"We believe ... justified by faith" - Peter in Acts and Galatians

In Gal. 2.16 the "we have believed" (episteusamen) probably refers to Jewish Christians (not Jews or only Apostles) like Peter who agree on a commonly agreed gospel. This would suggest that belief in righteousness by faith was not a Pauline invention, but was part of the shared understanding of the Jerusalem church. This counters the assertion of Albert Schweitzer that righteousness by faith was Paul's own articulation which emerged from (a) an antithetical response to the proselytizers who argued for righteousness by works of law, (b) out of exegesis of Hab. 2.4 and Gen. 15.6, and (c) because it is less convoluted than justified by solidarity and union with the Christ. (I should note that Richard Hays and E.P. Sanders also recognize that righteousness by faith is not a uniquely Pauline formulation). But what interests me is that Gal. 2.16 seems to correspond to Peter's speech in Acts 15 at the Jerusalem Council which also refers to believing in Jesus and being saved by faith. In which case, Paul is certainly putting forth an authentic Petrine position in Gal. 2.16 and not a straw man argument nor is he misrepresenting Peter to the Galatians. In other words, the episteusamen of Gal. 2.16 corresponds to the pisteuomen of Acts 15.11!

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Gal. 2.15-16: "We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified" (ESV).

Acts 15.8-11: And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will” (ESV).

Witherington on authorship of 2 Peter

Ben Witherington in his recent book on 1-2 Peter argues that 2 Peter is clearly dependent upon Jude (following R. Bauckham, D. Watson, and M. Gilmour [pp. 260-72]). He surmises that 2 Peter is a composite document based on genuine Petrine testimony (2 Pet. 1.12-21), Jude, and interaction with Paul's letters. According to Witherington, 2 Peter exhibits a form of grandiose Asiatic Greek rhetoric and he considers it unlikely that a fisherman had picked up such "bookish Greek" and there is no reference to an amaneuensis being used. 2 Peter is a truly "catholic" letter in that it is an attempt at mass communication to all Christians in the empire. Witherington is quick to add that 2 Peter is not a pseudepigraphon and he rejects Bauckham's view that 2 Peter follows the "testament" genre. Witherington urges a way beyond the impasse of Petrine vs. pseudepigraphal: "But it is equally surprising that many scholars today do not seem to realize that there are other options besides declaring this document to be a pseudepigraphon or a letter composed by Peter himself" (p. 269). Unlike the pseudepigrapha, 2 Peter has no special axe to grind and no unique doctrine to promulgate. He concludes that: (1) 2 Pet. 1.12-21 (and perhaps 2 Pet. 3.1-3) must be seen as the testimony of Peter passed on orally at Rome before his martyrdom; (2) It uses Jude and is good Hellenistic rhetoric but not bombastic; (3) we should see 2 Pet. 3.3-11 as a summary of apostolic teaching written in asiatic Greek; (4) It is likely that this document was written up after Peter's (and Paul's?) death by someone in the Petrine circle, a colleague, probably not an understudy. Witherington gives tacit approval to Baukham's suggestion of Linus the second bishop of Rome (2 Tim. 4.21; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.13, 21). Thus: "Second Peter is a composite document that draws on material from both Peter and Jude, two earlier apostles, and reflects some knowledge of Paul as well. It bears neither the form nor character of a pseudepigraphon, and since it includes some genuine Petrine material, it is understandably attributed to tis first and most famous contributor' (p. 271).

On a side note, I had a wry smile on my face when I read the CT interview with Tom Schreiner concerning his recent NT Theology (which looks like a very fine book indeed). When asked about possible objections to his volume,  Tom replied: "Peter affirms Paul's writings as Scripture (2 Pet. 3:15-16). Of course, the standard view in critical scholarship is that Peter did not write 2 Peter, but I argue in my commentary on that letter that there are solid grounds for affirming Petrine authorship. At the end of the day, those who think the NT contradicts itself buy into a philosophical worldview opposed to the NT message. Adolf Schlatter rightly observed that too many do NT scholarship from atheistic presuppositions." The irony is that Schlatter himself did not believe in Petrine authorship of 2 Peter! Go ye and read the end of his book The Theology of the Apostles.

Whatever one's view of 2 Peter, this all makes for good conversation over a bottle of Spanish vino!

Brief History of Jewish Christianity, Part Two: Peter and the Twelve (2.1.1.1)

This post is the first of three dealing with the subject of The Jerusalem and Galilean churches and the Jewish mission to Jews (2.1.1) under the larger topic of A Brief History of Jewish Christianity in Palestine and the Diaspora (2.1). The subjects of the posts will be Peter and the Twelve (2.1.1.1), James, the brother of Jesus (2.1.1.2) and Jesus’ other brothers (2.1.1.3)

Luke’s account of the early history of the Jewish believing community in Jerusalem contains a significant amount of ambiguity with respect to the development of the leadership structures of the community. Clearly at first the Twelve function as the center of the Jerusalem leadership with Peter as the chairperson and spokesman so to say. Their leadership can be seen in a number of passages in the first 12 chapters of Acts. Among them are:

(1) The fact that they felt it necessary to appoint a replacement for Judas (1:12-26)
(2) Peter’s Pentecost sermon (2:14-41)
(3) Peter and John’s arrest and appearance before the Sanhedrin (4:1-21)
(4) Annias and Sapphira episode (5:1-11)
(5) Arrest and jailing of apostles (NB: for Luke the “apostles and the “Twelve” are synonyms)(5:17-42)
(6) The Twelve’s appointment of the seven spirit-filled men for ministry (6:2-6)
(7) The apostles sending of Peter and John to Samaria (8:14-15)
(8) Peter and Cornelius’ conversion (10)
(9) Peter and James, the brother of John’s arrest (12)

Still as the narrative progresses through these chapters there are hints that the leadership is in process. First, mention is made of a wider group of leaders. We see this first in the reference in Acts 11:1 to the “Apostles and the brothers”; the later group not however a reference to the actual brothers of Jesus. Again in 11:22 a wider group (the “church at Jerusalem”) is said to have sent Barnabas to Anitoch. Also in chapter 11 the financial gift brought by Barnabas and Saul was given to the “elders”. This process seems to have ended by Acts 15 where James clearly has taken the preeminent role of leadership in the Jerusalem church; see also Acts 21:18. Note that Peter specifically signals him out in Acts 12:17 after his miraculous release from prison.

Second, if Peter is any indication of the function of the wider group of Twelve, then after they are said to have remained in Jerusalem subsequent to the onslaught of persecution (8:1), they appear to be involved in a wider missionary endeavor and marginal in the leadership structure in Jerusalem, although clearly not absent. Peter for example said to be travelling about the country (9:32) and was residing in Joppa in Acts 10. This observation of the missional function of the Twelve seems to confirm my suspicion that the Twelve’s appointment by Jesus had significant functional importance which although Matthew most explicitly emphasizes is clearly not absent in the other Gospels. Matthew’s unique introduction of the Twelve in contrast to Mark and Luke, suggests I think his understanding of the Twelve as having an emissary role. In Matthew’s view, and perhaps now confirmed historically in Acts’ portrait, the Twelve are called the twelve apostles (Matt 10:2) because they were sent by the Davidic King on the official duty of announcing the arrival of the Messianic Kingdom and dispensing the eschatological blessings of that kingdom.[1] Bauckham apparently concurs with this at least in part when he writes,

It seems likely that many members of the Twelve were no longer permanently resident in Jerusalem, as was certainly the case with Peter, while at least one had died (Acts 12:2), James stepped into the leadership gap. Any remaining members of the Twelve would have become members of the college of the elders with whom James presided over the church (Acts 21:18).[2]

While it is possible that some of the Twelve remained in Jerusalem as Bauckham’s last sentence suggests, it seems equally or even more likely to me that they had eventually all scattered on mission in fulfillment of their vocation. Furthermore, if Paul’s reference to the “division of apostolic labor” in Galatians 2:7-9 is correct (and there is no necessary reason to doubt its historical credibility), then it is conceivable that Peter and the Twelve’s primary mission field was the circumcised.

[1] Willitts 2007:119.
[2] Bauckham 2006:67.

Works Cited

Bauckham, Richard. 2006. James and the Jerusalem Community. In A History of Jewish Believers in Jesus: The First Five Centuries, ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik:55-95. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.

Willitts, Joel. 2007. Matthew's Messianic Shepherd-King: In Search of the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel. BNZW. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Petrine and Pauline Perspectives in the Gospel of Mark

The huge dispute between Paul and Peter in Antioch as recorded in Gal. 2.11-14 is well known. And some have argued that there is no indication that the rift between the two Apostles ever healed and Paul and Peter remained in competitition and rivalry with each other. So it goes, it was not until Luke-Acts and the rise of "early catholicism" in the early second century that this division between Pauline and Petrine Christianities was mended.

I have another proposal. Mark, according to tradition is associated with Peter in Rome. And if Richard Bauckham is correct, the Gospel of Mark shows traits of eyewitness testimony throughout (i.e. Peter's testimony). What is more, the Gospel of Mark also has a Pauline perspective of Christ's death (10.45), on the Law (7.19c), and on the Gentile mission (13.10). If these two premises are correct, do we have evidence of a synthesis of Petrine testimony and Pauline theology in the Gospel of Mark?