The Peter Principle– Part One

Last updated on: January 2, 2020 at 1:54 am by Ben Witherington

The Peter Principle– Part One 2019-12-02T10:09:46-05:00 Ben Witherington

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Protestants since the Reformation have practiced what can only be called benign neglect at best when it comes to Simon Peter. This is even true at the scholarly level. Lots and lots of studies on Paul, too few on Peter. The painting above (which Word Press insists on doing sideways, but if you click on the picture, Peter straightens up) is in some ways all too representative of the problem– Protestants giving a sideways glance at Peter while arguing again and again about Paul. This sort of neglect even trickles over into commentaries on 1 Peter, where all too often it is assumed: 1) Peter didn’t write it, in part because 2) the audience seems to just be Gentiles, and 3) the Greek is too good for Peter, so 4) we in fact have no Petrine letters from Peter (2nd Peter being a much later composite document). What I find out about this whole logic is that in the undisputed Pauline letter to the Galatians, the text is quite clear that the Jerusalem Church sent Peter out to evangelize Jews (the ‘circumcision’) which presumably would also include God-fearers and proselytes to Judaism. So, why exactly would it simply be assumed that 1 Peter is written to Gentiles, rather than Hellenized Jews in the Diaspora. I see no good reason for that assumption, and in any case, the division of labor between Peter and Paul was not geographical but rather primarily ethnic, Peter to Jews, Paul to ‘the nations’. And it is also worth point out that we know that Paul himself had as a guiding principle going to the synagogues first— this is a testimony not just from Acts but confirmed in 2 Corinthians by the reference to his enduring the 40 lashes minus 1 for his testimony to Jews. It also comports with Romans 1 where Paul stresses the Gospel is for the Jew first, and he honored that principle in his ministry— look at his list of co-workers some of whom he converted! Read Rom. 16 in light of this fact.

This series of blog posts is dedicated in memoriam to Larry Hurtado, my old friend. He and Helen Bond hosted an important conference in 2013 at Edinburgh on Peter to help deal with the Protestant neglect of the man. Out of that conference emerged an important collection of essays that he and Helen edited, under the title Peter in Early Christianity, which was published in 2015. I will be interacting with that collection first in these posts, and then to Gene Green’s new book on Peter later in the series. Stay tuned.

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