Paul Parvis broaches a subject which one first blush seems to have no basis in history, namely when was Peter the bishop of Antioch, and secondly, when did he found the church there? The short answer would be he wasn’t and he didn’t, however some of the church fathers seem to think otherwise. The evidence is found, partially in Jerome’s translation of Origen’s sixth Homily on Luke, which seems to say that Ignatius of Antioch was the second bishop in... Read more

There are some movies that every Christian, or for that matter every moral person should see. This is definitely one of them. It tells the true story of Johnny Dee aka Walter Macmillian, who was wrongly accused and convicted of killing a young white girl in Monroeville Alabama. There is some serious irony in this as Monroeville is the town of Harper Lee who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, about a trial of a black man wrongly accused of a... Read more

Paul Hartog’s essay concerns itself with the reception of Peter, particularly, it would appear in basically Pauline contexts. Using the image of the matroishka doll he concludes “both 1 Clement [addressed to the Pauline converts in Corinth and showing a knowledge of 1 Corinthians] and especially Polycarp’s Philippians see to ‘nest’ their reception of Peter within their overt receptions of Paul. However 1 Clement explicitly mentions the figure of Peter, while Philippians manifests an anonymous use of Petrine traditions [i.e.... Read more

Matthew Novenson’s article on ‘Why there are some Petrine Epistles Rather than None’ is interesting but can be dealt with briefly. He rightly notes that pseudepigrapha were harder to convincingly pull off than say pseudonymous Apocalypses. His arguments for why 1 Peter is likely not to be by Peter himself are weak. As he points out, 2 Peter reflects a knowledge of such a letter at least as early as the end of the first century, and then there is... Read more

Sean Adams (pp. 130-45) tackles the issue of Peter’s literacy, which of course is raised by both Papias (when it comes to Greek) and perhaps in Acts as well, but more on that in a minute. In regard to his own agenda, Adams states at the outset “the perception of Peter as a literate figure helped shape the constructed portraits of Peter in subsequent literature” (p. 130), by which he means post NT literature presumably. Adams begins his discussion with... Read more

Much has been made of how the first disciples of Jesus appear more like the DUH-sciples especially in Mark. In particular, Peter at times comes across this way, for instance when Jesus at Caesarea Philippi starts explaining that he is going to die. The burden of John Markley’s article is to demonstrate that one needs to understand the nature of apocalyptic ways of discussing things to understand what’s going on. The point is that one would not understand such mysteries... Read more

Timothy Barnes’ essay treats us to a novel approach to the martyrdom of Peter. He argues he was likely burned alive wrapped in animal skins. The basis for this argument is in part a certain kind of interpretation of John 21.18-19 which is assumed to be a saying reflecting ex post facto knowledge of how Peter actually died, rather than simply being a prophecy. This may or may not be true, but Barnes does not argue his case on this,... Read more

Jonathan Lo (pp.62-75) revisits the Petrine speech found in Acts, in light of Greco-Roman parallel historical works and how those works handle speech material. He quotes my colleague Craig Keener affirmatively when he says that historians were allowed to put speeches in their own vocabulary, provided he did not invent content. Lo however concludes that the fact that there is a resemblance between the speeches in Acts and those in ancient historians in regard to both style and content is... Read more

The essay by Helen Bond comes to grips with the issue of whether or not Papias’ testimony about Peter being behind Mark’s Gospel, or more accurately whether it is his testimony translated by Mark from original Aramaic to Greek is historically probable. Bond focuses on Joel Marcus’ much commended commentary on Mark to discuss reasons why Papias should perhaps not be assumed to be giving accurate information in this case, perhaps in order to rescue Mark’s Gospel from it’s not... Read more

The next essay in the volume Peter in Early Christianity is by another old and now departed friend Sean Freyne of Dublin. Freyne’s charge was to deal with the archaeological work at what was probably Peter’s home town, namely Bethsaida, and he does not shy away from the controversy as to whether Bethsaida Julia dug by Rami Arav and company is the right site, or if another one further around the lake is the correct locale. He favors Bethsaida Julia.... Read more