From: Bart Ehrman (behrman@email.unc.edu)
Date: Wed Jan 10 1996 - 17:34:51 EST
As Carlton Winberry has pointed out, I have a (fairly full) article
devoted to this question, in which I deal not only with the Galatians
passage but with all the other NT evidence, and every reference to the
matter that I could dig out of ecclesiastical writers from the first
eight centuries or so (the latter authors, of course, can't be construed
as *evidence* for either the identification of or distinction between
Cephas and Peter). I end up concluding, on the basis of Paul, the only
ancient author of whom we can say with some certainty that he actually
*knew* Cephas (in contrast, e.g., to the author of the Fourth Gospel, who
was writing decades after all the principal parties were dead), that
Cephas and Peter were probably different persons. It's a bit crazy, but
I still think it's probably right.
The article is "Cephas and Peter," _Journal of Biblical Literature_
109 (1990) 463-74.
-- Bart D. Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
On Wed, 10 Jan 1996, Eric Weiss wrote:
> I came across Greg Doudna's (gdoudna@ednet1.osl.or.gov)
> December 1994 posting on "Cephas" on the B-Greek archives but
> could not find the postings he responded to or any further
> comments on this subject. Did any further developments or
> conversations occur? (This apparently is no longer a valid
> e-mail address for Greg, so I can't write him direct.)
>
> As I was reading through Galatians I noticed this striking shift
> of Paul's between "Cephas" and "Peter" and began to have similar
> (heretical? disturbing?) thoughts, but I haven't been able to
> find any good answers.
>
> While reading Eusebius' HISTORY OF THE CHURCH I found (I can't
> remember the reference) that in their efforts to determine who
> some of the other apostles were (the 70, etc.), at least one
> person or church father Eusebius references said the "Cephas"
> Paul mentions in Galatians was one of these other apostles. This
> could support the idea that the early church did not equate Peter
> with Cephas.
>
> Again, were there any further developments or background
> information on this issue?
>
> Thanks for any response you can give me. (I'm not currently on
> the b-greek list, so please cc: any responses to me directly.)
>
> Eric Weiss
> eweiss@acf.dhhs.gov
>
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