that correctly, and what are you basing your conclusion on?
I have a full discussion of this in my book Forged, and a fuller on in Forgery and Counterforgery. Do a word search on the blog for “secretary” and you’ll see discussion of what secretaries in teh ancient world actually did.