Thread: 1 Peter 2:18... Slaves, submit to your masters Board: Chapter & Worse / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Simon (# 1) on :
 
Verse nominated by Ian Abernethy

"Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel." (1 Peter 2:18, in context)

Ian comments: It condones the cruelty of slavery and suggests that to resist such cruelty is ungodly.

How much of a problem is this verse? Click "Vote Now" to cast your vote!

[ 31. July 2009, 10:57: Message edited by: Simon ]
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Isn't the point of the verse to make the best of a bad situation? After all, it's not like the slave is in a position to alter his master's behavior. The verse is addressed to slaves, not to bystanders or activists. Paul's advice to them might have been quite different.
 

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Posted by infinite_monkey (# 11333) on :
 
But the pairing of "with all respect" to "but also to the cruel" is a bit troubling.

Submitting to a situation because there's not much else to do for it is one thing; giving "respect" to that situation is something else. Even though I'm assuming the original word had a different shade of meaning, it still implies to me something beyond making the best of a bad situation and more into the territory of condoning injustice.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I take the "with all respect" to mean "salute the uniform, not the wearer." This person IS your master, more's the pity, therefore treat him as such and avoid mouthing off, etc. etc. I don't think a victim can condone anything by resolving to behave with dignity and respect in a bad situation. There is even a faint chance the cruel master may be led to repentance as a result of having his worldview shaken up (when said victim persists in returning good for evil).

It's like that canard about "you can't change the situation, but you can change your attitude." It may take supernatural help, but that's one of the reasons we have the Holy Spirit.
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
Paul's is a more specific injunction, but isn't it basically what Christ said (Matthew 5:yada yada): "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' 39But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well"?

And then, of course, comes the kicker: ""You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven."

Don't ya just love the Sermon on the Mount?
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Real answer to a rhetorical question: No.

I consider the Sermon on the Mount to be the religious equivalent of thumbscrews. Once God gets you safely locked into the commandments, he turns up the pressue without mercy. Auggghhh!!!!

I might feel differently if I had a hope in hell of keeping them!
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Paul's is a more specific injunction, but isn't it basically what Christ said (Matthew 5:yada yada): "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' 39But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well"?

And then, of course, comes the kicker: ""You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven."

Don't ya just love the Sermon on the Mount?

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"Paul's is a more specific injunction..." Peter's, dammit, Peter's!
 

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Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
I love how everyone's just assuming Peter actually thought slavery was bad, and was only giving this advice by way of minimising any harm. What a very 21st Century reading that is.

What about the perfectly reasonable idea that he thought slavery was perfectly fine and dandy, and this verse meant no more or less than "know your place and don't talk back to your masters"? You know, the plain reading of the text?
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
1. But it isn't the plain reading of the text. Sorry!

2. Because if Peter really thought the whole thing was fine and dandy, surely he'd slap those whiny slaves down so fast their heads would spin? not call the master "cruel"--that implies the slave has a point.

3. Because it doesn't fit with the tone of other NT passages dealing with slavery, where the arrangement is recognized and tolerated, but never praised--and where there are very strong hints that a Christian master ought to consider freeing a fellow believer who belonged to him (Philemon).

4. Because the early Christians WERE largely slaves, women, the poor, the foreigners--and if your church is made up mainly of such people, your leadership (Peter) is fairly likely to see the world the way the members do. Not the way their oppressors do.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Also, while slavery of any form pretty much sucks, if I am not mistaken under Jewish law slaves had a specific tenure and some (limited) rights. Not sure if Paul might have been speaking to slavery from a uniquely Jewish standpoint or not.

Not that it sucks any less. My guess is Paul was being political-- the last thing he wanted his new church to be accused of was encouraging a faith-based slave rebellion. That would get them some very bad attention.

(on a sort of related note-One of the things that came out in the 18th century Amistad trial in the U.S. was that the defendants (mutinous slaves that had commandeered a vessel and took it to the New England coast) had a different idea of what the word "slave" meant. The question was played by the prosecution-- you keep slaves yourselves, they said, so you know perfectly well what is going on. One of the defendants responded (in a nutshell, through translators) "Yeah we have slaves, but we just don't treat people the way you all do."
 

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Posted by Kid Who Cracked (# 13963) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Also, while slavery of any form pretty much sucks, if I am not mistaken under Jewish law slaves had a specific tenure and some (limited) rights. Not sure if Paul might have been speaking to slavery from a uniquely Jewish standpoint or not.

Not that it sucks any less. My guess is Paul was being political-- the last thing he wanted his new church to be accused of was encouraging a faith-based slave rebellion. That would get them some very bad attention.

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I'm very doubtful that Peter wrote the book, but I'm pretty much certain Paul didn't.

Just being pedantic.

[ 01. August 2009, 04:30: Message edited by: Kid Who Cracked ]
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
They did, and even in the non-Jewish Roman Empire slavery was quite a different thing than the kind familiar from America pre-Civil War. For one thing, it was not racially based (I understand the U.S. started this way too, though it changed later). Most slaves ended up that way as prisoners of war or as a result of debt. This meant that almost anyone could become a slave if their luck was bad enough, so there were highly educated slaves and even slaves originally of high status. Some slaves ran businesses on the side; some held positions of great trust. And I'm pretty sure slavery did not normally continue through multiple generations of a family. In many (most?) cases a slave had a decent hope of being free before the end of his own life, never mind his children's.

Obviously slavery was and is a great evil; but this is just to point out that in Peter's day it was much more of a mixed bag. Whether one got a cruel or kind master was probably pretty random--much like job hunts today, I think.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Kid Who Cracked:
I'm very doubtful that Peter wrote the book, but I'm pretty much certain Paul didn't.

Just being pedantic.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
And I'm pretty sure slavery did not normally continue through multiple generations of a family. In many (most?) cases a slave had a decent hope of being free before the end of his own life, never mind his children's.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
They did, and even in the non-Jewish Roman Empire slavery was quite a different thing than the kind familiar from America pre-Civil War. For one thing, it was not racially based (I understand the U.S. started this way too, though it changed later). Most slaves ended up that way as prisoners of war or as a result of debt. This meant that almost anyone could become a slave if their luck was bad enough, so there were highly educated slaves and even slaves originally of high status. Some slaves ran businesses on the side; some held positions of great trust. And I'm pretty sure slavery did not normally continue through multiple generations of a family. In many (most?) cases a slave had a decent hope of being free before the end of his own life, never mind his children's.

Obviously slavery was and is a great evil; but this is just to point out that in Peter's day it was much more of a mixed bag. Whether one got a cruel or kind master was probably pretty random--much like job hunts today, I think.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
I think the position of slaves in Rome may actually have been worse up until the Spartacus incident.

And if that's what it took to make situations better, maybe there's a reason Peter and Paul advocated a less obvious strategy.

Also, there's the underlying argument (in Peter at least) that he's making that resistance doesn't work when you're being unjust yourself. If you want to be justified, you can't do it by fighting back, by returning violence with violence. It seems to me that if you read the rest of the passage closely, Peter implicitly accepts that the situation is unjust and says that the way out of it isn't to be an asshole to your masters even if they're being assholes to you. It's the strong side of turning the other cheek. If you really want to win them over, don't give them any reason to think you're being unjust yourself.

I strongly disapprove of the way some have used this text, but I'm not sure I'm willing to cede scriptural authority to the ones who've made the greatest mess of it.

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Posted by k-mann (# 8490) on :
 
There is a lot of speculation here as to what St. Peter (or St. Paul...) thought about slavery. But we cannot presume to know what they thought on the matter. What we know is that their master, Christ, was opposed to it. (This is not inconsistant with tolerating it. One cannot enjoy freedom if one is killed as a result of 'talking back,' etc.) Christ Himself said, reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah:

quote:

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He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:17b-21; NRSV)

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But I highly doubt that He would condone violence as a means to that. To build on this point, we could perhaps see the relationship between the slave and his master sort of analogous to the relationship between the Palestinian Jews and the Romans. It seem from the Gospel that Christ didn't condone the Roman actions (as it would seem from His words from Luke 4). But it also seems that he opposed the violence solution of the Zealots.
 

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Posted by BWSmith (# 2981) on :
 
You have to roll your eyes at anyone who thinks that God or the Bible is pro-slavery.

(It's only through the selective passage-citing in the 1850s American South that this is even an issue.)

Stated simply, if God liked slavery, he would have left Israel in Egypt. End of discussion.
 

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Posted by Nicolaas (# 15325) on :
 
I dont see what the big problem is with slavery myself its way better then wasting so much on keeping people in jail besides those people are often their because theyv had no good influence in their life and the like and with the proper laws could be a very productive part of society its like marriage it can be twisted in so many diffrent ways yet when it works under christian rules it works great.

[ 05. December 2009, 00:11: Message edited by: Nicolaas ]
 

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Posted by Jahlove (# 10290) on :
 
you're not a nutter by any chance, i suppose?
 

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Posted by Nicolaas (# 15325) on :
 
if by a nutter your implying im nuts then yes some people do think that myself im torn on the issue sometimes i do think so sometimes not regardless though that has nothing at all to do with my post(unless your implying im nuts because im promoting slavery which im beggining to suspect)
 

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Posted by Hamp (# 15362) on :
 
What you have to understand is slavery was not Peter's agenda, saving the slave's soul was, for Jesus and John the Baptist("the axe is at the root of the tree")had told Peter the coming of the new order is near. Ask yourself what would your priority have been if you were Peter? If you take the Bible out of context like most things you will not get the full understanding.
 

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Posted by Hamp (# 15362) on :
 
This may be a case of taking material out of context. I would like a consensus of Bible scholars best guess when it was written and if Peter could have written it. Peter was illiterate and like Jesus did not speak Greek, was the oldest copy we have in good Greek and refer to things that would have happen after Peter's death and so on?
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
a. Peter was almost certainly not illiterate. I'm sure as the son of a wealthy fishing family he went to Hebrew school and all that. And how do you suppose he kept accounts?
b. Both Jesus and Peter almost certainly spoke some Greek. It was the language of the marketplaces throughout the Roman empire. For them NOT to speak any Greek would have been rather like a Tijuanese with no English at all--rather unlikely.
c. 1 Peter is not one of the antilegoumena, the books about which some churches had doubts. The early church (who were closest to the scene, after all) did accept it was written by the apostle Peter. That puts the burden of proof on anyone who wants to say otherwise today.
 

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Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 
And even if Peter were illiterate (which we have no reason to think apart from a prejudice against fishermen), he could have dictated a letter.
 

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Posted by Hamp (# 15362) on :
 
Lamb Chop/Churchgeek

No disrespect intended, but I will have to go along with the Bible scholars on this one rather than what you imagine to be true.

Most scholars think Peter was dead long before II Peter was written, and even I Peter is often regarded at best as from his school of thought. That he personally penned it in Greek seems a stretch.
Along the same line, that Peter did not write a gospel but (at best) had Mark write down his story, gives us the impression that he was not literate. Not to speak ill of him, for during his life-time he had to deal with his native Aramaic and later with Greek and Latin. But that's all the more reason to think that he was not master of any of the three to do the writing in any of those languages. Please don't drop a which scholars on me like that settles the issue. Get out on the Internet and find the pros and cons and let them speak for them self.

hamp

P.S.

I notice some people on this Ship have the idea that citing a passage in the Bible is some how proof in itself of what they are trying to prove.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Believe me! I have experts! Don't ask me who they are!
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Hamp darling,

No disrespect intended, but I will have to go along with the early Church Fathers on this one rather than what you imagine to be true.

Not to mention my Greek and Hebrew degree and my doctorate. Oops, I did, didn't I? Crap.
 

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Posted by Hamp (# 15362) on :
 
Lamb Chopped,

Your credential sound great! Now give us some meat. Which Church Fathers? Did they talk to Peter about his writings? When did they talk to him? Where did they talk to him? Did he say Mark ghost wrote it for him in Greek? What is the earliest copy we have of it? Please share your research into this subject so I can stop imaging my own. Give us a break.

Hamp
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Hamp, did your experts, of whom you're too ashamed to name, talk with Peter? Surely that's a smoke screen if there ever was one. Are you incapable of engaging, or just choosing not to?
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Actually I'm beginning to suspect he wants us to do his homework for him. Hamp, mon ami, no can do. Get your buns down to a decent research library (screw the Internet, you think you're going to find Great Thots™ there?) and do your own bloody reading. I suggest you start with the formation of canon and dip into the Ante-Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Then a side of Kittel for some word study. Get going, dude, you got a lot of work to do.
 

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Posted by Yonatan (# 11091) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Hamp:
Lamb Chopped,

Your credential sound great! Now give us some meat. Which Church Fathers? Did they talk to Peter about his writings? When did they talk to him? Where did they talk to him? Did he say Mark ghost wrote it for him in Greek? What is the earliest copy we have of it? Please share your research into this subject so I can stop imaging my own. Give us a break.

Hamp

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quote:

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Originally posted by Hamp:
What you have to understand is slavery was not Peter's agenda, saving the slave's soul was, for Jesus and John the Baptist("the axe is at the root of the tree")had told Peter the coming of the new order is near. Ask yourself what would your priority have been if you were Peter? If you take the Bible out of context like most things you will not get the full understanding.

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quote:

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This may be a case of taking material out of context. I would like a consensus of Bible scholars best guess when it was written and if Peter could have written it. Peter was illiterate and like Jesus did not speak Greek, was the oldest copy we have in good Greek and refer to things that would have happen after Peter's death and so on?

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Lamb Chopped is a she. Just so you know.

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Oh crap, Mousethief, did you have to let the cat out of the bag? Now he's going to realize there are females with doctorates in the world.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Hamp, darling, it's so kind of you to think of my welfare. I rather think my seminary colleagues would prefer me to do my second doctorate where I teach, thanks.
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
Come on, Hamp, Lamb Chopped, let's get beyond "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours". I know I'm undereducated compared to you two. Would you be kind enough share a little of the strongest and possibly earliest arguments for your positions? Who indicated that Peter was a redneck bumpkin all his life? Who admired Peter's thinking and intellect? Personally, I keep thinking that reading and especially writing was a marketable skill back then. Just because you couldn't read, didn't mean you were a dunce*; it just wasn't your skill.

Although some of Peter's pre-Resurrection statements made him seem like he was making a mighty personal effort to look like one.
 

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Posted by Hamp (# 15362) on :
 
Lyda*Rose

Lambchopped is right you cannot do what you want here. My best suggestion is:

If you really want to know I recommend a course by the Teaching Company. It is by a well known professor of religion at the University of North Carolina Bart Ehrman(reads Greek and Hebrew too). The title is something like "The Church Fathers", 30 minute lectures on DVD. You can find the Teaching Company by doing a search on the Internet.
Hamp
 

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Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 
I think there's a line somewhere in Acts that refers to Peter as being less than educate, specifically Acts 4:13. Of course, Acts isn't exactly the model of unbiased reporting... Plus that verse is being used for rhetorical purpose, not a "just the facts, ma'am" report.

I've also heard it said that he was a fisherman, though that tends to go the other way since that more accurately means he was an entrepreneur.
 

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Posted by Hamp (# 15362) on :
 
LambChopped

Sorry about the gender mix up! As to library work, over the last three years I have logged up about 100 university course hours in and around the religious subject. The results is I am concerned that the future will require your students to work with the work of people like Bart Ehrman and Amy-jill Levine and they will not prepared. If you ignore there work and prepare them with "yes we know about them they just don't matter" just will not wash with future christians. Most of us old people just sit and stare politely at the religious 3rd century jargon from the pulpit knowing we will soon know what everyone wants to but we can't come back and tell you all.
Hamp

P.S.

I think Peter was dead before the Church Fathers came on the scene. By the way in Paul's letter to the Romans why didn't he mention his association with Peter if he was the Bishop of Rome and founded the Roman Church?
 

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Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Hamp:
LambChopped

Sorry about the gender mix up! As to library work, over the last three years I have logged up about 100 university course hours in and around the religious subject. The results is I am concerned that the future will require your students to work with the work of people like Bart Ehrman and Amy-jill Levine and they will not prepared. If you ignore there work and prepare them with "yes we know about them they just don't matter" just will not wash with future christians. Most of us old people just sit and stare politely at the religious 3rd century jargon from the pulpit knowing we will soon know what everyone wants to but we can't come back and tell you all.
Hamp

P.S.

I think Peter was dead before the Church Fathers came on the scene. By the way in Paul's letter to the Romans why didn't he mention his association with Peter if he was the Bishop of Rome and founded the Roman Church?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Hamp:
Lyda*Rose

Lambchopped is right you cannot do what you want here. My best suggestion is:

If you really want to know I recommend a course by the Teaching Company. It is by a well known professor of religion at the University of North Carolina Bart Ehrman(reads Greek and Hebrew too). The title is something like "The Church Fathers", 30 minute lectures on DVD. You can find the Teaching Company by doing a search on the Internet.
Hamp

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quote:

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Originally posted by Hamp:
If you really want to know I recommend a course by the Teaching Company. It is by a well known professor of religion at the University of North Carolina Bart Ehrman(reads Greek and Hebrew too). The title is something like "The Church Fathers", 30 minute lectures on DVD. You can find the Teaching Company by doing a search on the Internet.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Come on, Hamp, Lamb Chopped, let's get beyond "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours". I know I'm undereducated compared to you two. Would you be kind enough share a little of the strongest and possibly earliest arguments for your positions? Who indicated that Peter was a redneck bumpkin all his life? Who admired Peter's thinking and intellect?

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I don't mind, though I'm going to be late for work if I don't get off my butt now. Later?

Though I'm almost thinking I ought to PM you, since I rather hate to spoil Hamp's illusions. So enchanting, to receive recommendations like his. It gives me a warm glow.
 

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Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on :
 
Well, there's an object lesson in assuming you're more of an expert than everyone else on the board!

At the same time: it does appear from a brief look-around that there's some disagreement about 1 Peter's authorship. Wikipedia cites The early Christian world by Philip Esler:

quote:

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the view that the epistle was written by St. Peter is attested to by a number of Church Fathers: Irenaeus (140-203), Tertullian (150-222), Clement of Alexandria (155-215) and Origen of Alexandria (185-253). Most scholars believe the author was not Peter, but an unknown author writing after Peter's death.

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Also cited is Raymond E. Brown An Introduction to the New Testament which states that "the majority scholarly view" is that 1 Peter is pseudepigraphal.

Anyway, unlike LC I've not studied this field, and would welcome the thoughts and opinions of those who are, assuming that we're not doing Hamp's homework for him .

- Chris.
 

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Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 
I've done some study (per posted above,) and think there are decent arguments on both sides, though I lean more toward authentic authorship.

I've also been taught not to assume that "the majority of scholars" have it right.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
I've also been taught not to assume that "the majority of scholars" have it right.

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If it were really obvious there wouldn't be a "majority of scholars" there would be a "unanimity of scholars".
 

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Posted by Hamp (# 15362) on :
 
First, I want to thank Chris for his excellent work and hope when I start a fire in the future he will be there to put me out. Now for the next fire,Lamb Chopped, honey, what I am trying to ask; Paul's Letter to the Church in Rome which he did not found and has never visited but plans to visit, is to introduce himself. Now it seems strange to me that in introducing himself he would not refer to his association with Peter. It is my understanding Catholics assert that Peter founded the church in Rome and became the first Bishop of the church; therefore, the first Pope.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Hamp, bless your heart, you've got a LOT of catching up to do. Paul was well-known (shall I say notorious?) throughout the Christianity-touched world, first as a persecutor and later as a missionary. And he was known to both Jewish and Christian communities. The chances of the folk at Rome saying "Who dat?" were next to nonexistent.

As for the rest of your response, may I take it that you are satisfied with Chris' information? Or must we bore everyone to tears pulling out more church fathers to satisfy you?

Warning: I'm about to bore the ever-living pants off you on the subject of Peter's literacy in a moment, provided my young son cooperates. Think carefully before you volunteer for more!
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Lyda*Rose, I'm sorry to be annoying. I'll post a summary here before I get into the Mega-Boredom I promised Hamp.

First of all, a disclaimer since I've probably gone too far teasing the newbie, and I see the Lord looking rather sternly at me (apologies, Hamp)--

Yes, I've taught at seminary for several years, in the graduate school, but I am not a theological professor. My doctorate is in English and rhetoric, with a major concentration in Renaissance and textual studies (hence my boring pedantry on the subject of manuscripts and authorship!). My teaching at the seminary focused on preparing doctoral students to construct effective and logical argumentation, and ended this past year during a round of layoffs (the economy, yo). It was fun while it lasted!

As for my theological background, I would judge I have the equivalent of a half-finished doctorate from a variety of sources. My Greek and Hebrew I got as one of my college majors, and I've used them in the course of my academic, publishing and ministry work ever since. I hope some day to have the money to formalize the theological training with a second doctorate. And I expect my colleagues WOULD prefer I did it under their beady eye! In short, I am a theological geek.

Okay, the short summary (God bless you Chris for saving me pulling out the textbooks)--

The primary reason as I understand it in favor of believing in actual Petrine authorship is the fact that this was believed to be the case by people much closer to the facts of the situation than we are, both in time and in culture. In other words, we are talking about the witness of individual church fathers (like those Chris cites) and the corporate judgement of the early church expressed in the canon. I'll take the church fathers first.

The fathers are of course not infallible. They can and do make mistakes. Nevertheless as human beings they are much better placed than just about anybody to know and report what was generally believed concerning the authorship of ancient Christian writings. (The ability of modern scholarship to somehow magically divine authorship problems is much exaggerated. Take a few courses, or talk to a few authors, and see if you don't believe me then.)

People can and do write in radically different voices, using different vocabulary, on different occasions. Anyone analyzing the corpus of work allegedly produced by Lamb Chopped would doubtless be able to get a whole community of authors out of me, if I weren't there to tell them the truth. In fact, the whole "Homer/Shakesepeare/Whoozit didn't write Homer etc." thing is an old fad in the classics and in modern literature, quite old-fashioned in fact; for some odd reason the literary fads seem to take years or even decades to jump the genre wall into theology! Whereupon they are hailed as New & Exciting Developments, and people waffle on about them in the journals for ages. (This, by the way, is one of the tricks I handed my aspiring ThD students: bone up on a lit crit theory or a new fad in history, and then apply it to theology. You'll be hailed as a startlingly original thinker. )

But back to authorship--

This all means that, if you want to know who REALLY wrote something, you can analyze to your heart's content, but in the end there is no substitute for human testimony--and that testimony from sources placed as near the original writing as possible. If you can't get the author himself, talk to his friends. If you can't get the eye and ear-witness friends, talk to THEIR friends and see what they've heard. (It's worth remembering that the church fathers start with people who learned from the apostles themselves--Polycarp, anyone? Or people like Justin Martyr? The fathers are not ALL of them centuries removed from Peter.)

Now my understanding is that none of these early witnesses denies the Petrine authorship of 1 Peter. (2 Peter is a different matter, the word you want to Google is "antilegoumena" if you're interested.) But AFAIK Peter's authorship was pretty much a done deal. It would take some pretty strong evidence against Petrine authorship to overturn that kind of settled and unanimous testimony.

I'm also considering here the testimony of the church-as-a-whole in canon formation. One of the criteria for something getting into the canon was apostolic authorship. To be sure, there are books by non-apostles in the canon (Luke, duh) and by unknowns (Hebrews); so this was not an absolute requirement. But it WAS an absolute requirement that, if the book CLAIMED to be apostolic, it had to be so. If anyone had popped up with a credible claim that 1 Peter was written by someone else, that would have thrown a spanner into the works immediately.

"But wait," someone may argue. "There are plenty of pseudo-writings floating around that claim to be by apostles and are not." Yes; and you'll note that those are not in the canon. Certainly not among the homolegoumena (the books about which there was never any serious debate in the early church). But 1 Peter is a homolegoumenon.

Both the individual early church fathers and the whole church as a group believed Peter to be the author of 1 Peter; these are early and credible witnesses. I therefore conclude that 1 Peter was most likely written by Peter.

(boredom to be continued after child is in bed)
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Boring Screed No. 3: On the literacy of St. Peter. To be included. The location of ancient Galilee, effects on literacy and language of. Occupational advantages of literacy and multilingualism. Together with a short excursus touching the subject of the literacy of Our Lord and Savior, together with His linguistic achievements. To which is added sundry other matters, as may become the discourse and render it the more profitable unto the readers thereof...

Ahem.

(Literature geeks. )

Where to start? Literacy first.

I'd have to say that if you were looking for relatively high literacy rates in the ancient world you'd probably be best off looking among the Jews, simply because they were so thoroughly people of the Book. It was a religious duty to train up your sons in the Law of the Lord, and this was most easily done by hoicking them off to the local synagogue school, if you lived in a town (as Peter and Andrew did). The school existed to support religious education, and while a lot of that would be accomplished through recitation and memorization, some would be done through reading and writing. The scrolls of the Law and Prophets would be most readily available there, so even if you came from a family too poor to have books of their own, you could get your eyes on them there and would likely be encouraged to do so because of the religious aspect. So in this the Jews were very different from most or all of the surrounding religions which were not "of the Book."

Peter was of course from Galilee, also known as "Galilee of the nations" on account of the heavy Gentile influence. As I recall King Herod had at least one major building project within a day's walk or less of Peter's home. We'll consider what that means for multilingualism later (duh!) but for right now, I'll simply say that this is a situation that encourages trade and lots of it. That includes trade in foodstuffs, such as FISH. (What else do you feed hungry builders? I seriously doubt Herod was the kind of man to put out hard cash on expensive red meat for his labor force. He strikes me as a cheap SOB as far as people's welfare goes.)

And trade requires record-keeping (and thus literacy and numeracy)--particularly if you are part of a fairly well-to-do fishing venture, as Peter seems to have been. (He appears to have pretty close ties to John and James bar Zebedee, also fishermen in the same area, and their ties appear to pre-date their call to follow Christ, though that's more an impression than something proveable. But John and James certainly came from a well-off fishing family with hired men and connections to the high priest's establishment in Jerusalem--so Peter may have been much the same. Certainly he is credited with having at least one boat, which suggests he was somewhere above the lowest of hired hands, anyway. And he's married, and owns a home and supports his wife's mother as well. On balance the evidence suggests a fairly stable job of the sort where literacy would be useful if not absolutely essential.)

So far I see no reason to suppose Peter could not have been literate, in Aramaic at least, and probably Hebrew as well (at least a reading knowledge). If I'm right about his job and co-workers, literacy would have been a distinct advantage. (Sure, you can hire a scribe if you're illiterate; but why put out the money? I suspect Peter's Dad saw to it that his son had this skill for practical reasons as well as religious ones.)

Brief aside on Jesus' own literacy: We know he could read--we have his reading of Isaiah in the synagogue to testify to that--and as for writing, there's that slightly dubious John 8 passage. Plus a carpenter/builder in Galilee would find the same advantages to literacy that a prosperous fisherman would.

Let's move on to multi-lingualism.

Jesus was definitely bilingual at least in Aramaic (his home language) and Hebrew (the language of the OT, which he read and explicated in the synagogue). To this we can likely add Greek, which was the common trading language of the Roman Empire, and particularly useful in a polyglot multicultural place like Galilee. (Palestine was and is a major crossroads for just about everybody in that part of the world--it's why they kept getting wiped out by traveling armies all the time--and Galilee in particular was surrounded by Gentiles to one side and Samaritans to the other. At least one major trade route ran through it and gets referenced in that Micah prophecy, if I recall correctly.) The foreign influence shows up in some of the local names, even--the disciple Philip carries a Greek name (phil + hippos, "lover of horses"). And what about Nicodemus? Surely that's Greek for "victory of the people."

For Jesus--or Peter, or James, or John, or any of the Galilean disciples--to be without Greek would be as much of a handicap as being without English on the Tijuana border. You can survive, certainly, but your opportunities in life are going to be severely limited.

What about Latin? Well, my guess would be that there was less scope for learning this kind of thing, since the Romans too spoke Greek when they were out and about among the foreigners. Still, it WAS the language of the conquerors and occupiers, who could harass you on a daily basis if they felt so inclined, so a wise man would try to pick up what he could. So it wouldn't surprise me if Peter (and Jesus) had at least a smattering of Latin. Again, this logic would apply to any of the disciples, though I doubt they could hold civilized conversations with Cicero! Scraps and pieces, maybe. But nothing for most of us to sneeze at.

So to sum up, I expect Jesus and most of the Twelve, including Peter, were literate and numerate. They were also most likely fluent or reasonably so in at least two languages (Aramaic and "street Greek, koine), had a basic reading knowledge of Hebrew (Jesus in particular), and had a few scraps of Latin. Not bad by Western standards. Not surprising by African standards (where multi-lingualism is necessary for survival in places).

So what does this mean for Peter's authorship? It makes it possible. There's certainly nothing against it. And if I recall correctly, the Greek of 1 Peter is by no means highly polished. I see no reason why a fisherman turned missionary could not have written it.
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
Thank you, Lamb Chopped, for being so generous with your reply. Now I have a map for some of these discussions.
 

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Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on :
 
Thank you Lamb Chopped for taking time to write that excellent summary. I'm rather embarrassed that anyone should thank me for taking a couple of minutes to look up 1 Peter in Wikipedia!

- Chris.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I'm glad if it helps, Lyda*Rose!
Actually, Chris, you helped me out hugely. I got halfway home from work before I remembered I'd left the book I needed at the office.

[ 13. January 2010, 22:31: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
 

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Posted by Hamp (# 15362) on :
 
Everyone please, I am not a scholar, expert or anything of the sort. Most of what I know about the Bible comes from taking these courses:

The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers
From Jesus to Constantine
Historical Jesus
Lost Christianities
New Testament
The Making of the New Testament Canon
Apostle Paul
Jesus and the Gospels
Story of the Bible
Exploring the Roots of Religion
Early Christianity
History of Christian Theology
Philosophy of Religion
Great Figures of the New Testament
Old Testament
Natural Law and Human Nature
The Catholic Church: A History
Popes and the Papacy
Book of Genesis
Skeptics and Believers: Religious Debate in the Western Intellectual Tradition
Luther: Gospel, Law, and Reformation
Augustine: Philosopher and Saint
Late Antiquity: Crisis and Transformation
Great World Religions
Emperors of Rome
Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World.

Are the professors who give these courses scholars, authorities, experts? In my opinion you have to take the course and decide for your self. The courses are available to all. What I do is pick out of the courses what I think are religious sticky points and post them with the hope that someone out there will have a source that throws a different light on the point.

Hamp
 

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Posted by Hamp (# 15362) on :
 
LC,

You are right in a way, Paul was notorious, but if you read his letter to the Roman Church carefully it strikes me he is laying out his religious beliefs for the Church not his character. In his other letters doesn't he send greeting to those he knows in the Church? But here not even a "hello" to his fellow missionary Peter who he spent time with in Jerusalem and would know his take on "The Good News".
Hamp
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Peter didn't spend his life in Rome! I expect he wasn't there at the time. And even if he were there, there's no reason Paul should be expected to know that. No telephone to ring him up, after all. When Paul sent greetings, he did it to people he could reasonably expect to be present--that is, the residents.
 

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Posted by Hamp (# 15362) on :
 
LC,

As in most cases you are probably right. Was he, Paul, not going to take up a collection to take to the Jerusalem church? When he went to Jerusalem was that the time he got into trouble with the Jewish authorities had to be saved by the Roman authorities and as a Roman citizen was allowed to appeal his case to the Emperor and finely sent to Rome under house arrest? What puzzles me that on Peter's turf why would he do this? He must have know what he was risking,his life and his services to a fragile Christian movement. Was he blinded by his belief that the "end Time" would come in his life time as Jesus had predicted?


Hamp
 

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Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 
I see this passage as wrapping it -- and related matters -- up in a neat package. Sort of a "Meet the Lord where He finds you and walk onward and upward from there."

We're all supposed to be His (POW voluntary bondservant) slaves, whether or not we are slaves to another man. (The voluntary bit I see because I believe we have a choice about accepting the rescue.)

We're all supposed to be His bought-and-paid-for, redeemed, bride-price-freed siblings, something much more to be treasured than whether or not we can claim some sort of freedman status in the flesh.

Regardless of the condition of the outward man, the inward man needs to be free in Jesus.
 

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Posted by bush baptist (# 12306) on :
 

quote:

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POW voluntary bondservant

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Is that POW for prisoner-of-war? Just trying to follow the metaphor -- are we being Christ's prisoner's, or freed prisoners, previously held by the enemy? Or is POW something else entirely?
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Hamp, thanks for the undeserved compliment--but do more reading, esp. in Acts. Peter and Paul and etc. had at least twenty years or more to play with between Christ's resurrection and their own deaths--during that time they appear to have been on the road a great deal. Which is natural for apostles ("apostle" = missionary). Nobody seems to have had "turf" so to speak except possibly James in Jerusalem, and even that was shared (so to speak) with the original apostles. Really, there is room enough and time to come up with multiple competing theories on just about anything--travels to Jerusalem or Rome, letters criss crossing, people in a zillion constantly-changing places--if you want to discuss it more, we'd probably better vamoose for Purg or Kerygmania, before we annoy the hosts.

Back to the OP in general, then.

Yes, POW normally means prisoner of war, and there are a holy ton of metaphors that express our relationship to Jesus Christ. This could well be one of them. Former enemies of God, now taken captive by God's Son and converted to loving bondservants? Why not?

Or you could look at it as POWs taken by Satan and forcibly rescued by Christ and restored to the glorious freedom of the children of God.

It's sort of like a kaleidoscope. Ever changing patterns, each more beautiful than the one before.
 

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Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 
Philemon 1:23 uses the description "fellow prisoner in Christ" -- that's what the word is in the Greek, masculine, a fellow prisoner.

Seems like anyone in the Roman world would "see" the imagery of a conquering hero, coming home after his triumph, leading the valuable captured ones in His wake, taking them home to His Father.
 

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Posted by bush baptist (# 12306) on :
 
Thanks, both!

(I've always read Philemon 1:23 as meaning a literal fellow-prisoner -- but I don't want to pull this into Keryg territory, or too far from the verse in hand!)
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Oh, go for it. This board definitely has Keryg elements.

[ 25. January 2010, 00:48: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 
I've always considered myself a literal prisoner of the Lord.

Privileged place to be. Consider the only other jailer you could pick.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 


You know, this whole discussion COULD start shading over into theological bondage stuff . . .
 

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Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 
Holy Handcuffs, Lamb Chopped!
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Well, it does put a new spin on that whole "bride of Christ" business...
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
Is there a "safe word" with Christ?
 

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Posted by bush baptist (# 12306) on :
 
Ummm... Christ is the "safe word".
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Pssst Bush Baptist--lovely quote. But your mailbox is full!
 

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Posted by bush baptist (# 12306) on :
 
Whooops! cleared!
 

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