From: Edward Hobbs (EHOBBS@WELLESLEY.EDU)
Date: Sat Aug 23 1997 - 11:36:54 EDT
Carl,
Your reply startled me somewhat; I can see now that it wasn't self-evident
that I wrote tongue-in-cheek, assuming you held the same views I do about
Mark, Matthew, Peter, and the Petrine letters. And I thought your remark
was wonderful, and quite suitable as an aside on the supposed Petrine
authorship of I Peter.
I'm convinced that our ONLY good data on Peter is found in Paul and in
Mark's portrayal. While Mark certainly "colors" Peter and the Twelve as a
whole (Schreiber was right; and Weeden mostly right about the Theios Aner
christology vs. the Pauline), there would be no point in Mark's "vendetta"
unless Peter had taken positions more or less similar to Mark's portrayal.
And Paul's remarks in Galatians are surely confirmatory data about Peter's
vacillation, and his willingness to abandon principle in the face of
opposition.
And the notion that Peter, in ANY sense, wrote I Peter was so decisively
blown out of the water half a century ago by Frank Beare (who
coincidentally demolished Selwyn's absurd commentary) that it's hard for me
to imagine anyone seriously defending that Fundamentalist position. (And
II Peter-- I guess Peter lived till 180 CE, and had to plagiarize Jude to
attack his opponents!)
Anyway, please continue yielding to temptation! And you've got to resist
your urge toward discipline! Please continue writing your wonderful
exegeses, and your wonderful asides!
Edward
--------------------------------
You wrote---------->>>>>
At 2:27 PM -0500 8/22/97, Edward Hobbs wrote:
>Carl, just what is it you have against Peter? Have you been reading Mark,
>or something like that?
>
>Edward
>
>You wrote-->
>
>Well, I guess that Peter was a bit more sophisticated by the time he wrote
>this than he was when he wanted to put up huts for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah
>on the mountaintop.
Actually I have nothing against Peter. I was trying to be facetious about
Jim Beale's ecstatic bit about a pilgrim in this world preparing for
another. I was thinking what a distance he would have to have come to reach
the perspective Jim was attributing to him (and I don't deny that it's
there in that passage, but I have my off-list doubts about the attribution
of the book to Peter).
I DO realize that Mark's Peter is a straw man just as Luke's Pharisees are
straw men; I guess everyone has an image of Peter; mine tends to make him a
sort of a cross between Friar Tuck and the tragi-comic Heracles. There's no
doubt, however, that Mark's coloration of Peter has washed off on my image
of Peter.
Still, what I was thinking of at 5 a.m. when I wrote that note this morning
was the distance between the Peter of the transfiguration and the Peter
whose eyes are fixed on a world beyond this one.
I really should not yield to the temptation to write stuff like that!
Discipline! That's what I need!
Ciao, c
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:38:26 EDT