Jason Engwer, Trent Horn, & My 50 NT Petrine Proofs

Catholic apologist Trent Horn, on his popular YouTube channel, The Counsel of Trent, did a show entitled, “The ‘Pauline parody argument’ against the papacy (with Suan Sonna)” [7-27-22] This was directed towards a 2012 article from Protestant anti-Catholic apologist Jason Engwer, entitled, “51 Biblical Proofs Of A Pauline Papacy And Ephesian Primacy.”

What viewers wouldn’t know, however, is that Jason’s original parody was directed towards my 1994 piece, 50 New Testament Proofs for Peter’s Primacy & the Papacy (later published in 2003 on pages 233-238 of my first book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism).

In his usual charity and courtesy, Jason forgot to mention that I was the writer — though I am mentioned in the comments — or link to my article. I’ve long been banned from that site. What one would also never find out there, is that I answered Jason’s original articles along these lines twice (now almost 19 and 20 years ago):

The present study is, first, an extensive and elaborate refutation of a famous Catholic article by Dave Armstrong, which today is in practically all Catholic websites that, in Brazil and in the world, repeat and disseminate a list of 50 “proofs” of the primacy of Peter.

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It was only after a long time that I decided to elaborate a rebuttal to that article, not only answering all of Armstrong’s points, but also carrying out 205 proofs against the primacy of Peter, which largely refute all the supposed “evidence” that he found in isolation in the Bible.

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To show that the biblical gospel is not formed by one or another isolated passage that cannot support doctrine, I sought to show a much greater biblical content, clearly demonstrating that Dave’s study was extremely arbitrary and that it absolutely ignored the total content of the Scriptures that vigorously repudiate all his attempts.

39. Peter’s name is mentioned more often than all the other disciples put together: 191 times (162 as Peter or Simon Peter, 23 as Simon, and 6 as Cephas). John is next in frequency with only 48 appearances, and Peter is present 50% of the time we find John in the Bible! Archbishop Fulton Sheen reckoned that all the other disciples combined were mentioned 130 times. If this is correct, Peter is named a remarkable 60% of the time any disciple is referred to!