Five years ago on the blog I started a thread that I never quite finished, for reasons long forgotten, but I sometimes get asked about it. It involved an issue that the vast majority of avid Bible readers — including professional scholars — have never even considered. I staked out a position on the issue and then later indicated that I was not completely satisfied with my answer. My plan had been to explain my doubts more fully, but for some odd reason I never posted the explanation. So let’s consider it a five-year cliff-hanger. Even today, I haven’t decided!
I’ve decided to repeat the three relevant posts from 2016, and then go ahead and try to complete the thread. Here’s the first.
QUESTION:
I remember your saying that you once – wrongly – entertained a theory about “Cephas” and “Peter” being two different people. I *don’t* remember your explaining why you’d thought that, and what convinced you the theory was wrong. I’d still like to know!
RESPONSE:
I get asked this question on occasion and I’ve decided to do something unusual (for the blog) to answer it. Years ago I wrote a controversial article on the topic for an academic journal. Here I thought it might be interesting simply to reproduce the article for readers of the blog, over several posts. Among other things, this will show – to anyone who is interested in such things – how a work of scholarship on the New Testament is different from a work presenting scholarship to a general (non-scholarly) audience.
Now that I read through this first part of the article, thinking about how it would “play” to a general audience, I think that the problem is not that it is particularly difficult to understand, but simply that it assumes knowledge that not everyone holds and it does not try particularly hard to make a subject interesting, on the assumption that to scholars it already is interesting. Anyway, see what you think. The rest of the article is probably more inherently interesting, since there (as you’ll see as I reproduce it in the next posts) I argue that there are indeed reasons for thinking that Cephas and Peter were in fact two different persons.
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Most ancient authors who discuss the relationship of Cephas and Peter explicitly identify the two, or at least speak of Peter when referring to NT passages that name only Cephas. This is not at all surprising given the unequivocal statement of John 1:42: “You are Cephas (which translated means ‘Peter’).” What ”is surprising is that other early Christian authors, all of whom also knew and used the Fourth Gospel, refused to make this identification, and asserted either explicitly or by implication that there were in fact two different persons, one called Cephas, the other Peter. This dissenting opinion is striking for both its antiquity and its persistence. How ancient is it?
Evidence from the Early Church
It first occurs in the first half of the second century in the Epistula Apostolorum. The author of this pseudepigraph opposes a docetic kind of Christology by penning a letter, ostensibly written after Jesus’ resurrection by the eleven remaining disciples, in which he repeatedly affirms both the fleshliness of Jesus and the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh. Since this author otherwise makes repeated use of the Fourth Gospel, he must have known that “Cephas” and “Peter” refer to the same person. This makes it all the more striking that in his own delineation of the eleven disciples he names Cephas and Peter as two distinct individuals (Epistula Apostolorum, 2).
Somewhat later in the second century
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Fascinating question Bart; but may I suggest that exam question need refining a tad?
It is not in dispute (I think) that ‘Cephas’ and ‘Peter’ are two versions (in Aramiac and Greek respectively) of the same name. So, everyone called ‘Cephas’ also anwered to ‘Peter’; and vice versa.
So, there is no issue about whether there might have been several Cephas/Peter persons amongst the followers of Jesus; just as there were several each of Mary, James and John.
The question then refers to a specific ‘Cephas’; the one named by Paul at 1 Corinthians 15:5; and presumably at Galatians 1:18, and Galatians 2:11? Is this a different person from ‘Peter’; at Galatians 2:7?
I would propose that, if Paul’s ‘Cephas’ is different from his ‘Peter’, then he is also not one of the Twelve; do you agree? This seems implied by 1 Corinthians; “..and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.” If Paul’s ‘Cephas’ is also Peter; then noting separate appearances to Cephas and the Twelve makes sense; but if Cepahs is simply another of the Twelve, it does not.
Consequently, the Epistula Apostolorum citation is not a true parallel; as there Cepas is one of the Twelve.
AH, I’ll be getting into most of that a bit more in the next post on it. (But Cephas would not have answered to Peter unless he knew Greek, and vice versa!) BUt I do think there is doubt where there may have been several with the name. IN fact I know there is doubt, because almost no NT scholar agrees with me. 🙂
“But Cephas would not have answered to Peter unless he knew Greek, and vice versa!”
True Bart; but I am not sure whether you have followed through the logic here. When Paul first comes into contact with the followers of Jesus, Simon is already known as ‘Peter’. So – gven that ‘Petros’ is Greek in form – amongst those followers, some or all must have had at least sufficient Greek to recognise that ‘Petros’ means ‘rock’. Either Jesus himself; or, since ‘Petros’ is found (albeit rarely) as a Jewish name in the period, it may well be that it was an additional distinguishing name current amongst Simon’s family and freinds before he met Jesus.
And those Aramaic speakers who know that ‘Petros’ means ‘rock’ in Greek, would also recognise that ‘Kepa’ would correspond in Aramaic. Which is the way that faimilar nicknames work; in the same way that anyone called ‘Toohey’ would also be recognised, and answer to, the the nickname ‘Ratter’ without further explanation (or indeed knowledge if French) on anyone’s part.
YOu’re right — I”m not following the logic! Are you saying that the historical Jesus, speaking Aramaic, renamed Simon bar-Jonas with a *Greek* nickname, Petros? Jesus probably didn’t speak Greek, and a poor rural fisherman from a small town in Galilee, Simon, wouldn’t have. So that’s a bit hard for me to get my mind around.
We know that Simon bar Jonas was commonly known as ‘Petros’ amongst Jesus’s followers. That much seems to be a fact, as of a year or so after the Easter event. Or are you proposing the name ‘Petros’ as a later interpolation, or that Simon actually carried throughout an Aramiaic nickname ‘Kefa’, which was subsequently ‘greeked’ by Paul in his letters? In which case, how did Q and Mark coincidentally come up with ‘Petros’? Simon must have acquired his second name from somewhere; and if not from Jesus (supposing Jesus didn’t speak Greek), then the most parsimonious explanation is that he had already acquired his ‘Greek’ name before ever he became a disciple.
But, just as anyone with an Australian/Irish name can be universally recognised with a ‘French’ nickname amongst mates with no more than a word or two of French between them; so there is no neccessity to presume that whoever gave Simon the nickname ‘Petros’ would have known any more Greek than would have been expected in small-town Galilee.
As I read the Gospel texts
I don’t think we know that Simon was called Petros a year or so after the Easter event. THe first attestation of the name is Paul, writing 30 years later. I think it *is*highly probabe that it is a nickname given to Simon by JEsus; since he was speaking Aramaic, the nickname was Cephas. Only later when Greek speaking CHristians started talking about him did they translate it into the Greek equivalent “Peter.” I”m not sure when that would have been, but I imagine it happened pretty soon after the tradition stared epxpanding into Greek speaking realms.
Ah, thank you Bart, that is an interesting speculation.
But one that rather conflicts with the question at the head of the post. You are not, in fact, proposing that ‘Cephas and Peter were two different people’; but rather that there were two different people, both nicknamed ‘Cephas’, one of whom subsequently (certainly after Paul first knew of him) adopted the name ‘Peter’. Lets call them Cephas/Simon and Cephas/Other to avoid confusion?
Firstly then, are all Paul’s references to ‘Cephas’ references to Cephas/Other in you view? Or are some of these references to Cephas/Simon, when Paul knew him as Cephas and before he became known in Greek as ‘Peter’? Which Cephas was a witness to resurrection? Which Cephas was the one among the apostles that Paul went up to Jerusalem specifically to meet?
Seondly, why translate Cephas/Simon’s nickname into Greek? Is it to underline his status as the ‘rock’? But although Paul states that ‘Petros’ is the apostle to the circumcision, as he (Paul) is to the uncircumcision; nowhere does he associate either ‘Petros’ or himself with a ‘rock’. On the contrary for Paul, a ‘rock’ is always an ‘offence’ (Romans 9:33)
Ah, good questions. I’ll explain my posiiton more fully in my next post. But as a minor quibble, I don’t think Rom. 9:33 is what Paul always thought about the term rock. Why would it?
Apologies, Bart. In editing the post down to size I lost a sentence should have kept in – and so missed out the key point of the argument.
Paul applies the term ‘petra’ = rock exclusively to Christ himself as in I Corinthians 10;
“our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.”
So Christ (specifically Christ on the Cross) for Paul is the ‘rock of offence’ – those Jews who recognise the crucified Messiah, have access to the true drink of the Gospel; those that do not must stumble and fall.
There does not seem any logical space here for Paul to propose either Peter (or any other apostle) as a ‘rock of foundation’ for Christian churches. These conceptual understandings appear to be anachronistic for the early period when I understand you as proposing that Cephas/Simon become known as ‘Petros’ instead.
Acts 5:37 “μετα τουτον ανεστη ιουδας ο γαλιλαιος εν ταις ημεραις της απογραφης” is always translated as “after this arose Judas the Galilean in the days of the census”
But couldn’t this be translated as “beyond/further back than this arose Judas …”?
So the sense of the whole passage is “Before these times arose Theudas … beyond that in the days of the census arose Judas the Galilean”. And that way there’s no historical error.
No, I don’t think so. μετα with the accusative means “after” — that is, sequentially, what is described next occurred LATER.
yes μετα with accusative means further along in a sequence. Usually when the sequence involves time we’re moving forward in time, and further along in the sequence then means “Later”.
But here we’re moving backwards in time. Today Peter and John are stirring up trouble calling Jesus the christ; before these days arose Theudas claiming to be somebody; and further back (μετα) in the days of the census arose Judas the Galilean …
Couldn’t that be the sense?
The word doesn’t mean “before this” but “after this.” It’s not clear to me why you are making it say “before.” Is it to reconcile teh passage with some other historical statement we know? That’s not the best way to interpret an author’s grammar.
Its to reconcile with Josephus. Its not the best way to interpret grammar but should be part of the conversation.
I don’t think μετα necessarily means “after”, it can “beyond” or “behind”.
I think “before these days arose Theudas” is supposed to indicate “recently in the past”. Its the same phrase used about the Egyptian for Paul in Acts 21:38.
Isn’t “in the time of the census” then supposed to indicate its much further back in the past?
YOu seem to be interested in Greek exegesis. I”d suggest you learn some Greek (under a totor: doing it on your own is always disastrous if you want really to understand it). THere isn’t any ambiguity about the phrase you’re asking about. It simply means “after this.”
Dr. Ehrman:
Will you ever consider having Dr. Craig Keener or Dr. Gary Habermas as guests on you blog? That would be magnificent! (Just curious!)
I never have! I”ve had Licona on. If you have something in particular you would like one of them to blog about, I could consider it…..
Hi Bart, this question is unrelated to this post, hopefully that isn’t a problem.
In the introduction of Mark (particularly focusing on 1:3 and context) , several OT verses are quoted. The part: “prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him” from Isaiah 40:3 is very interesting to me.
In Isaiah “the Lord” is YHWH. In Mark it refers to Jesus. By quoting this part of scripture in Mark 1:3 the author of Mark seems to equate Jesus with the Lord YHWH of Isaiah. Moreover, Jesus is also already called Lord here before his baptism since the way had to be cleared by John for a coming Lord (implying that this Lord does not have to be “adopted” first).
These ideas seem incompatible with the idea that Mark sees Jesus as being exalted after his baptism. How do you think they should be interpreted?
Or in other words: How can Mark 1:3 be read as not seeing Jesus as inherently divine (maybe even YHWH)?
Thank you.
As you probably know, “Lord” (kurios, in Greek) does indeed sometimes refer to YHWH in the Hebrew Bible, but it also translates the word Adonai, which also can refer to God, but can also refer to other figures of high status. So I do not think calling Jesus Lord necessarily means that he is YHWH (in fact I’m sure it doesn’t mean that for early Christian writers); but it may and often does mean that he is divine in some other sense. As to your direct question: if in Mark Jesus is exalted to the level of divinity at his baptism, then John still *was* preparing the way for him, I should think.
Aah I see, in Isaiah though the kurios certainly referred to YHWH. The path had to be cleared for YHWH there. If the author of Mark saw John’s clearing the way for the lord as a fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah then the author of Mark must have seen jesus as YHWH. The way has to be cleared for the Lord YHWH in Mark for it to be a fulfillment of Isaiah since that is what “Lord” means in Isaiah. Clearing the way for just another lord would not be considered a fulfillment of Isaiah since it doesn’t mean the same thing. It is a bit hard to put into words but I hope this will do. What do you think? How can this be read as Jesus being a lord and not The Lord ?
In general we cannot use our understanding of what an OT author meant by what he wrote in order to draw conclusions about what a NT author meant when he quoted the OT writing (think about Matthew’s comments, e.g., about Jesus being born of a virgin by quoting Isa 7:14)
Then we may see this as the author of Mark taking the verse of Isaiah out of context and him applying a new lord (Jesus instead of YHWH) to the verse, ,right?
THat’s certainly one way to put it. Isaiah was definitely not thinking about Jesus and Mark was.
Aah I see, in Isaiah though the kurios certainly referred to YHWH. The path had to be cleared for YHWH there. If the author of Mark saw John’s clearing the way for the lord as a fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah then the author of Mark must have seen jesus as YHWH. The way has to be cleared for the Lord YHWH in Mark for it to be a fulfillment of Isaiah since that is what “Lord” means in Isaiah. Clearing the way for just another lord would not be considered a fulfillment of Isaiah since it doesn’t mean the same thing. It is a bit hard to put into words but I hope this will do. What do you think? How can this be read as Jesus being a lord and not The Lord ?
It’s pretty clear that Mark saw Jesus as divine but not as YHWH, if that’s what you’re asking.
Assuming that Jesus had sexual desires of some sort, and given that a small but significant per cent (around 4%?) of the population have mainly homosexual desires, are there things in the NT that increase the likelihood of Jesus being (a celibate?) homosexual to be significantly above, say, 4%–maybe to, say, 10% or higher? I’m thinking of: (1) his unusual status as unmarried; (2) his less-domineering, friendly (but asexual?) and more equal relationships with women; (3) the references in John (admittedly not a very strong historical source) to the (young?) disciple whom Jesus loved; (4) and perhaps even his (relatively gentle) ethic of love. (I don’t know of social science evidence that “2” is generally true about relationships between women and gay men–just my own observations and impressions from popular culture.)
People have argued about this, of coure, but there is very little evidence for it either way. Part of the problem is that a number of the stories have non-historical information in them (as you mention, John e.g.), and all that would need to be weeded through. If you’re interested in thinking about such topics a bit further, you might check out Dale Martin’s book Sex and the Single Savior.
Did any Xtians think Jesus wanted to marry, was thwarted, and took the cross as a plan B to salvage a degree of salvation, waiting for a 2nd messiah? That is a premise of the Unification Church.
No, none on record.
Thx. I figured, but the group borrows many heresies to create their theology, such as the eventual restoration of Satan, and wondered if their view of Jesus had hints in early condemned writings.
Hi Dr Ehrman!
It’s safe to say that Isaiah 53 refers to the suffering servant of Israel, not the messiah…. I’ve seen some argue however, that Jesus became the embodiment of Israel on the cross thus Isaiah was a symbolic prophesy all along. Is this a valid argument? Thank you!
I would say that’s a valid Christian interpretation of Jesus, but that it is not at all what the author of Isaiah would have had in mind.
Thank you!
Excellent Post Bart. I think many take for granted the “12” is a completely different sub-set of Apostles. My question however is what is the significance of Cephas + “the 12” in one camp, and James and the rest of the other apostles in another (like Andronicus and Junia Paul mentions in Rom. 16:7)? Clearly Paul knows of “the twelve” but Matthew and Luke go to great lengths to refer to “the eleven.” Obviously, Paul would not be aware of the yet to be written Judas narrative, but what insight can this group moniker provide us historically of Jesus being surrounded by a group of “restorative” followers of the tribes of Israel?
Sometimes it is thought that “the twelve” was a simple designation of the disciples he hand-picked during his ministry, and that the term applied to the group even when there weren’t twelve of them. (Just as the football conference “the Big Ten” still goes by that name even though there are fourteen of them….
In Gnosticism, the task of the Gospel Messiah was to pass on the secret knowledge to his twelve followers, (Mark 4:10f.) who then would spread this gnosis throughout the world. In post-Gospel terms they (Disciples) would propagate the kerygma. But this term never appears in the NT as the dissemination of the salvific knowledge was to be by “apostles.” So what are we to make of resolving the two terms?
The council of Essene elders were twelve in number, and because Paul needed authoritative direction he dealt with the leadership. In Acts 6:2 the “twelve” called together “all the disciples,” so now Acts has an unlimited number of disciples, a number unspecified, but suggesting strongly that they are the twelve. That would jive with the Lukan notion (6:13) which refers to the twelve apostles as being a subset of a larger number of disciples, but conflicts with Paul. Do you think the author of Acts was attempting a reconciliation of differences in terminology but simply failed to square the circle? For Instance, It seems a scribe changed “disciple” to “apostle,” after the execution of John the B. to avoid confusion with the disciples of John mentioned in the previous verse.
Sorry — I’m having trouble understanding your question about “resolving the two terms.”
Speaking of the Big10… now that Texas and Oklahoma are hoping to the SEC… and given the Big 10 has always required AAU status for member schools. Do you think the Big10 could poach UNC or Duke?
I’d be amazed. BUt it’s all about the money.
https://ehrmanblog.org/cephas-and-peter-in-the-writings-of-paul-who-knew-them/
“Whereas Paul mentions Cephas by name eight times in his letters, (1 Cor 1:12; 3:22; 9:5; 15:5; Gal 1:18; 2:9, 11, 14), he mentions Peter only twice (Gal 2:7, 8). What is initially intriguing, and what has been most frequently observed in this connection, is that when he does mention Peter in Gal 2:7-8 he names Cephas in the same breath, and in such a way as to provide no indication that he is referring to the same person”
“…it is very difficult to see why he would suddenly call Peter by a different name without giving any indication to his reader that he had in mind the same person”
Absolutely !
There are only two plausible explanations :
1) They were two different persons as Bart suggested initially
2) Someone (very early) changed Cephas to Peter to avoid having Paul and Peter confronted in the Antioch incident
Wisdom from the Web:
When asking yourself, “What would Jesus do?” remember that flipping tables and chasing people with a whip is one of the options.
+1!
John1:42 ‘“You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).’ Can you clarify, which language are these names (Simon, Peter, Cephas) each supposed to represent: Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, or other?
Cephas is Aramaic; Peter is Greek; Simon is … I guess it’s the Greek transliteration of the ARamaic name.
So basically, as early as only a relatively few decades after the 4th Gospel was written and taken as the “Word of God”, people were making documents/pseudo-documents and lists that are as reliable as the genealogies of Joseph in Matthew and Luke. And here we are 2,000 years later trying to understand the historical accuracy of the Bible. Sounds like the people putting out dis-information about the vaccines on Face Book had some ancestors back them.
Yes, it is interesting! 🙂 But I have to ask, couldn’t there have been more than one person with the name Peter? or Cephas? (Was Cephas an unusual name then?) After all, there’s more than one John in the NT.
There is an interesting discussion of exactly that issue by Markus Bockmuehl in the Journal of Jewish Studies.
Simon is an extremely popular Jewish name in this period; any Simon would almost necessarily have acquired a specifying nickname.
https://www.jjs-online.net/archives/fulltext/2523
‘Petros’ – though Greek in form – is indeed found as a Jewish name in this period, both in archaeology and literature; as for instance in Josephus for a freedman of Agrippa’s mother Berenice. There would be a famous Amoraic Rabbi; Yose ben Petros.
‘Cephas’, by contrast, is not found as an Aramaic Jewish proper name in this period – though it had been in the Elephantine papyri. Bockmuehl proposes that it would have been generally comprehensible for a Jew with the ‘Greek’ name ‘Petros’, to have been referred familiarly by the Aramaic nickname ‘Cephas’.
“..the apostle’s unusual linguistic background in Bethsaida allows for the possibility that he may have been called Petros from the start. If so, it is worth pondering the possibility that it was Jesus who applied to him the Aramaic translation ‘Kefa’ ( as a new nickname), interpreting his Greek name in Jewish terms and thus ensuring this new appellation’s enduring importance.”
INteresting. I’ve never heard of “Petros” as a Greek name. I just read the article and realized (this happens a lot!) that I was *re*reading it! I must have seen it some years ago. THe evidence Bockmuehl cites is actually very thin. Cephas is never ever used as a name in any Aramaic source of the period; Bockmuehl cites Bar Ilan that there are three instances of Petros being used as a name in the extended ancient period but he doesn’t say anything about Ilan’s study. In the note, it appears that actually there is only one solid occurrence, and it is the name of a slave (I would need to see some analysis of the two similarly spelled names) That is very interesting and may be important. As you know, slaves were given names that described their character or characteristics (“Useful”; “Happy”; etc.). If a slave were named “Rock” I would assume his master was using it as a descriptive. MOst slave names, as I understand it, were strictly slave names. If Bockmuehl is right that the NT Petros simply had that as a name, what would that mean? Was he originally (or still) a slave? Bockmuehl doesn’t go there, but it might be worth considering. Still, as I would expect, he glosses over the problems posed by Galatians for Peter and Cephas. BUt then again, who doesn’t?
I agree Bart; Bockmuehl is dependent on Bar Ilan’s demonstration that the names; ‘Patrin son of Istomachus’ and ‘Patron son of Joseph’ are both feasible renditions of the Greek name ‘Petros’ into Aramaic. Without this, Bockmuehl’s argument is ‘thin’; but with them, looks pretty solid all round.
On the other hand howerever, your speculation that ‘Petros’ could be a distinctive slave name will look even ‘thinner’, unless you are able to propose further support. I think it is established that there is no one else before Simon son of Jonas with the name ‘Petros’; but slave names are plentiful in the epigraphic record. so do we encounter other slaves with names derivative of ‘petra’? Otherwise, we know that anti-Christian writers regularly accused the early Church of servile origins. Does any anti-Christian writer associate the name ‘Petros’ with servility?
David Bivin has pointed out that both ‘Petros’ and ‘Petra’ are known as place-names in Hebrew, (Petra obviously, and Petros near Lydda); and that in slightly later Rabbinic Hebrew, both are found as loan-words from Greek. Which might support Bockmuehl’s supposition that Simon could have been ‘Petros’ before Jesus met him.
I”d have to see the evidence that Patrin and Patros are rendering into Aramaic of the Greek Petros. Seems dubious, but I don’t really know. I have nothing at stake about Petros being a slave name; it just struck me as interesting that the one instance we have of it is a slave, and slaves often are given symbolic names.
Easy slip to make Bart; but you should have said:
“it just struck me as interesting , that of the two instances where the name Petros is observed in Greek, one is a slave, and slaves often are given symbolic names.”
We are observing Cephas/Simon with the name ‘Petros’ too. When and how he acquired that name may be in question; but that he had it and used it in this period is strongly evident. So he must be included in the observed dataset.
So that makes four different individuals;
– Cephas/Simon and Berenice’s freedman – both observed with the name ‘Petros’
– ‘Patrin son of Istomachus’ and ‘Patron son of Joseph’, both observed with Aramaic names that have been proposed as plausible renditions of the Greek ‘Petros’.
Like you, I have no skill in assessing the reliability of the association: Patrin/Patron = Petros; but at the least it would seem likely that both these Aramaic names derive from forms of the greek word ‘petra’.
All four individuals are Jews; but only one is apparently servile.
Whereas evidence for non-Jewish persons in this period with the name ‘Petros’ or equivalent formations from the Greek ‘petra’, are zilch.
I don’t think you can add the NT Petros to the data base if the data base is designed to show *other* people with this name! And I don’t see why it’s likely these two other names derive from Petros. Do you know what hte evidence/argument is? My name is Bart, my brothers name is Radd, and some people called both of us Brad. But that doesn’t mean that the name Brad derived from Bart and/or Radd. (Whether or not you like this analogy — I have a rather strong sense about the asnwer to that — I’d still like to see the linguistic argument that these are names derived from Petros….)
Yes, a fascinating post. I can remember, vaguely, ministers saying in Church that Cephas was just another name for Peter, ie the famous Peter, Jesus’ chief disciple. But I was surprised that Paul, a very Hellenized Jew would use Cephas (which is Aramaic) rather than Peter (which is Greek), although it’s quite understandable that the original Aramaic speaking disciples would say Cephas (rather than Peter).
Wasn’t Paul essentially name dropping and touting his meeting with James and Cephas/Peter in order to burnish his bona fides with what largely was still a jewish movement? So, using Cephas vice Petros would show his Jewish Christian allegiance?
IT’s usually thought that he is explaining an event that the GAlatians already know about in order to set the record straight, that he did not get his mesage from the Jerusalem leaders (even though his opponents were caiing he did).
Dr Ehrman,
The word used in Luke 10:1 is “anedeixen”(appointed).
1. Etymologically speaking, is APPOINTED the most accurate translation of this word?
2. You have quoted in numerous interviews that “early Christianity started with 12 disciples and 7/8 women hence an odd group of 20 or so people”, where would you place these 70 or 72 anedeixens?
Yes, appointed is fine. THey were not among those who accompanied Jesus to Jerusalem and so thy were not among the first to believe in teh resurrection. You’ll note that neither Paul nor the Gospels mentions them as the first to believe. In addition, when I make that claim, I”m talking histroically. I doubt if the sending out of the 70 is a historical datum. I touls be difficult to imagine Jesus having so many followers during his GAlilean ministry that he could hand pick 70 of them to do more missionary work.
Dr Ehrman,
May it be possible to:
1. Have 12-20 staunch inner circle followers and rest 72 or more people who loved to hear Jesus and may contribute a bit financially but were not willing to march on the capital/temple if Jesus asks for?
2. Or maybe followers who loved Jesus and liked his parables and most of his teachings but did not agree with his apocalyptic and resurrection theory?
Yup. But the question I”m dealing with is a fairly simple one. According to the NT, who first believed in Jesus’ resurrection. The eleven disciples and a few women. My view is that if the NT is wrong on this point, it would be because some of the disciples didn’t believe at first — they “doubted it”
This is all really interesting. I half-remember reading somewhere that the names “Peter” and “Cephas” are unattested before the NT, which is to say, no one is known to have been called “Rock” in Greek or Aramaic before Jesus gave Simon his nickname. Is that true, so far as you know? Thanks!
I”ll be posting on that later. BUt basically (with one minor exepction for Petros) yes.
Do you know of any other source, ancient or modern, describing someone speaking in parables so that the listeners “may indeed listen, but not understand?” Would anyone disagree that this is not the typical reason for telling parables? How does anyone make sense of this?
And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.'” (NRS Mark 4:11-12)
No, I’d say that’s an unusual approach to teaching…
Catholics (are supposed to) believe that in the mass, when the bread and wine are consecrated, they become Jesus’s actual body and blood (albeit under the forms of bread and wine) which are then consumed by the congregation. To many modern ears that sounds quite bizarre. But does it make more sense when placed in its original historical context, eg, are there similarities to rituals associated with Jewish sacrifice, or understandings about how the world works?
Nothing quite like transubstantiation, no….
Dr. Robert Eisenman proved that Pauline blood salvation doctrine was an inversion of Essene blood purity observances at Qumran: Niece marriage (Herodians), eating things sacrificed to idols (heavenly tablecloth vision in Acts), and sleeping with women in menstruation — Habbakuk Pesher. You were unaware?
Dr Ehrman,
There are 12 people who are named or name-changed by God (10 in OT and 2 in NT, John the Baptist and of course Jesus!).
1. If this “being named or named-changed by God/Lord” is considered some sort of honour or a kind of title, would it be possible that Paul uses Cephas just to show a slight disrespect to Peter?
I”m not sure where you’re getting the 12 instances from? BUt I don’t see how, if it’s an honor, than it would be a matter of disrespect. (Paul does not ever call this person by his real name, Simon)
Years ago I read a book, Rabbi Jesus, by Bruce Chilton, that had an interesting theory on Jesus calling the bread and wine my body and blood. He thought it should have been translated as flesh and blood instead of body and blood. That could change the meaning so that Jesus was trying to say for his bread and wine were His sacrificial flesh and blood so an animal would not need to be slaughtered. This would fit Jesus being against selling animals for sacrifice at the temple. Do you think this could be a reasonable view of Jesus’ position?
Off hand I”m not sure what the difference between flesh and body is in this context: normally “body” is understood sacrificialy here. (Does he mean translated from the Aramaic when it’s quoted in the Gospels? The Greek word is *definitely* “body” not “flesh”)