The apostle Peter - an honest Christian or a cynical manipulator?

by Pole 20 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Pole

  I hope Peter isn't spinning in his grave now (whether in Rome or anywhere else)...

  Many of you will recall the transfiguration of Jesus as recorded in Mathew 17:

  1After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.

  2There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.

  3Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

  4Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters--one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah."

  5While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!"

  6When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified.

  7But Jesus came and touched them. "Get up," he said. "Don't be afraid."

  8When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

  I have never actually been perfectly happy with the standard theological explanations of this passage such as:

  ?Moses represented the Law. Elijah represented the Prophets. Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets. Meaning that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah.?

  Which is sometimes supported with:

  Luke 24:44-45 And He [Jesus] said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

  I wonder why was David (as one of the chief representatives of the book of Psalms) missing from this event?

  Anyway that?s not my point as I am now very skeptical about the Bible as God?s Word in general.

  On to my question: if we assume that 2 Peter chapter 1 contains a reference to this or a similarly miraculous event (Peter reports hearing God?s voice on "the holy mountain" as well as Jesus' receiving glory - so it looks like he is talking about the transfiguration):

  16 We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

  17 For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

  18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

  Then all of us who think the transfiguration scene as described in Mathew was a bogus story must also think that Peter was either a cynical liar or a madman. Didn?t he say specifically that he ?did not just invent a clever story?? Didn?t he say he was an eyewitness?

  Didn?t he distinguish himself from other manipulators? Just look at the same letter, chapter 2

  2 Peter 2 reads:

  3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

  So was Peter an exemplary Christian and at the same time a manipulator who lied cynically to naive first-century newbie christians by saying specifically he did not make up a story which he in fact did make up?

  One explanation that comes to my skeptical mind is that we don?t know which version of Peter?s letter we now have and whether it was Peter who wrote it in the first place. We don?t even know for sure if there was a guy called Peter who was Jesus? buddy, and can't be too sure who was Jesus in the first place, unless we resort to religious faith.

  Anyway, how would you account for this moral discrepancy ? especially those of you who recognize Peter as a historical character and 2 Peter as his letter? Just don?t tell me that Peter?s conception of truth was different than ours so he just used a little white lie here. In this case he?s very specific about what's true and what's false.

  Pole
• 

  kes152

  Greetings Pole,

  you said: " Then all of us who think the transfiguration scene as described in Mathew was a bogus story must also think that Peter was either a cynical liar or a madman. "

  Yes, this is true. Anyone who "thinks" the transfiguration was not true would then accuse Peter of telling a false story. But the question is, where are you getting that the transfiguration was not true? What did Peter say about the transfiguration that was inaccurate? Where is the discrepancy you are talking about? Is the descrepancy in his letters, is it in Matthew, where?
• 

  Leolaia

  2 Peter was not written by Apostle Peter. It is probably the clearest example of pseudonymous writing in the NT, with many independent indications of its "spurious" nature, both internal and external. Most scholars date it to around AD 130-150. It was so clearly pseudonymous it wasn't first referred to until the third century A.D. and then only by Origen and Eusebius as a "dubious" or rejected writing. It was not included in the Muratonian canon. It did not become generally canonical until the fourth century AD, and today it is still rejected by Nestorian Orthodox.

  Although the evidence is not as clear, 1 Peter is also thought by most to either be pseudonymous or written primarily by an amanuensis. It is generally dated to AD 80-100 or so.
• 

  Pole

  you said: " Then all of us who think the transfiguration scene as described in Mathew was a bogus story must also think that Peter was either a cynical liar or a madman. "

  Yes, this is true. Anyone who "thinks" the transfiguration was not true would then accuse Peter of telling a false story. But the question is, where are you getting that the transfiguration was not true? What did Peter say about the transfiguration that was inaccurate? Where is the discrepancy you are talking about? Is the descrepancy in his letters, is it in Matthew, where?

  Hi kes152. Thanks for pointing that out.

  I understand that you are a believing Christian - so you would have no problems with accepting this passage - and it's fine. In fact for Christians there is no dicrepancy whatsoever. What I meant here is that a lot of us who are skeptical and who tend to refuse relligious revelation have a general attitude like this:

  "Most if not all the miracles described in the Bible are not rational at all and they are the result of exaggeration or dishonesty on the part of the writers'."

  I mean if you refute the Bible as God's word, then you have to have a rational way of explaining all the miracles and acts of divine revelation.

  For instance, skeptics sometimes pass relatively light judgments on the authors of the NT books, saying that the despcriptions of the different miracles were a result of the writers' eagerness to make new converts.

  In the case of this particular passage a skeptical person has to make a very clear-cut choice:

  1) Either Peter actually saw the transifiguration of Jesus (which a skeptical person will probably never admit)

  2) Or Peter lied cynically and hence this moral discrepancy that I think a lot of non-believers would have to be able to explain:

  a) Peter is a Christian who honestly believes in Christ and who criticizes religious manipulators for making up false stories on which people base their faith.

  b) At the same time he invents a story of his own and uses it to coerce his people into the Christian faith.

  To sum it up:

  There is nothing wrong with the passages I've focused on as long as you believe the transfiguration was a real event and not just a metaphor or a myth added to the set of Christian beliefs at some stage (and you accept a lot of other miracles described in the Bible), However if one refuses miracles and revelation in general, then one has to apss a judgement on Peter. I'm asking such people about their judment:

  Did Peter make this story up although he assures the readers of his letter that he didn't? Of course you, kes152 would say that Peter just related what he actually experienced - and I understand that. BUt whatebout skeptics or "half-skeptics" (like myself)?

  ----------

  Pole
• 

  Pole

  2 Peter was not written by Apostle Peter. It is probably the clearest example of pseudonymous writing in the NT, with many independent indications of its "spurious" nature, both internal and external. Most scholars date it to around AD 130-150. It was so clearly pseudonymous it wasn't first referred to until the third century A.D. and then only by Origen and Eusebius as a "dubious" or rejected writing. It was not included in the Muratonian canon. It did not become generally canonical until the fourth century AD, and today it is still rejected by Nestorian Orthodox.
  
  
  Although the evidence is not as clear, 1 Peter is also thought by most to either be pseudonymous or written primarily by an amanuensis. It is generally dated to AD 80-100 or so.
  

  
  Leolaila,
  
  
  That would be a workable explanation for a skeptic - thanks for these hints and pointers, I'll try to follow up with some research.
  
  

  EDITED: I actually thought that the only rational explanation would have something to do with the authorship of this letter. I just needed something more specific to support this presupposition.
  
  
  Pole
• 

  Leolaia

  Evidence pertaining to the authorship and date of 2 Peter include, for starters:
  

  1. The allusion to Paul's epistles in 3:16 as "scripture", which were subject to varied interpretations and even of serious misunderstandings. Furthermore, they are ranked on a level with "the other scriptures", i.e. the OT primarily, and thus the statement comes from a time when a collection of Paul's letters had already formed and gained canonical status. The statement also fits the mid-second century heretic Marcion exceptionally well, as he was among the first to propose a NT canon and his gnostic interpretations of his "scripture" were condemned by orthodox apologists. This reference is thus an anachronism that "forms an indubitable water-mark of the second century" (Moffitt).

  2. This is corroborated by the allusion to "your apostles" in 3:2, where the context, with its collocation of prophets and apostles, reflects the second-century division of scripture into these two classes. The age of the apostles is clearly in the past, for the author asks the reader to "recall" what was "spoken in the past ... through your apostles". Such allusions to dead apostles are typical of late first century and second century writings, such as 1 Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and so forth. Moreover, 3:4 clearly refers to the passage of time "since our fathers died," which again firmly places the writing in the second century -- as the "fathers" were the founders of the church, the first generation.

  3. A third indication of the epistle's origin in the sub-apostolic period is the marked failure for Christ's parousia to arrive, as fervantly expected by Paul and his contemporaries. This is the focus of 3:3-13, with the rhetorical question, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers have died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation" (v. 4). The author rationalizes the failure by suggesting that the "day" could be stretched to as long as a thousand years (v. 8), and yet this is not to be considered "slow".

  4. Jesus is explicitly called theos "God" in 1:1 (compare 3:18) which is typical of the christology in the later strata of early Christian literature (cf. John 1:1, 20:28; Ignatius' epistles, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Melito, Justin Martyr, etc.).

  5. The epistle is studded with Stoic technical vocabulary, which betrays a Hellenistic mind (i.e. not a traditional native Judean) and the second century which was the time of the Stoic revival. Examples include theias dunameos "divine power" in 1:3, theias phuseos "divine nature" in 1:5, and the concept of "partaking" (koinonoi "sharers") in the divine nature as advancing moral virture (cf. 1:5-7). The technical term epoptai "initiates, eyewitnesses" in 1:16 also comports well with semi-philosophical formations such as aionios basileis "eternal kingdom" in 1:11 and eilikrines dianoia "sincere mind" in 3:1 (used to mean "pure reason" in Plato's Phaedo 66a). The most overtly Stoic part of epistle is the description of the final conflaguration in 3:10-12, which is a concept borrowed directly from Greek philosophy -- including the technical term stoikheia "elements," referring to the three elements of water, fire, and earth. Intriguingly, this same concept occurs in other Petrine pseudepigrapha, especially the Apocalypse of Peter which dates to around AD 140. The two proverbs in 2:22 are traceable to Heracleitus (cf. also the classical proverb quoted by Clement of Alexandria Protrept. 10.92.4), and 2:4 explicitly refers to the pagan Greek notion of Tartarus as the prison of the evil Titans.

  6. The writer is at pains to invest his writing with verisimilitude. This is usually the hallmark of pseudegraphs. Symeon Peter is made to refer to his own mission and death, foretold by Jesus (1:13-15). This betrays an acquaintance with ch. 21 of the Gospel of John, which was added by a later editor to the gospel in the second century. This again suggests that 2 Peter was written by the mid-second century at the earliest. In 1:15 the author also makes reference to the survival of the Petrine tradition in the Gospel of Mark (written c. AD 75), which was first reported by the second century writer Papias. Most notably the author claims to be a witness to the transfiguration in 1:16-18, yet quotes from the Gospel of Mark (or the passage utilized in Matthew and Luke, which date after AD 90) in v. 17 (cf. Mark 9:7). Note that the dependence is on the Greek wording, not any Aramaic original that would have been purportedly used in the situation. Thus the author draws Petrine detail from an already published corpus of gospels, which points again to the second century. Finally, the mountain of the transfiguration is called "the holy mount" in 1:18 which is quite in sub-apostolic fashion of "investing sacred scenes with a halo of pious associations" (Moffitt).

  7. The author also explicitly refers to 1 Peter in 3:1, which is generally dated to around AD 80-100, and the entirety of 2 Peter 2:1-3:8 is plagiarized from the epistle of Jude. This is usually considered the strongest evidence for the lateness of 2 Peter, as Jude itself is sub-apostolic (cf. Jude 17, which refers to the generation of the "apostles" as already in the past). Only by comparing the two texts side by side in the original Greek can one truly appreciate the extent to which the author of 2 Peter copied and altered the original wording of Jude. The direction of dependence is clear because points that Jude made clearly are sometimes misunderstood and bungled in 2 Peter. Compare, for instance, the allusion to "angels" in Jude 6 which clearly alludes to 1 Enoch in its wording and which spells out the type of sin committed by the angels with the vaguer 2 Peter 2:4 which merely says the angels "sinned," Jude 9 which explicitly refers to the episode between the archangel Michael and the devil from the Assumption of Moses with 2 Peter 2:11 which completely obscures the original allusion. That is, it requires the other passage to explain it. See also Jude 4=2 Peter 2:3, Jude 6= 2 Peter 2:4, Jude 7=2 Peter 2:6, Jude 8=2 Peter 2:10, etc. where the wording in 2 Peter is cloudier and rhetorical than the more forceful wording of Jude. If Jude 10 is compared with 2 Peter 2:12 it will be seen that 2 Peter has missed Jude's point. 2 Peter 2:13 apatais "deceptions" is a nonsensical blunder of the original agapais from Jude 12. Similarly, in Jude 13 the blackness of darkness is reserved for the wandering stars, a natural and suitable conception whereas in 2 Peter 2:17 the picture is much less suitable, the blackness of darkness is reserved for the heretics who are likened to mists and wells (McNeile). Thus, 2 Peter could only have been written after the publication of Jude, as well as (as argued above) after the writing of John, Mark, and the collation of Paul's epistles into a canonical corpus.

  8. No clear trace of the epistle's existence can be found until the third century, when it was first mentioned by Origen and possibly first alluded to by Clement of Alexandria. In contrast, 1 Peter was widely known and used in the second century. Origen wrote: "Peter has left behind one epistle generally acknowledged; perhaps also a second, for it is a disputed question" (cited in Eusebius H.E. 6.25). The Muratonian Canon only knows of one epistle from Peter, the same is the case with Cyprian, and Eusebius reports that it was disputed by many churches. Jerome in ep. Hedib. 120 and Quaest. 11 noted that the style of 2 Peter was radically different from that of 1 Peter and wrote that it "is denied by many to be his because of its difference from the former in style". 2 Peter was not fully admitted into the catholic canon until the fourth century AD.

  The above was cobbled together from Moffitt's and McNeile's volumes on the NT.
• 

  Farkel

  Pole,
  
  Leolaia has you on the right track. Are you aware that NONE of the four gospels mentions their author? They, like most of the Old Testament speak in the third person. So, why should we believe anything they say if they don't bother to lay claim to their authors?
  
  I'll tell you one reason why: that makes it easy for them to be written with impunity long after the time the events occurred, while at the same time the author claims to have been an eye witness to the events he describes.
  
  Why should anyone take for granted the work of an anonymous author who claims God directed his writing and/or who claims they were eye witnesses to the events they describe? Any fool can do exactly that, and many have.
  
  How could Moses have written the book of Genesis and at the same time give a "history" of the Kings of Edom and then state, "Now these are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reibned over the sons of Israel." - Gen. 36:31. Israel didn't have any King until about 350 years after the death of Moses, yet the author of that verse is speaking in the past tense!
  
  How could Joshua have been the author of the book that bears his name, and after witnessing "God" making the sun (yes, the SUN, not the earth!) stand still, state that nothing like that had occurred again "up to this very day." People don't use an expression like that unless they are taking about a rather long period of time. Otherwise, it would imply that miracles like that happened fairly frequently.
  
  How could Moses (who allegedly wrote Deuteronomy) have described his own death and burial in the last chapter of that book. Earlier, that same book calls Moses the "meekest" man who ever lived. Would a truly meek person make such a boast?
  
  If you do some digging, you'll discover that most of the Old Testament was written or re-written hundreds of years after-the-fact, because the Jews of the time wanted to magnify themselves and their faith in order to give it more credence.
  
  At the same time, many scholars feel the same about the New Testament. That certain "miracle" stories, including the Transfiguration and Jesus' appearance to his disciples after his death were added to give more credence to the Christian faith.
  
  Even the WTS admits that the Gospels were written several decades after-the-fact. This begs the question, "why would the most monumental events in the history of man, including the life and miracles of the Son of God himself NOT be recorded until decades later?
  
  Lastly, why didn't any other eyewitness to these events other than "true believers" record anything about the life and miracles of Jesus?
  
  Farkel
• 

  Narkissos

  Just to point out the obvious, notice that the issue of pseudepigraphy shifts the emphasis of the moral problem.

  The author of 2 Peter may have sincerely believed that the Transfiguration story was for real and that the "apostle Peter" (as he had heard of him) was actually part of it. But he necessarily knew he was lying through his teeth when he pretended to be the apostle Peter...

  However, I wonder if our moral assessment of this is not somewhat anachronistic: in Jewish and Christian writings pseudepigraphy was the rule, not the exception. And what we call a lie may well be part of the writer's "sincerity", in view of his cultural context.

  In other words, the concept of "white lie" may not be so far off the mark...
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  Leolaia

  Narkissos.....Yep, a huge proportion of the literature being produced at the time was pseudonymous. The voice of the original apostles had been stilled and the nascent orthodox faced many crises (2 Peter deals with such topics as morality, cognitive dissonance, and probably gnosticism) in the early second century. Pseudegraphy was like resurrecting the voice of the dead prophet or apostle and having him comment on contemporary problems. The Pastorals served a similar purpose. It is a good question to ask how much of a "moral discrepency" there was in pretending to be Peter and yet condemning those who "make up stories" (2 Peter 2:3, or literally "fabricated words" from the Greek plastois logois), but one can note that v. 1 associates these "false teachers" as promoters of haireseis apoleias "destructive heresies," such as the Marcionites who distort the Pauline epistles in 3:16. That is, the author, while pretending falsely to be apostle Peter, believed he was carrying on faithfully the Petrine tradition and presenting what Peter would have said were he still alive in the flesh, whereas the people he condemns are heretics who apostasize from the "command" of the apostles (cf. 3:2). By our objective modern standards, it is a distinction without a difference, whereas in the author's own subjectivity, there was a tremendous difference between what he was doing in writing a pious fraud and what the heretics were doing in luring people away from Christ.

  BTW, the occurrence of the word haireseis in a technical Christian sense in 2 Peter 2:1 is yet another indication of a second century date.
• 

  peacefulpete

  I've enjoyed the nice exchange. But,

  The voice of the original apostles..... Who ???????