A scientific theory is not a hunch or mere speculation. Rather the term refers to a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by many congruent lines of data.  A further explanation from the NAS web site is helpful.

Many scientific theories are so well-established that no new evidence is likely to alter them substantially. For example, no new evidence will demonstrate that the Earth does not orbit around the sun (heliocentric theory), or that living things are not made of cells (cell theory), that matter is not composed of atoms, or that the surface of the Earth is not divided into solid plates that have moved over geological timescales (the theory of plate tectonics). Like these other foundational scientific theories, the theory of evolution is supported by so many observations and confirming experiments that scientists are confident that the basic components of the theory will not be overturned by new evidence. However, like all scientific theories, the theory of evolution is subject to continuing refinement as new areas of science emerge or as new technologies enable observations and experiments that were not possible previously.

Robert Asher, in Evolution and Belief, runs through some of the evidence for evolution. Early classifications of animals were based on comparative anatomy and embryology. The first attempts to derive a “tree of life,” a broad scale theory of genealogical relationships relied heavily on this data. After 150 years of scientific investigation we now also possess a much more complete fossil record and have  access to extensive data from molecular biology and the genome project. All of these lines of evidence (comparative anatomy, embryology, fossil record, and molecular biology) confirm the same basic theory of interrelationships.

Stratigraphy. The geological column, strata of fossil bearing rocks, provides one strong thread of evidence for evolutionary progression. The layers that contain the fantastic variety of trilobites, as in the image above, fall between ca. 520 and 250 MYA (million years ago). This image is of a section of a large slab from 450 MYA in the Oxford University Museum of Natural history.  In contrast the earliest mammals don’t show up until layers that date to 215 MYA or primates until 56 MYA.  The timeline to the right highlights part of Fig. 4.1 p. 64 (click on it for a larger version). Much more information is available in the full figure. Finding a variation of trilobite alive today, or a even tyrannosaurus, wouldn’t be a problem for evolutionary theory.   Finding a rabbit or a monkey in a Cambrian layer (541-485 MYA) or an  Ordovician layer (485-444 MYA) would undermine the entire picture and send us back to the drawing board… on par with discovering something that moves through space faster than the speed of light.

That last is an interesting example. An experiment a few years ago to measure the speed of a neutrino (tiny neutral particles with a mass less than a millionth that of an electron) appeared to give a result faster than the speed of light (here). There was a great deal of skepticism, but the response of the community was to dig deeper, to substantiate the result or determine where the error was made.  It was a subtle error in the instrumentation – but dogma didn’t rule the day, data did.

Large scale revolutions are rare, but fine scale refinements are constantly being made, in evolutionary biology and in other sciences. This is normal progress. The timeline picture above presents a good overview, but it is always subject to refinement. The appearance of tetrapods is a good example.

At a finer scale, the story is of course more complex. Paleontologists are generally not under the illusion that we’re out to identify literal distinct ancestors of modern groups. Nor do modern paleontologists claim that geologically older fossils always represent ancestral organisms. In fact, many fierce debates exist about the extent to which the fossil record accurately reports the first appearance of a given group, and paleontologists realize that the first appearance in the rock record is an underestimate of the actual first appearance of a species on our planet.

Indeed, a sure-fire way of making a splash in paleontology is to push back the record of a group by finding the oldest [insert favorite animal here]. Such discoveries happen quite frequently, for example, the recent description of a trackway of a land-walking vertebrate from rocks in southeastern Poland that date to the middle Devonian, about 397 million years ago. These prints show that some animals at that time were capable of propelling themselves with muscular limbs that ended in digits. They predate the oldest skeletal remains of animals with muscular limbs and digits (e.g., Tiktaalik, perhaps better known as “fishapod”) by about 18 million years, and they predate other trackways by about 12 million years, or perhaps even less, given the uncertainty on the age of the other trackway sites. Relative to what had been thought to be a 385 million-year fossil history of tetrapods, the Polish discovery extends the record of this group by about 3%. This is an important find, but does not change at all the fact that as shown in Figure 4.1, the first appearance of major groups correspond quite closely with the genealogical relationships inferred from anatomical and molecular evidence. (p. 70)

I’ve posted on Tiktaalik roseae a couple of time before.  The most relevant to this discussion is Tiktaalik roseae revisited.

Punctuation. Asher also points out that the fossil record doesn’t show a slow, gradual set of transitions. There are a number of reasons for this. Catastrophic events like meteor strikes can have a major influence on the environment. Another possible reason is the range of biological space accessible. Unicellular organisms can’t do all that much. Multi-cellular organisms can do much more – and once a multi-cellular organism appears populations can differentiate to occupy different spaces (“niches”) consuming, competing, or coexisting.  Once a backbone is on the scene various organisms that use a backbone can develop. Features can evolve more than once (convergence) with organisms reaching the similar solutions from different directions, often constrained by basic chemistry and physics,  but there are generally telltale signs beneath the surface (e.g. bone structures or DNA sequences) that help establish connections or the lack of connections.

Another reason for “punctuated equilibrium” or the apparently abrupt appearance of new forms is more subtle. Evolutionary change is faster in a small population than in a large population and fossils are not generally left by small populations.  This isn’t the only factor at play, but it is a significant one.   Oftentimes evolution occurs by isolation of a small population from a larger group. This would cause a drop in the local population and the subpopulation wouldn’t reappear in the fossil record until it was different and had grown large enough to leave an appreciable fossil record.

This is not to say that all speciation events are allopatric, i.e., that they result from the reproductive isolation of small founder populations. Nor does it mean that anything “intermediate” in morphology has no chance of becoming a fossil… However, it does lead to an understanding of how an important model of speciation should typically manifest itself in the fossil record: a given species should typically show stasis, or “equilibrium,” during those times when it is well adapted to its particular environment and sufficiently numerous to leave behind evidence of its existence in the fossil record. An isolated, small daughter population – one in which evolutionary change is prone to become widespread – will be less likely to leave behind fossil representatives simply because it is small. After many generations, and possibly eons of geological time, if and when that population becomes big enough to leave behind fossil representatives, the paleontological “equilibrium” of the parent species will be accompanied (and not necessarily replaced) by the apparently sudden appearance in the fossil record, or “punctuation,” of the daughter species. (p. 76-77)

There is more in this chapter. Asher discusses some of the problems with “quote-mining” in some of the anti-evolution literature (no one likes to be misquoted out of context). He also introduces the fascinating idea that evolution may work at the level of populations as well as individuals. It is often said that all evolution is microevolution acting on individuals, and it is the accumulation of small changes in that results in what we see as macroevolution.  However, evolution at the population level may give results counter to those seen if only individuals are considered, a kind of macroevolution. This doesn’t change the general paradigm of evolution by natural selection, but it does impact the outcome of the process. Evolutionary biology is an active field because there much room for new work and future refinement. This is exciting to any scientist.

Do you think the fossil record is a problem for the theory of evolution?

What would you expect from a transitional form?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Gundry on Hurtado concerning Matthew on Peter

As they say, “Better to be disagreed with than ignored.” So my thanks to Larry Hurtado for writing his disagreement with my book, Peter: False Disciple and Apostate according to Saint Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), and to Scot McKnight for posting on his Jesus Creed blog, Jan. 7, 2016, Hurtado’s disagreement, titled “Robert Gundry’s New Peter book” and posted one day earlier on Larry Hurtado’s Blog under the title, “The Apostle Peter: Damned Apostate?” Though Hurtado and McKnight have not ignored the book, however, Hurtado has ignored what I called “the heart of Matthew’s portrayal of Peter as a false disciple who apostatized” (p. 43). That is to say, Hurtado does not even mention the textual details in Matthew’s account of Peter’s denials of Jesus.

To be sure, Hurtado says that “a blog-posting doesn’t permit the space to engage Gundry’s discussion of all the many passages he addresses.” Fair enough. But I would still like to know why in his opinion Matthew inserts into his account of Peter’s first denial the phrase “before all,” missing in Matthew’s Marcan source, if not to put Peter in the class of those whom Jesus said in Matthew 10:33 (unparalleled in Mark) he would deny before his Father in heaven because they had denied him before other people.

In Matthew 5:20 Jesus says that those whose righteousness doesn’t exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees won’t enter the kingdom of heaven, and in 5:33–37 proceeds to include avoidance of oath-taking in the superior righteousness required for entrance. So I would like to know why in Hurtado’s opinion Matthew inserts into his account of Peter’s second denial the phrase “with an oath,” again missing in the Marcan source, if not to put Peter in the class of those who won’t enter the kingdom of heaven because their righteousness hasn’t exceeded that of the scribes and Pharisees.

And I would like to know why in Hurtado’s opinion Matthew has Peter “going out, outside,” absent yet again from his Marcan source, and weeping “bitterly,” also absent from his Marcan source, if not to put Peter in the class of the damned who Jesus has said no fewer than six times earlier in Matthew, with no parallels in his Marcan source and only one in Luke, will “weep” in despair “outside” the kingdom of heaven.

Does Hurtado consider these differences “very small” (his phrase, though not in reference to any particular passages) and therefore insignificant? I would like to know. Surely he could have eliminated some of his generalities to make room for a bit of exegetical discussion on points central to my argument.

According to Hurtado, “Matthew 16:13–23 is obviously the crucial text for any view of Peter in Matthew.” Because of Matthew’s redaction of the Marcan account of Peter’s denials, one may quibble over “obviously” and “the crucial text” in Hurtado’s statement. Never mind, though. Whatever the level of cruciality, Hurtado fails even to mention, much less to assess from his own standpoint, either the oft-noted shift from second person to third in “you are Peter, and on this rock [not ‘on you’]” or the echo in “this rock” of “the rock” consisting of “these words” of Jesus in Matthew 7:24. This echo gets support from Matthew’s universally recognized gathering of Jesus’ words into five long discourses, and gets further support from Matthew’s concluding three of the discourses with references to “these words” of Jesus.

Nor does Hurtado, though citing Matthew 16:13–23 as crucial, deal with Matthew’s adding Jesus’ statement to Peter, “You are my snare [skandalon]” (absent from both the Marcan parallel and from Luke). Notably, everywhere else in Matthew “snare” refers to the damned (four times in 13:41–42; 18:7–9). Another “very small” difference?

Hurtado does ask, “But how is ‘makarios’ (‘blessed’) [in ‘Blessed are you, Simon Barjona’] a rebuke?” But I didn’t describe this beatitude as a rebuke. I described it as a statement of “privilege” and noted that the very similar beatitude concerning privileged revelation in Matthew 13:16 included among its addressees Judas Iscariot, who apostatized.

Hurtado then cites Jesus’ giving to Peter the authority to bind and loose on earth and says, “Gundry attempts to sidestep this [gift] by erroneously claiming that the Matthean ‘Great Commission’ (28:16–20) extends this binding and loosing to ‘all the other apostles . . . Judas Iscariot included.’” No, I wrote that Judas Iscariot is among those given this authority in Matthew 18:18, not among the eleven commissioned in 28:16–20 (obviously not, since according to Matthew 27:3–10 he had committed suicide). Hurtado’s elliptical dots deceptively mask my reference to 18:18.

In every instance of my argument, observes Hurtado, I have “to urge an interpretation, an inference” (emphasis original) rather than something “explicit.” Is that observation an argument? It sure looks like one. For if not, Hurtado needn’t have made it. But if so, am I to understand that he and others don’t engage in interpretation and inference? What other than an interpretation is his inferring a restoration of Peter from Peter’s presence among the eleven to whom Jesus issued the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16–20? A doubtful inference at that, because in Matthew 10 Judas Iscariot, a false disciple and apostate if there ever was one, received along with others Jesus’ commission to evangelize Galilean Jews. Doubtful also because of the uniquely Matthean emphasis on the continuance of false disciples, tares and bad fish as they’re called in 13:24–30, 36–43, 47–50, among true disciples until the end of the age. Hurtado completely ignores this chronological point.

Pursuing his distinction between what is explicit and what is inferred, Hurtado asks why in 10:1–4 Matthew didn’t explicitly designate Peter an apostate as he did explicitly designate Judas Iscariot an apostate. The answer is twofold: Matthew is following his Marcan source on both Peter and Judas Iscariot (Mark 3:13–19); and, as pointed out clearly in my book, to avoid violating Jesus’ prohibition of making judgments (7:1, unparalleled in Mark) Matthew leaves his own portrayal of Peter as an apostate implicit. Unlike Matthew, though, Jesus does have judgmental authority (7:23). So Matthew simply follows Mark again in quoting Jesus’ explicit pronouncement of judgment on Judas Iscariot as an apostate (Mark 14:21; Matthew 26:24).

Given Peter’s leadership in the early church, “under what plausible circumstances would the author of Matthew have hoped to make credible a picture of Peter as a damned apostate?” Hurtado asks that question and infers the absence of such circumstances, the lack of such a hope, and the nonexistence of such a picture. By the same token and because of what Hurtado cites as 1900 years of a largely pro-Petrine understanding of Matthew’s Gospel, a guy named Gundry couldn’t have hoped to make credible a Matthean picture of Peter as a damned apostate, and therefore didn’t try to do so. But Gundry did! I know he did, because he’s me.

Arguing otherwise concerning Matthew, and doing so without serious exegetical probing, Hurtado presumes to know more about Matthew’s psychology and the local circumstances under which he wrote than any of us actually do know. Hurtado accepts the prominence of persecution as a theme in Matthew. So especially in view of the uniquely Matthean reference in 24:10 to persecution-induced apostasies, it’s a failure of imagination to reject out of hand the possibility that such apostasies in the evangelist’s setting led him, in view of Peter’s denials of Jesus, to make Peter what Hurtado calls “the poster-boy of the disciples who fail under opposition.” Furthermore, though not all that seems to be new is in fact new, the notion that nothing new, such as my interpretation of Matthew’s Peter, can be trusted as true—that notion would require the rejection of a good deal of the progress made in modern biblical scholarship, and would shut off further progress.

I date the writing of Matthew “prior to the mid-60s,” as Hurtado notes. Under the usually accepted theory of Marcan priority in synoptic relationships, such a dating requires “an astonishingly early date for Mark,” he goes on to note and then correctly observes the lack in my book of any discussion of Mark’s date of writing. On the other hand, Hurtado notes neither my arguments favoring an early date for Matthew nor my reference to at least eleven scholarly commentators on Matthew—all of them modern, most of them current, and none of them me—who date Matthew’s writing in the 60s. As for the date of Mark’s writing, see the extensive discussion in my Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 1026–45, esp. 1041–45. (Incidentally, Matthean priority would require a revision to the effect that Mark and especially Luke recognized in Matthew what they considered a disagreeably condemnatory portrayal of Peter, eliminated as much of it as they thought possible, and added countervailing material.)

In general, then, Hurtado has majored on prolegomena and minored on exegesis. Because material open to exegesis exceeds material relevant to prolegomena, exegesis seems to me to carry more weight.

Many thanks to Scot McKnight for his magnanimity in posting my response to Hurtado’s review.

Robert Gundry

The Finest of Wines

Epiphany 2C,
January 17, 2016
The Reverend Dr. J. Kevin Maney
Lectionary texts: Isaiah 62.1-5; Psalm 36.5-10; 1 Corinthians 12.1-11; John 2.1-11.

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This morning we celebrate the joyous occasion of baptizing 3 new persons into the Body of Christ and receiving 5 new members, thanks be to God. And commensurate with this joyous occasion, it is appropriate that we look at what our lessons say about the basis of that joy.

There seems to be legitimate disagreement among interpreters about exactly who the speaker is in the first verse of our OT lesson. If the speaker is the prophet rather than God, it turns our lesson into quite a poignant and marvelous promise, one that we all get and hope for. Let me refresh your memory as I read verse 1 for you again, “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch.” Do you hear the desperate resolve in this? In its original context, the prophet has warned his people their worst nightmare is going to come true. They are going to be driven from their beloved land, the very land God promised them, because they have been unfaithful to the covenant God made with them through Abraham and Moses. In other words, they have not been the people God called them to be. Time and again we hear in Isaiah God promising to restore his people from exile and renew the land. But nothing seems to be happening, and we get that. We haven’t been exiled from our land, but there have been plenty of times in our lives that it seems God has abandoned us or is punishing us. I don’t need to provide examples. You all can fill in your own blanks. And that’s the point. Now, instead of being silent, the prophet confronts God, resolving not to be silent until God makes good on his promises. I suspect the prophet had God’s honor and reputation in mind as much as he did his own people’s future plight. When are you going to act on your promises, God? How many of us have asked God the same thing in the darkness of our exile and alienation from God?

And then we hear God’s astonishing and breathtaking answer. I am going to put new clothes on you, the clothes of royalty, because I am going to treat you like kings and queens! That is how much I love you. Others will see and be envious. They will want in on the action! No longer will you feel like a widow. No longer will you feel abandoned. No! You are to rejoice like newlyweds because I am sending my Messiah, my chosen one, to restore you and you will know beyond a shadow of doubt that you are mine! Rejoice, therefore, and celebrate! Drink the finest wines and eat the finest foods in anticipation of that time because you won’t believe how good it can be, a sentiment echoed in our psalm. Have you experienced this promise of God’s healing love and presence in your life? If you have, you know what the prophet says is true.

Now it’s a funny thing that our OT lesson ends with the exhortation to celebrate our restored relationship with God as newlyweds celebrate at a wedding banquet, a frequent biblical metaphor that describes the intimacy of the relationship between God and his people, because we read in our gospel lesson the wonderful story of Jesus at the wedding of Cana. For those of us who know Jesus and therefore know the true love God has for each of us that we just talked about, this story is not surprising at all. In fact, we expect things like this to happen when Jesus enters our lives. This is why I know Fr. Bowser loves Jesus so much. Any story that recounts how Jesus made between 120-180 gallons of the choicest wine is bound to capture his heart.

But what does John want us to learn from this story? There are several lessons that can be had, but first and foremost I think John wants us to focus on the extravagance of the “sign.” Note carefully that Jesus didn’t address a critical need in turning the water into wine. Sure, this would have been a social catastrophe for the hosting family if the wine had run out. But it wasn’t literally a matter of life and death. No one was desperately sick or suffering. In fact, Jesus even asked his mother what it had to do with him or her? His hour had not yet come. More about that in a moment. No. It seems that John wants us to see that in Jesus, God was answering the bold and persistent complaints of his people: When you are coming to rescue us? God’s answer? Here I am. Pay attention. Have open minds to consider new possibilities. Have ears to hear and eyes to see. Look at the abundance of the finest wine, and coming after the cheap stuff to boot!

This makes us recall what John has told us in his prologue (John 1.1-18), that in Jesus’ fullness, the fullness of God the Father, we have received grace upon grace. In other words, the grace of God’s Law given to God’s people was being fully realized in Jesus the Messiah. Here in his first “sign,” John’s term for mighty acts of God’s power, we see the abundance of Jesus’ fullness. The wine that he made and that gladdens our hearts, like the Law of Moses, is simply a signpost or road sign, that points us to the real deal, the ultimate goal: Jesus himself. The Law was given so that we could relearn to act like God’s true image-bearers again instead of acting like the sinful, proud, and self-serving chuckleheads we’ve acted like since the Fall. In other words, the Law is not some obnoxious thing we have to try to follow. It is our path to liberty, to real freedom, so that we can be fully human once again instead of cheap imitations.

And the wine that gladdens our hearts and makes us feel so good when we drink it? A 2 of 3 mere foreshadowing of how we will feel constantly when the new heavens and earth are brought forth fully at Jesus’ second coming. Imagine an eternal buzz at its best without a hangover the next day. This is grace at its finest, folks, because we deserve none of it. But because we love and worship a God with an extravagant heart, we can have it nevertheless if we put our whole hope and trust in Jesus and act accordingly. This is what new creation is all about, both here and hereafter. Do you, will you, dare believe in such extravagance?

How do we know this? John gives us some clues. He starts by telling us the wedding happened on the third day. And what happened on the third day? Resurrection, the first fruits of God’s new creation shown to us. New bodily life. An end to death and sorrow. An end to sickness and suffering. The supreme answer to our desperate prayers, demanding of God that God will make good on his promises to rescue us. And what had to happen before the resurrection? Crucifixion, Jesus’ death to break the power of evil in God’s world and our lives, and to end our alienation and exile from God. This is the hour to which John refers. Jesus’ death and resurrection are John’s seventh—a number signifying completeness in Scripture—and ultimate “sign.” It takes great faith to believe that God’s glory is manifested in utter humiliation and that resurrection springs forth from death. But that’s exactly what John pronounces to us in his gospel and that for which this first sign at Cana serves as a signpost. Do you want to experience the extravagance of God? Then go the way of the cross and you will, says John.

Of course, Jesus’ death and resurrection is part of what baptism is all about. When we baptize John, Dorothea, and Ashley in a moment, we unite them with Jesus’ death so that they can be united with Jesus in his resurrection as well, thanks be to God! And as Paul reminds us in our epistle lesson, when they are baptized and join the body of Christ, the Church, as part of God’s reconstituted family around Jesus, they will be empowered by the Holy Spirit and receive gifts that will help them to make Jesus’ presence known in and through his people. God doesn’t leave anything to chance when he makes us his own nor does he leave us abandoned in answer to our desperate prayers. If this is not reason for us to celebrate today and every Sunday, I don’t know what is, my beloved. As we remember our own baptism and renew our vows to help support and uphold our newly baptized, let us do so with relish, remembering the extravagant God who does more than turn water into wine. He turned us from being his enemies into being his adopted children and he turns our death into life. That really is Good News, the best news of all, now and for all eternity. Pass that extravagant wine at communion, please, and let the celebration begin, never to end. To him be honor, praise, and glory forever and ever.

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Joel Duff at Naturalis Historia has a blog well worth following.  As a biology professor and a thoughtful Christian his insights are worth reading.  His post earlier this week Testing Book-smarts with Observation is a great example. Here he poses a question:

Should professors at Universities be active participants in generating and testing ideas or should they be content to be teachers of what is already known? Most higher educational institutions, such as the one that employs me, continually grapple with how to strike a balance between encouraging knowledge creation and dissemination of past knowledge.

Put another way, am I primarily a knowledge generator or am I paid solely to facilitate the communication of knowledge, with the assumption it is correct, once passed to me onto the next generation? How my university administration answers that question may go a long way toward determining my job responsibilities, such as teaching load, and what future hires will look like.  More bluntly, if professors are just book-smart knowledge-dissemination vehicles then there is no need to hire tenure-track research faculty when adjunct faculty and lectures at reduced salaries and higher student contact-hours will suffice.

A university may choose to go the route of just being in the business of teaching past knowledge to future generations but at what cost?

There is a very real danger in becoming complacent with current knowledge. As humans we were not created to stand still. In Genesis 1:26-28 humankind created in the image of God is given dominion and commanded to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.  In some respects the Bible contains a story of growing pains as humans, from Adam and Eve onward, fail to carry out their God given vocation and calling faithfully.

Taking the theme of Joel’s post in a slightly different direction, we are not called to stand still as Christians either, content with current knowledge. Each new generation must wrestle with the Christian faith and theology afresh, standing on the shoulders of those who came before, but in the context of new and changing challenges.  We have to test our “book smarts” with observation and life … and sometimes we need to test our “book smarts” by returning to The Book and reading it from a fresh perspective. (Certainly Luther and Calvin did this, as have others in church history – this isn’t a completely new idea.) Theology isn’t a discipline immune to error. If nothing else, two thousand years of church history should have taught us this.

Do we need knowledge creators in the church or just dissemination of past knowledge?

What is the right balance?  How do we know?

One place where we may need revitalization is in the area of Creation. David Fergusson, professor of divinity and principal of New College at the University of Edinburgh recently published a short book Creation in the series Guides to Theology. This series is intended to provide an introduction to fields in theology for students as well as pastors, church leaders, and theologians. This is a timely volume – “Creation,” as Fergusson starts his book, “has reemerged as a major topic of theological inquiry in recent times.”  This is pushed by science in our day, but should not be viewed as a salvage game – making space for faith in the twenty-first century where science reigns supreme. Rather it is an opportunity to dig more deeply into a robust theology of creation.

An overriding conviction is that the doctrine of creation has suffered from inadequate exposure in the history of the church because it has too long been merely the stage for the enactment of the theology of sin and redemption. A wider space now needs to be excavated within which it can be more fully articulated. This might achieve a greater theological balance that can generate some ethical, pastoral, and liturgical gains for the benefit of the church in the world today. (p. 1)

Creation narratives in scripture do not simply set the stage for the action that follows. The overarching theme is more a doctrine of God as creator than a doctrine of creation. Creation and covenant are closely related – God is always active in his creation and in relationship with his people.

The creator’s activity continues in nature and history, achieving its end only with the making of a new world. There is no suggestion here of a creator who “lights the blue touch paper” and then retires. The world is one in which the creator continues to be present and active. (p. 4)

The brings a new understanding to this work of God present and active in creation. The New Testament portrays a “cosmic Christology” (John 1:1-5,14, 1 Cor. 8:6, Colossians 1:15-20, Hebrews 1:1-4).  Creation is Christ-centered:

First, the origin and final purpose of the cosmos is disclosed with the coming of Christ into the world and his resurrection from the dead. Second, the significance of Christ is maximally understood by reference to his creative and redeeming power throughout the entire universe. (p. 8)

Sometimes fresh understanding comes from looking back (after all many devout thinkers have wrestled with this before).

Writers at different periods in the history of the church would later use this cosmic Christology to describe the appearance of the incarnate Christ as the crowning moment of history. No longer understood merely as an emergency or secondary measure to counteract the effects of sin and evil, although this remained an integral feature, the incarnation was the fulfillment of an eternal purpose. (p. 8)

In both the New and Old Testaments the doctrine of creation is not a philosophical (or scientific) hypothesis about how the world came into being. It is a theological doctrine “set within the circle of faith.”  Fergusson outlines four features of a theology of creation.

1. It shapes an account of the God-world relationship.

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth. (Psalm 33:6) And Genesis 1 presents the creation of the world “majestically by a series of divine commands. … God speaks and it is accomplished.” (p. 3)  The world is created, not divine. Many Psalms and other passages provide insight into the majesty of God’s creative act.  But along with God’s transcendence there is covenant, fellowship, and relationship.

2. The goodness of the world is affirmed.

Genesis 1 and the Psalms testify to the beauty and ordering of creation. “Even while it is the arena of decay, suffering, and sin, this world remains God’s good creation.” (p. 9)

3. Creation is imperfect and incomplete.

The making of the world is only the first of God’s works. As a beginning of a history, it sets in motion a narrative that has a focal point in the coming of Jesus. … God’s creative work is ongoing throughout the history of Israel and the church, even embracing resistance and struggle in its dealing with people and natural forces. Yet this work of renewal embraces rather than abandons creation. (p. 9)

In other sections Fergusson notes that with the serpent (an ancient near eastern symbol of evil) in the garden “the presence of evil already seems to menace creation.” (p. 4) And this before any human sin enters the story. From the presence of the serpent in the garden it seems clear;  “The Bible does not explain why there is evil, but proclaims its defeat by God.”(p. 11)  This is also a place where science may be driving us to question preconceptions – what it means to call creation good in Genesis 1. We need to do more than simply disseminate past knowledge.

4. The expression of creation is a doxological act.

Our proper response to creation is praise. The heavens declare the glory of God, and as we marvel in creation there is an undeniable sense of awe, celebration and praise.

Three of the features Fergusson identifies are (or should be) uncontroversial.  On the other hand, the idea that creation is, and was from the beginning, incomplete and imperfect runs counter to what many believe. John Walton’s recent book The Lost World of Adam and Eve makes a similar argument.  The biblical accounts don’t depict a perfect ordering of creation, but rather a world where there is non-order remaining and a continuing creation of order. Sin is disruptive, but it is not the root cause of all natural disorder in the world.

What would you add to Fergusson’s four features?

What would you question?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

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Grace For The President

Sean Palmer is Lead Minister at The Vine Church in Temple, TX. Read more from Sean at The Palmer Perspective (www.thepalmerperspective.com), follow him on Twitter: @seanpalmer or follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/seanpalmerwriter.

Four years ago I was feeling a patriotic deficit. I didn’t feel “American” enough, which was strange. Before becoming a school administrator, my father was a band director and American History teacher. I grew up immersed in the stories that shaped our country – both the myths and the realities. I love American history. Yet somehow, I came to feel disconnected from our story.

I did what I always do when trying to solve a problem: I read books. I started with biographies of each of the Founding Fathers, then Jon Meacham’s American Gospel. I moved on to other favorite presidents – Lincoln, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, and George H.W. Bush. In total, I’ve read biographies of nearly half of U.S. Presidents. In all that reading, there is one constant: History is gracious to presidents.

If you’ve tuned into your preferred news outlet or read your favorite newspaper this week, you’ve seen the reviews of President Obama’s State of The Union Tuesday night, as well as, the response to it. Writing this before either, I can tell you this about both speeches; depending on who you are, they were great or terrible. I can also tell you this, in 30-years, last night’s State of the Union will be viewed with grace.

In 30-years, the elected officials and talking heads harping this news cycle will know more than they know today. In 30-years, we will understand that every president was weighing factors we couldn’t imagine, had more information than we knew existed, and said what they said the way they said it due to circumstances and situations that will make much more sense in review. Grace comes more easily with time. As St. Paul tells us, today we see through a glass dimly.

When asked whether his legacy was good or bad for America, George W. Bush (43) responded, “I don’t think anyone will be able to say for a long, long time.” He is right.

Earlier this week, I heard a Representative speak about his expectations for The State of the Union. He said, “He (Obama) won’t change…” and then continued to list every perceived deficit of the President. After hearing him, you might suspect Barack to come to house, beat your wife, and shoot your kids up with heroin. It was a drastic, disproportionate barrage on Obama so vicious one would suspect only Satan could caste the 65-million votes that elected him.

This man’s words were anti-grace. Why? Because grace is simply impossible when you are committed to the narrative that the other side is always wrong.

I seriously doubt this Representative will say the same things in 30-years, or even 365 days. And party affiliation matters little. Democrats who railed against W. seemed to have found some goodwill for him. It’s not that humans can’t be gracious; we just choose not to be right now.

That’s not to say that presidents are flawless. Washington rotated his slaves between Virginia and New York so they couldn’t be emancipated according to New York law. Teddy Roosevelt believed America needed reoccurring wars in order to know itself and keep men strong. How can we forget Kennedy’s indiscretions? It is, however, to say that the tone of politics we chose and the venom we spout is a choice toward ugliness that Christians don’t have to make and won’t always make.

Christians who add voice to the cacophony of acrimony and mercilessness will eventually choose to see every president with some measure of grace. Those who don’t – like people who are still red-faced about Nixon’s dirty tricks or Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – will be viewed as folks with mental incapacities or as wholly backward.

That being true, wouldn’t it be a better reflection of Jesus to view our presidents with grace now? Why wait?

All this may be self-serving. As a church leader, often when I’m faced with criticism, I think, “Oh, but you don’t know what I know. If you did, you’d be kinder.”

Gracious people shouldn’t find it difficult to recognize that presidents may see the world differently than they do, weigh evidence differently than you, yet are doing their dead level best to aid human flourishing. When you read history it is obvious that leaders deal with a level of complexity and seriousness most of us never will. And when you read your Bible, Jesus doesn’t wait 30-years before seeking forgiveness for Pilate.

If you’re a Christian and want to be politically active, here’s a great place to start: Grace for the president.

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The rapture and Armageddon, military conquest and the heaven and earth passing away in a blaze of glory are concepts that can catch the imagination.  A commenter on a recent post (here) noted that the imagery of destruction can have a profound effect.

The Rapture thing didn’t just shape our understanding of Jesus’ second coming, but also reshaped how we viewed his first coming. Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection, in this system, came to be seen as a failure — a mistake that would need to be corrected in the second try of the second coming. Next time, the idea became, Jesus would come back in military might, slaughtering the enemies of God and establishing God’s reign by force. The cross becomes a temporary setback rather than a victory.

In the end, this version of the story says, “the Antichrist” will rise, riding a white horse as a conqueror bent on conquest. But then Jesus will come back riding an even bigger white horse and conquer with superior firepower. And thus, if this is what Jesus is ultimately like, this is what we Christians should be like too.

And after this? Well after this the heavens and earth will vanish in a blaze with a loud bang. That the end of the corrupt heaven and earth is utter destruction has consequences as well. The earth is a consumable good rather than a resource, a garden, to be cherished, cultivated, and preserved.

But is this view of the end times taught in scripture?  Is it an accurate interpretation of the sayings and writings of Jesus, Paul, Peter and John?

The way we read and interpret the apocalyptic imagery in scripture will shape us and our view of the Christian life. This is an important concept to get right.

The previous post on J. Richard Middleton’s book A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology examined six New Testament passages that support Middleton’s core argument that the redemption and restoration described in Scripture is a holistic redemption of all of creation. Christians are not rescued from earth but saved along with heaven and earth.  There are, however, several passages that may paint a somewhat darker picture; a picture of utter cosmic destruction that precedes the coming of God’s Kingdom.

• The Olivet discourse in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21. Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. … Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

• Hebrews 12:26-28 At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

• 2 Peter 3. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire.

• Revelation 6:12-14, I looked, and there came a great earthquake; the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree drops its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll rolling itself up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

• Revelation 20:11  “Then I saw a great white throne and the one who sat on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them” and 21:1 “for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.“

All of these passages appear to portray the utter destruction of heaven, earth, or both.  But is this an accurate reading?

The first important point is that the these texts be read in context – not just the immediate context of the books in which they are found, but also in the cultural context of second temple Judaism.

Given the significant repertoire of images of cosmic destruction that the New Testament authors had available to them to depict the coming day of the Lord, we need to read the New Testament imagery of cosmic destruction in light of the Old Testament background, while making allowances for the transformation of imagery that might have taken place between the Testaments. This is an important alternative to simply reading our own contemporary biases and perceptions  into Scripture. (p. 181-182)

All of the New Testament passages above draw on the available Old Testament and second Temple imagery of destruction. Many of these images including the shaking of the earth and the darkening of the sun and moon refer to judgment that precedes salvation, but a this worldly salvation is anticipated. The falling of the stars may refer to “the eschatological judgment of corrupt heavenly powers, associated with the coming of God’s kingdom, rather than the annihilation of part of the cosmos.” (p. 187)

The rolling back of the sky in Revelation 6 has a parallel in Isaiah 64 “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down”  and in Mark 1:10 following the baptism of Jesus by John: And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  The rolling back of the sky (heaven) is the breaking down of a barrier between heaven and earth when God comes in judgment rather than a foretelling of cosmic destruction.

Very little, if any, of the imagery is self-consistent when read as a photographic account of coming cosmic destruction. Of course, it was never meant as such.   The passing away of the cosmos is a powerful image. “Not even the cosmos can bear the awesome presence of the Holy One, who has come to judge the world.” (p. 203)  But the point is judgment not destruction. As an example Middleton looks at the example of 2 Cor. 5:17 “If anyone is in Christ – new creation! The old things [ta archaia] have passed away ; behold new ones [kaina] have come!” (literal translation p. 205-206)

Are we to believe that Paul think that the passing away of the old life is equivalent to the obliteration of the person, who is then replaced by a doppelgänger? All the Pauline writings, not to mention common sense, suggest that no matter how radical the shift required for conversion to Christ, this describes transformation rather than obliteration of the person.

By analogy, then, the passing away of the present heaven and earth to make way for the new creation is also transformative and not a matter of destruction followed by replacement.  …

…

The analogy between personal and cosmic renovation certainly suggests that radical purging is necessary. But in neither case is the picture one of replacement after annihilation. Whether it is the “new creation” of persons who are in Christ or “{a new heaven and a new earth” at the end of Revelation (21:1), the point is that salvation consists in the rescue and transformation of the world that God so loves (John 3:16). (p. 206)

Judgment is Coming. The Bible unflinchingly portrays the awesome reality of God’s coming judgment, and along with it a fear that some (many) will find themselves out of the kingdom. Middleton looks at the idea of universal salvation, something we all should hope is true (there is no virtue in wanting the destruction of our fellow humans), but ultimately concludes that this does not seem to be consistent with the message of Scripture.

The call is absolutely universal. But you need to be thirsty; you need to want that water. And both the Bible and human experience suggest that some are not thirsty. Not all yearn for that water. I would like to think universal salvation might be true – and surely God’s mercy is beyond our understanding – but a biblical understanding of holistic salvation suggests that this is wishful thinking.  (p. 208-209)

The imagery used by Jesus and the apostles needs to be read in its context. It signifies a real, deep and powerful judgment and the transformation of heaven and earth; the coming of the Kingdom of God in all its glory. Absolutely a blaze of glory. But to interpret it in terms of literal cosmic destruction is to miss the point in a way that can have deep consequences for our understanding of the Christian life and hope.

Should we read the imagery of destruction as a literary form? 

How should the cultural context inform our reading?

How do we know whether a literal interpretation is accurate or not?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

One common argument brought up to cast doubt on the theory of evolution is the absence or paucity of intermediate or transitional forms. Much is made of the fact that there is no evidence for “macroevolution” – one kind becoming another completely different kind. But transitional forms … what does this mean?  Presumably animals with traits characteristic of two different modern species – a crocoduck or a kangaroach.  But wait, we do have such creatures in the platypus, the coqui, and the tarsier. All of these are in some sense “intermediate” between major groups of living animals.  The problem is, to most people these don’t seem “transitional.”  They are simply interesting animals.

In chapter three of Evolution and Belief: Confessions of a Religious Paleontologist Robert Asher looks at evolutionary trees, intermediates, and transitional features concentrating on currently living species. He leads us to think hard about what is meant by intermediate or transitional forms in biology. Evolution is not inherently a purposeful progression from simple to complex. In the last post on the book I included the diagram to the right depicting the course of evolution over the last 6000 years or so.  While it is common to think of evolution in terms of a tree or bush of life, the reality at any given time, or even over tens of thousands of years, is far more mundane.  Excepting the occasional meteor hit or such, animals go about their ordinary life from generation to generation. Some extinctions, perhaps a little branching, but for the most part stability. And this leads to Asher’s first point.

… animals are not really ever in “transition.” Living things are not trying to become something else. Apes from the early Miocene did not anticipate that some of their descendant would evolve into habitual bipeds. …

Terms such as “transition” and “intermediate” are useful because they convey the real sense in which both living and fossil animals mix anatomical and molecular attributes from various parts of the Tree of Life. (p. 47)

Many animals, even those that seem to us to perfectly “normal” exhibit what might be called transitional or intermediate features. Asher goes on:

However, the sense of active transformation as as commonly implied by those words in English is not really applicable in evolutionary biology.  Hence these terms are best avoided, or when used applied to features of species, not to the species themselves. “Transition” evokes the image of a now entirely outdated notion popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, of the “great chain of being” in which life shows “progress” (a term even worse than transition) from “sea creature into amphibian into reptile into rodent into primate into human.” This is a misguided sentiment … Evolution is not inherently progressive. (p. 47)

Asher reacts against the idea of progress, but it seems clear that there is indisputable evidence for “progress”. I don’t mean a great chain of being where life progresses from bacteria to fish to apes. Evolution is not like water flowing in a river from point A to B, say the Mississippi from Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico.  Evolution is more like Lake Shasta filling all available space as the water level rises (image credit). The progress of evolution enables access to new areas in the feasibility space for biological life. From an evolutionary point of view humans exist because the progress of evolution made hands and eyes and larger brains possible. Whether there is a purpose to this progress is a metaphysical question. The naturalist might well conclude no, there is no purpose to evolutionary progress. As a theist I would disagree.

But beyond this introduction, the bulk of the chapter explores the nature of transitional or intermediate features found in a variety of animals alive today.  Asher gets a little technical at times, but overall this is a good lay-level presentation.

The Platypus. The tree of life shown to the right is adapted from Figure 3.1 (p. 44) and illustrates the relationship between some of the species Asher discusses as “intermediate” or “transitional”. The platypus, for example, “lays eggs and has multiple bones in its shoulder skeleton (like a crocodile), but provides milk for its young, shows a single bone in its jaw, and has three ear bones (like a kangaroo).” (p. 45) The echidna is another less well known egg-laying mammal found in Australia and New Guinea.

Their long evolutionary past shows that neither echidna nor platypus is simply a throwback to some 160-million-year-old animal. However, it is equally clear that these animals mix anatomical features otherwise found in reptiles and mammals in just the way one would expect if Darwinian natural selection was the mechanism behind their evolution. (p. 54)

The platypus isn’t a transitional species along the line from amniotes to therians, but it evolved in a different direction from a common ancestor retaining intermediate features.

The bandicoot provides a different kind of example of evolution. Although it clearly belongs to the family of marsupials it possesses a placenta that is more like that of nonmarsupial mammals. Paraphrasing from Asher p. 56: All amniotes, animals not requiring direct access to standing water for reproduction, have four amniotic membranes. The amnion surrounds the embryo, the chorion lines the egg, the allantois stores water and waste and the yolk sac stores nutrients. Most marsupials have a placenta that combines chorion and yolk sac. In contrast placental mammals have a placenta that combines chorion and allantois. Bandicoots, unlike other marsupials, have a placenta that combines chorion and allantois like mice, apes, and other placental mammals. This feature of the placenta of the bandicoot illustrates the way that similar anatomical features can evolve independently. Asher gives some plausible explanations for why the combination of chorion and allantois doesn’t dominate in marsupials – but that is secondary to the main point.  The bandicoot isn’t “intermediate” but rather an example of convergence in evolution.

The Tarsiers. The tarsier is a small primate found today in the Philippines, Borneo, Sulawesi and Sumatra, but found in fossil forms over a far larger range. This small primate is characterized by a small nose and large eyes. Although it is not apparent from the picture, the tarsiers share a number of features with the lemurs and galagos despite being haplorhines, primates that possess small dry noses and are more visually oriented. In fact, the tarsiers, with their large eyes, are among the most visually oriented haplorhines.

Tarsiers have a jaw structure consistent with the galagos and lemurs.For example …

the two halves of its jaw, loosely connected to one another in front, not solidly fused into a single, horseshoe-shaped bone as they are in an anthropoid. (p. 59)

But other features are more like the anthropoids (monkeys, apes, humans):

On the other hand, tarsiers resemble anthropoids in having a bony wall in the back of their orbit …, multiple enclosed spaces within their middle ear, a right angle defining the connection of its astralus to its fibula (comprising the ankle), and in not having the capacity to make their own ascorbic acid, or vitamin C. (p. 59)

The galagos and lemurs are capably of making vitamin C; there was an ancestor after the split that lost the ability.

And perhaps most interesting, like the anthropoids the tarsier lacks a tapetum, a reflective structure within the eyeball. The large eyes of this nocturnal creature compensate for the lack of the tapetum. The galagos has the tapetum and has a larger nose and smaller eyes, although also nocturnal occupying a similar ecological niche. The shiny eye in the picture of a galagos or bush baby to the left is a consequence of the tapetum. The “eyeshine” you see from a deer or raccoon caught in the headlights is also a result of the tapetum, which is common to many mammals.

To wrap it up. This is not an exhaustive list of all “transitional” or “intermediate” features observed among living creatures. It is only a very small selection of the cases that have been studied and documented. Some of the similarities and differences are only apparent when comparing bones, metabolism, or placental membranes. Others are only apparent when studying the DNA sequences themselves.

Asher summarizes:

Anti-evolutionists can complain that there are unsolved questions and uncertainties, and indeed a careful search of the literature will find qualifications to the generally accepted ideas concerning adaptation and evolutionary relationships that I’ve summarized above. This is the nature of any vibrant scientific field. Nevertheless, the reality is that the Darwinian process of natural selection is reasonable demonstrable as the major explanatory factor in all of the above cases. … Calling such an animal an act of “design” or “creation” simply repeats the fact that they exist. We knew that. No such claim does the hard work of specifying a mechanism by which their particular suite of characters came about in an individual, living species. (p. 62)

Asher misses part of the point here. The one who calls such an animal an act of design or creation is simply stating that God created each in largely the form they currently display. There is no reason to do harder work of specifying a mechanism. But the reason that evolutionary theory is the uncontested basis of all of modern biology is that it works to explain the broad sweep of life. It accounts for the intermediate forms that exist, for the hidden and apparently unnecessary features in many creatures, and for the variety of ways that different animals occupy their various niches. Evolution over long periods of time is not seriously disputed. That natural selection is the mechanism may need some refinement. Natural selection is unquestionably one of the major mechanisms resulting in biological diversity, but it need not be the only mechanism at play.

There is another important point here though. Evolution is not a red in tooth and claw survival of the fittest. As far as any individual animal is concerned, they simply live from day-to-day, and eventually die. The past was much like the present, with changes imperceptible to the average cat, fish, or dinosaur. Evolution works at the level of populations, and gradually populations differentiate and fill different niches in the biosphere. Even here the “intermediate” features can and do often persist to the present.

Do these creatures, for example the platypus and the tarsier, answer some of the questions about transitional and intermediate forms?

What do you expect from intermediate or transitional forms?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

I am honored that Larry Hurtado, well-known NT scholar and who blogs here, has offered to the Jesus Creed blog this review of Robert Gundry’s new book on Peter. Along with Helen Bond, Hurtado recently edited a book on Peter, so he’s particularly ready to examine Gundry’s thesis.

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In his most recent book, seasoned and respected New Testament scholar, Robert H. Gundry, presents the bold thesis that the Gospel of Matthew presents the Apostle Peter as an apostate who is irredeemably damned: Peter: False Disciple and Apostate according to Saint Matthew (Eerdmans, 2015; publisher’s online description here).

Most readers of Matthew by far (to put it mildly) have judged that the text presents Peter prominently and, largely, favourably. Indeed, Matthew 16:13-20 has typically been seen as bestowing upon Peter a particularly positive significance and role.  In Roman Catholic tradition, this text has been proffered as a biblical basis for the primacy of Peter and, by extension, the Pope as Peter’s successor.

Protestants, on the other hand, have tended to see the “rock” upon which Jesus says he will build his church as Peter’s confession that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16).   In influential studies by Protestant scholars such as Oscar Cullmann or Martin Hengel, however, the text is taken as giving Peter a leadership role that was confined to his own time, giving no direct basis for a direct “succession” in the Papal office.[1]

For readers of any persuasion, however, the thesis advanced in Gundry’s book will come as something of a shock. Gundry insists that, just like Judas Iscariot, the Peter of the Gospel of Matthew is presented in a very negative light as a total and final failure.  Other scholars might hesitate to defend such a view, given that it appears that no one previously in the 1900 years of reading of Matthew has advocated it.  But Gundry is undeterred, giving scant quarter to any objection, and defending his thesis at every turn in the discussion.

His approach is first to examine every reference to Peter in Matthew in chapters 1-5, and then discuss places where he alleges that Matthew deliberately omitted reference to Peter (chapter 6). Then, Gundry sets this view of Peter in the context of Matthew’s well-known emphasis on true and false discipleship (chapter 7) and on persecution as a threat to disciples (chapter 8).  In Gundry’s argument, Peter in Matthew is the prime example of the “tare” that is to be uprooted from the true plants, and is the poster-boy of the disciples who fail under opposition.  A blog-posting doesn’t permit the space to engage Gundry’s discussion of all the many passages he addresses.  Suffice it to say that in a good many instances his discussion fails to convince.

In method, Gundry’s analysis is a application of “redaction criticism,” in this case examining what are often very small differences in wording of passages shared with Mark in particular, thereby to contend that these differences signal an implicitly unfavourable picture of Peter. Gundry is relentless in pressing for a negative treatment of Peter in practically every one of the numerous texts discussed.  So, for example, Matthew’s form of the angelic command to the women at Jesus’ empty tomb (28:7) has them sent to Jesus’ “disciples,” whereas Mark (16:7) has the women sent to “his disciples and to Peter.”  Gundry contends that this omission of Peter reflects Matthew’s view of him as a failed disciple who isn’t among the disciples who are restored.  If you’re already inclined to Gundry’s view, you could take this “omission” this way, I suppose.  But if you require more overt evidence, Gundry’s claim will likely seem dubious, or at least requiring more basis.

Similarly, Gundry reads the reference to Peter as “first” in the list of the twelve apostles in Matthew 10:2 in light of the sayings elsewhere in Matthew that “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first” (19:30; cf. also 20:16). So, Gundry contends, Matthew’s reference to Peter as “first” isn’t positive, but is simply another hint that he is to be rejected.

But in this latter text isn’t it worth noting that Matthew specifically identifies Judas Iscariot as the one who handed Jesus over (10:4), with no equivalent statement about Peter. So, if Matthew similarly wanted to make Peter an apostate, why didn’t he make it as explicit?  Why all the supposedly veiled and subtle character assassination that Gundry has to explain for us in this passage and others, and that has eluded previous readers for so long, when it is clear that the author of Matthew knew how to label someone overtly as a “baddy” when he wanted to do so?  One might even judge that, if Gundry is correct, the author of Matthew is one of the most spectacularly misunderstood and unsuccessful authors of all time.

Again, Matthew 16:13-23 is obviously the crucial text for any view of Peter in Matthew. Uniquely, Matthew seems to most readers to have Jesus congratulate Peter over the divine revelation given to him about Jesus (v. 17).  Gundry, however, strives to to downplay this by urging that Jesus’ statement is a criticism of Peter, that he required divine revelation.  But how is “makarios” (“blessed”) a rebuke?  In the same passage Peter is also personally given “the keys of the kingdom of heaven” and authority to “bind” and “loose” upon the earth (v. 18, note the second-person singulars in these statements).  Gundry attempts to sidestep this by erroneously claiming that the Matthean “Great Commission” (28:16-20) extends this binding/loosing authority to “all the other apostles  . . . Judas Iscariot included.”  Matthew 28:16, however, refers to the “eleven” as given the Great Commission, reflecting Judas’ prior betrayal and suicide (27:3-10), and so implicitly including Peter among those remaining apostles who are restored and given the Commission.

But the only potential difficulty with his thesis that Gundry seems to grant is the early tradition that Peter suffered martyrdom as a follower of Jesus in the 60s. This leads Gundry to propose that Matthew was written “prior to the mid-60s” (101).  If, as most scholars hold, Matthew knew and used Mark, this would require an astonishingly early date for the latter, yet there is no reference to this matter.  This could seem a classic example of allowing a hypothesis that itself requires substantiation to serve as a basis for a major reconstruction of the literary history of these writings.  As I say, “bold” if nothing else!

But surely the potential problem with Matthew supposedly constructing a picture of Peter as an irredeemably damned apostate didn’t commence with his martyrdom. By all indications, Peter had acquired a widely-known stature as a leader in the young Jesus-movement much earlier than that.  For example, Paul’s oft-cited statement that he spent a fortnight with “Kephas”(a.k.a. Peter) only a few years after the revelatory experience that changed him from opponent to proponent of the gospel about Jesus (Galatians 1:18) surely reflects Peter’s early and wide recognition as a prominent figure, as do the other references to Peter in this epistle.

So, how did the odd notion supposedly occur to the author of Matthew that it was credible, useful and appropriate to portray Peter (albeit implicitly) as a damned apostate? To be sure, the Gospel of Mark presents Peter as collapsing in shameful denial (14:66-72), contrasting this with Jesus’ exemplary steadfastness in the interrogation by the temple authorities (14:55-65).  Matthew (26:69-75) follows Mark’s lead, echoing the scene where Peter denies Jesus in the courtyard, while Jesus is arraigned.  In Mark and Matthew, Peter’s failure functions as a stark warning for the original readers who might face arraignment for their faith.  Moreover, Mark (14:26-31) and Matthew as well (26:30-35) present Peter’s collapse, and the failure of the other apostles, as foretold by Jesus.  But both writers (including Matthew, at least to most readers) also picture the failed apostles, except for Judas Iscariot, as restored collectively in encounters with the risen Jesus.

In short, it was apparently “safe” for these authors to portray the failure of the apostles because they were restored. And it was safe to portray in such explicit terms Peter’s failure in particular because he was well known as having been included among those to whom the risen Jesus appeared, and so among those charged with leadership in the Jesus-movement.  That is, a portrayal of Peter’s failure wouldn’t have been taken as the last word about him.  And to judge from the history of Matthew “reception history,” that is how it was understood from as far back as we have any evidence.

Gundry urges “an unblinking exegesis of the Petrine passages in Matthew” to “overcome interpretive and ecclesiastical traditions and the attractiveness of a Peter who offers us a mirror image of our flawed but redeemable selves” (108). Who could object to “unblinking exegesis”?  But, in fact, as clearly is the case at every point in Gundry’s discussion, his thesis requires him to make judgements and posit things that aren’t actually explicit.  That is, he has to urge an interpretation, an inference, in every instance.  And much more is required, in my view, to make plausible the inferences that he urges.  For, as I’ve indicated, the favourable “ecclesiastical traditions” about Peter actually seem to have begun quite early, and spread quite quickly and widely.  So, I repeat:  Under what plausible circumstances would the author of Matthew have hoped to make credible a picture of Peter as a damned apostate?  Gundry’s very brief register of what he calls “possibilities” (102-3) hardly suffices.

It is interesting that among the assumptions that Gundry itemizes as undergirding his study, there is no reference to the kind of readers to whom Matthew was likely directed, who they likely were and what their previous knowledge about Peter may have been.  Granted, initially, they may have been (as he urges) “first-time auditors” of Matthew; but it is most unlikely that they didn’t already have a view of Peter as a prominent figure and early leader in the Jesus-movement.  That is, these “first-time auditors” likely knew very well that Peter wasn’t in fact a failed apostate.  So, how could Matthew have hoped for any “traction” with such a picture of him?

Also, given that Judas Iscariot explicitly serves in the Gospels as the iconic failed disciple, the unredeemed apostate, what further need was there for Peter to model this fate? It would seem a bit redundant!  Moreover, is there any confirmatory evidence of some party in the early Jesus-movement that had it in for Peter, and so would have welcomed trashing him in this manner?  None that I know of.

In sum, despite the vigor with which Gundry argues his case, I find that it lacks in historical plausibility and proceeds too heavily on debatable inferences. Gundry seems to me to impute into the treatment of Peter in Matthew an intent that is, to put it gently, hardly obvious. For a recent and wide-ranging collection of studies on Peter, the following: Peter in Early Christianity, eds. Helen K. Bond & Larry W. Hurtado (Eerdmans, 2015; publisher’s online description here).

[1] Oscar Cullmann, Peter: Disciple-Apostle-Martyr.  A Historical and Theological Study, 2nd ed.,trans. F. V. Filson (London: SCM, 1962); Martin Hengel, Saint Peter: The Underestimated Apostle, trans. Thomas H. Trapp (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010).