BEN: I think you make a good case for the speeches in Acts reflecting early Christian Christology and even Peter’s take on that. The Semitisms and distinct ways of labeling Jesus seem to reflect something primitive. Do you think there was a general apostolic outline that Peter and others followed when preaching, as C.H. Dodd long ago suggested, or would you see Peter as the innovator or first representative promulgating these ideas?
GENE: There’s the chicken and egg question, right? Vox Petri led me back to Dodd’s classic study and I asked the very same question. Where’s the genesis of the foundational structures of the early Christian kerygma? Given Peter’s role as the early church’s principle leader and theologian, I do not think that we’d be far off the mark if we regard him as a key player in the development of the kerygma. If not him, then who? Surprisingly, the Galilean fisherman demonstrates the creative reflexes and synthetic theological thinking to be the source of the apostolic teaching and the early theological tradition. This is by no means a proven point, but it would be unwise to bracket out Peter as we mull the origins of Christian theology, including its proclamation and praxis.
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