{"id":61229,"date":"2016-01-25T00:02:32","date_gmt":"2016-01-25T06:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=61229"},"modified":"2016-01-23T06:49:52","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T12:49:52","slug":"bob-gundry-responds-to-larry-hurtado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2016\/01\/25\/bob-gundry-responds-to-larry-hurtado\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Gundry Responds to Larry Hurtado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Gundry on Hurtado concerning Matthew on Peter<\/p>\n

As they say, \u201cBetter to be disagreed with than ignored.\u201d So my thanks to Larry Hurtado for writing his disagreement with my book, Peter: False Disciple and Apostate according to Saint Matthew<\/em><\/a><\/strong> (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), and to Scot McKnight for posting on his Jesus Creed blog, Jan. 7, 2016, Hurtado\u2019s disagreement, titled \u201cRobert Gundry\u2019s New Peter book\u201d and posted one day earlier on Larry Hurtado\u2019s Blog under the title, \u201cThe Apostle Peter: Damned Apostate?\u201d Though Hurtado and McKnight have not ignored the book, however, Hurtado has<\/em> ignored what I called \u201cthe heart of Matthew\u2019s portrayal of Peter as a false disciple who apostatized\u201d (p. 43). That is to say, Hurtado does not even mention the textual details in Matthew\u2019s account of Peter\u2019s denials of Jesus.<\/p>\n

To be sure, Hurtado says that \u201ca blog-posting doesn\u2019t permit the space to engage Gundry\u2019s discussion of all the many passages he addresses.\u201d Fair enough. But I would still like to know why in his opinion Matthew inserts into his account of Peter\u2019s first denial the phrase \u201cbefore all,\u201d missing in Matthew\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

In Matthew 5:20 Jesus says that those whose righteousness doesn\u2019t exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees won\u2019t enter the kingdom of heaven, and in 5:33\u201337 proceeds to include avoidance of oath-taking in the superior righteousness required for entrance. So I would like to know why in Hurtado\u2019s opinion Matthew inserts into his account of Peter\u2019s second denial the phrase \u201cwith an oath,\u201d again missing in the Marcan source, if not to put Peter in the class of those who won\u2019t enter the kingdom of heaven because their righteousness hasn\u2019t exceeded that of the scribes and Pharisees.<\/p>\n

And I would like to know why in Hurtado\u2019s opinion Matthew has Peter \u201cgoing out, outside,\u201d absent yet again from his Marcan source, and weeping \u201cbitterly,\u201d 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 \u201cweep\u201d in despair \u201coutside\u201d the kingdom of heaven.<\/p>\n

Does Hurtado consider these<\/em> differences \u201cvery small\u201d (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.<\/p>\n

According to Hurtado, \u201cMatthew 16:13\u201323 is obviously the crucial text for any view of Peter in Matthew.\u201d Because of Matthew\u2019s redaction of the Marcan account of Peter\u2019s denials, one may quibble over \u201cobviously<\/em>\u201d and \u201cthe<\/em> crucial text\u201d in Hurtado\u2019s 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 \u201cyou<\/em> are Peter, and on this rock<\/em> [not \u2018on you\u2019]\u201d or the echo in \u201cthis rock\u201d of \u201cthe rock\u201d consisting of \u201cthese words\u201d of Jesus in Matthew 7:24. This echo gets support from Matthew\u2019s universally recognized gathering of Jesus\u2019 words into five long discourses, and gets further support from Matthew\u2019s concluding three of the discourses with references to \u201cthese words\u201d of Jesus.<\/p>\n

Nor does Hurtado, though citing Matthew 16:13\u201323 as crucial, deal with Matthew\u2019s adding Jesus\u2019 statement to Peter, \u201cYou are my snare [skandalon<\/em>]\u201d (absent from both the Marcan parallel and from Luke). Notably, everywhere else in Matthew \u201csnare\u201d refers to the damned (four times in 13:41\u201342; 18:7\u20139). Another \u201cvery small\u201d difference?<\/p>\n

Hurtado does ask, \u201cBut how is \u2018makarios<\/em>\u2019 (\u2018blessed\u2019) [in \u2018Blessed are you, Simon Barjona\u2019] a rebuke?\u201d But I didn\u2019t describe this beatitude as a rebuke. I described it as a statement of \u201cprivilege\u201d and noted that the very similar beatitude concerning privileged revelation in Matthew 13:16 included among its addressees Judas Iscariot, who apostatized.<\/p>\n

Hurtado then cites Jesus\u2019 giving to Peter the authority to bind and loose on earth and says, \u201cGundry attempts to sidestep this [gift] by erroneously claiming that the Matthean \u2018Great Commission\u2019 (28:16\u201320) extends this binding and loosing to \u2018all the other apostles .\u00a0.\u00a0. Judas Iscariot included.\u2019\u201d No, I wrote that Judas Iscariot is among those given this authority in Matthew 18:18, not among the eleven commissioned in 28:16\u201320 (obviously not, since according to Matthew 27:3\u201310 he had committed suicide). Hurtado\u2019s elliptical dots deceptively mask my reference to 18:18.<\/p>\n

In every instance of my argument, observes Hurtado, I have \u201cto urge an interpretation<\/em>, an inference\u201d (emphasis original) rather than something \u201cexplicit.\u201d Is that observation an argument? It sure looks like one. For if not, Hurtado needn\u2019t have made it. But if so, am I to understand that he and others don\u2019t engage in interpretation and inference? What other than an interpretation is his inferring a restoration of Peter from Peter\u2019s presence among the eleven to whom Jesus issued the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16\u201320? 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\u2019 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\u2019re called in 13:24\u201330, 36\u201343, 47\u201350, among true disciples until the end of the age. Hurtado completely ignores this chronological point.<\/p>\n

Pursuing his distinction between what is explicit and what is inferred, Hurtado asks why in 10:1\u20134 Matthew didn\u2019t 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\u201319); and, as pointed out clearly in my book, to avoid violating Jesus\u2019 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\u2019 explicit pronouncement of judgment on Judas Iscariot as an apostate (Mark 14:21; Matthew 26:24).<\/p>\n

Given Peter\u2019s leadership in the early church, \u201cunder what plausible circumstances would the author of Matthew have hoped to make credible a picture of Peter as a damned apostate?\u201d 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\u2019s Gospel, a guy named Gundry couldn\u2019t have hoped to make credible a Matthean picture of Peter as a damned apostate, and therefore didn\u2019t try to do so. But Gundry did! I know he did, because he\u2019s me.<\/p>\n

Arguing otherwise concerning Matthew, and doing so without serious exegetical probing, Hurtado presumes to know more about Matthew\u2019s 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\u2019s a failure of imagination to reject out of hand the possibility that such apostasies in the evangelist\u2019s setting led him, in view of Peter\u2019s denials of Jesus, to make Peter what Hurtado calls \u201cthe poster-boy of the disciples who fail under opposition.\u201d Furthermore, though not all that seems to be new is in fact new, the notion that nothing new, such as my interpretation of Matthew\u2019s Peter, can be trusted as true\u2014that notion would require the rejection of a good deal of the progress made in modern biblical scholarship, and would shut off further progress.<\/p>\n

I date the writing of Matthew \u201cprior to the mid-60s,\u201d as Hurtado notes. Under the usually accepted theory of Marcan priority in synoptic relationships, such a dating requires \u201can astonishingly early date for Mark,\u201d he goes on to note and then correctly observes the lack in my book of any discussion of Mark\u2019s 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\u2014all of them modern, most of them current, and none of them me\u2014who date Matthew\u2019s writing in the 60s. As for the date of Mark\u2019s writing, see the extensive discussion in my Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross<\/em> (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 1026\u201345, esp. 1041\u201345. (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.)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Many thanks to Scot McKnight for his magnanimity in posting my response to Hurtado\u2019s review.<\/p>\n

Robert Gundry<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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