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Loading...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).
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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 2 Peter, which, as we will see in a future post, goes out of its way to claim Petrine origins. In the case of 1 Peter, the authorial name is attached simply to provide apostolic credentials. There is nothing
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Hello Dr.Bart Erhman
It is simple to see how oral tradision can alter in a chain of transmision but when a story is told for example in a bigger grup then i suppose it is more reliable? Am i wrong?
Yes, I’m afraid you’re wrong. What ends up happening is that different peole remember what is said differently. University professors find this all the time to their chagrin, when they give a quiz on what was said in lecture just two days before in class. 🙂
I’ve heard from a professor that a person needs to hear a thing repeated 10 times in order to remember it.
If Jesus was going around teaching, in public, in the streets, and in the synagogues every Saturday as it is stated was his custom, what are the chances that he repeated the same or similar teachings multiple times?
How much of a chance is there that some of his followers heard the same or similar teachings multiple times?
How much would this improve their memory of what was said and taught?
I don’t think there’s a formula for how many times something needs to be heard. Some people remember everything at one hearing; for others you can repeat the same thing 20 times and they just don’t get it. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing how many times Jesus repeated the same thing over and over again in the same words, since the Gospels do not indicate that. I’d assume he said many things over and over again. But which things?
This is a bit off topic, but I’ve read that one of the best ways to derail a movement is to insert unacceptable or repulsive ideas into the movement’s ideology. Things like God requiring a human death sacrifice, emblemized cannibalism (eating and drinking Christ’s body and blood), having to be willing to be tortured and die for the belief, hierarchical authority systems that make certain persons always right if they are an apostle, a preacher, a prophet, a pope, a politician, a parent, a partner, and so forth. With the exception of God and Christ, no one is always right because of their position in a hierarchy, but parts of the bible seem to state that they are.
I’ve read that Frank Zappa was just such a creation. Created to derail the 1960s peace movement in the United States. Instead, people embraced some of his ideas and lyrics (which might not have been such a good idea either).
What are the chances that people inserted dysfunctional ideas and concepts into the Christian literature in an attempt to derail and malign the movement?
I’d say there’s no evidence of it. (I.e., no one, friend or enemy, hints at it in any of our sources that I’m aware of.
So the only evidence is that these dysfunctional ideas do exist in the texts?
some of those ideas are in the text, yes; whether they are dysfunctional or not (in every case) would be a matter of disagreement.
Human/child sacrifice for “religious” purposes has existed until very recently in Africa, say just ending about 50 years ago. It’s called Mingie. It also existed among the South American Incas. Is there any evidence that it existed in the Mediterranean world during Jesus’s time?
I’ve postulated that some of this stems from population control and management. A tribe needs to have so many people and so many births to keep the tribe alive and going. At the same time, if a tribe overpopulates a territory beyond that which their land and resources can support, there can be real problems. Starvation, infighting, and war for more territory and resources can be the result.
So a tribe or a people is faced with needing so many births.
Then, depending on how many children survive early childhood, or to adulthood, they may end up with a greater population than their land can support. So they start this human sacrifice thing, all dressed up in religious honor, sacredness, and for God, and stuff.
It’s horrible, but it’s deemed better than war, starvation, or infighting. It probably ends up causing fewer deaths, a lot fewer injuries, and a lot less mayhem.
Idk, maybe this is whatit stemsfrom.
Jesus is said to be the *last* human sacrafice, I believe in one of the Pauline letters. Perhaps this idea and his death on the cross was used to stop any and all human sacrifice where ever and for what ever reasons it was going on. ??
Same with cannabalism. The emblemized action of eating Jesus’ body and drinking his blood could have been used to take the place of and stop any actual cannabalism that might have been going on. – Cannabalism has actually been going on in parts of the world until fairly recent times. Idk if the Eucurist was used in trying to stop it however.
I don’t think Paul says that.
That is how I remember reading it.
I used to have like 15 copies of different English translations of the bible. I had to get rid of them because there was water damage to the building I was living in. Today I have 1 bible. It would take me a while to find the verse that says that or something like that, even in just rereading my one bible.
Of course, I could be wrong and remembering things wrong.
I think I’m going to try to find out just for my own edification.
I’m thinking it was more like Jesus was/is the last sacrifice. I remember it as being Pauline, but I could be wrong there, too.
Thanks for reading my comment(s) again.