How much of scripture is fiction?

[polonius]

Vatican II in 1964 claimed “The books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully, and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures� (Dei Verbum, no. 11).:

Catholics usually aren’t told that some other things need not be true, a major difference! The trick is to recognize this difference.

The Christian writer Oregon claimed we should “also considered levels of inspiration and the possibility of error in both Testaments owing to the Origen noted the authors’ humanity�. Errors in the text, it should be said, would not contradict our present understanding that there is no error in “the truth which God . . . wished to see confided� there for the sake of our salvation.

“ Acknowledging such historical or prescientific errors is a far cry from saying the Bible is “God breathed.� Much can actually just be legend or fiction for believers to accept.

For example, I think Catholics can safely conclude that Jesus wasn't really born twice (Compare Matthew and Luke)

[Difflugia]

An argument based on supposition and a somewhat literal take on Acts 4:13 seems hardly enough to make an affirmation of "gross improbability" , especially in the light of external and and textual indications this was indeed the case.

I don't know how much of a "literal take" you think I need, but all it takes is a reasonably plain reading of "ἀγ�άμματοί" as "uneducated." The text of Peter is that of someone with rhetorical training in Greek, which is basically the opposite of "uneducated."

Moreover, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian all quote the letter, naming Peter as writer.*

The four you named also thought that the Pastorals were written by Paul.

Internal evidence upports the above. We know from Acts that the disciple ex-fisherman Peter figured among the leading men at Jerusalem, and that Paul was introduced to a leading man Peter soon after his conversion. It stretches credibility to breaking point to suppose that the writer of the Letters, that later had the authority to endorse that same Paul's writings in his letter, was another Peter, writing under the same name, indeed one has to wonder how anyone could seriously propose such an idea.

The author's just claiming to be Peter. It's pseudonymous.

Regarding the question could the fisherman write such sophisticated Gresk, the fact is that if the Apostle as described in the gospel did write the letter it would have been many decades after the fisherman we first met on the shores of Galilee. And it should be noted that even at that time the young disciple was part of a family owned business that had at least two other boats, possibly more, so at the very least, even as a younger man, to run a not insignificant small business he must have been apt enough with money and calculas to hire and pay workers. Greek was the common language of the time and especially for northerners just across from the Decapolis and the language of commerce so it's more than likely even then he was could speak both his native Aramaic and Greek, probably fluently.

Apples and oranges. Even if we completely accept your thesis that Peter was something more than a simple fisherman, being able to speak Greek however fluently does not imply the kind of literary education that scholars attribute to the author of First Peter.

CONCLUSION A common error in bible reading is to freeze people in time. We met Peter the shores of Galilee and we tend to freeeze him there. But if lowly carpenter from the highlands faced down the religious elite of Jerusalem the center of Jewish learning and left their best teachers dumbfounded, his protégé could after decades of religious devotion write letters to the community left in his charge. Given the external and internal evidence in its favor one has to wonder why anyone questions the identity of the writer at all, it would be most extraordinary if the Letters were NOT written by the one time fisherman.

It's also a common error amongst apologists to mistake a desired possibility, however remote, for probability.

From Reading 1-2 Peter and Jude published by the SBL:

There are good reasons for thinking that Simon Peter did not write 1 Peter. The portrait of Peter in both the Gospels and Paul portrays a Palestinian Jew whose native language is Aramaic, who was imbedded in the controversy about Jewish and Gentile Christians and the status of the law, who focused his ministry on Jews and Jewish Christians, and who, as one of the so-called Twelve, knew Jesus firsthand. The letter of 1 Peter, however, is written in a Greek style beyond what many scholars can imagine for Simon Peter. Furthermore, in 1 Peter, there is no reference to the historical life of Jesus; no interest in debates about the law; the audience seems to be former Gentiles, not Jews; the cosmic Christology of 1 Peter has little relation to that of the Gospels; and when the author refers to himself, he names himself surprisingly as “fellow elder� (1 Pet 5:1).

[polonius]

[Replying to post 20 by JehovahsWitness]


JW posted:

First produce the year in the source text

RESPONSE: Please write this down and perhaps some long-suffering librarian will explain it to you. Very many books, in fact most, don't state the year in which they were written. And if you go back before the terms BC and AD were developed, obviously you not find any date used in modern calendars.

But to get back to the obvious issues you are trying to avoid. If we take historical events as time markers, Jesus was born twice. Once in 6-4 BC before Herod died according to Matthew, and once during the census of Judea (6 AD)according to Luke.

Thus according the "God - breathed " bible, Jesus was borne twice at least ten years apart.

[brianbbs67]

I say this about authorship. They all had secretaries. Some documented and some apparently not. The same Peter could have dictated all of his writings with different recorders. Which to me , seems a real world possibility. The Apostles were busy spreading the Word. I would imagine, that different people recorded it. Scribery is a mundane but very important task. Could more clues have been left? Sure. For example, what evidence do we have that Moses wrote a single thing? well. nothing, except it is believed.

[JehovahsWitness]

Very many books, in fact most, don't state the year in which they were written.

Why did you state this? What relevance to the gospels? Why point out that many books don't {quote} "state the year in which they were written."?

[JehovahsWitness]

An argument based on supposition and a somewhat literal take on Acts 4:13 seems hardly enough to make an affirmation of "gross improbability" , especially in the light of external and and textual indications this was indeed the case.

I don't know how much of a "literal take" you think I need, but all it takes is a reasonably plain reading of "ἀγ�άμματοί" as "uneducated." The text of Peter is that of someone with rhetorical training in Greek, which is basically the opposite of "uneducated."

The point being a literal interpretation implies that they lacked ANY education or training, a non-literal reading takes into account the fact that the religious leaders of the day viewed anyone that had not studied at recognised schools of higher education as "uneducated" and unqualified to teach on religious matters.

Their categorisation of the Peter of the gospels as "uneducated" doesn't mean that Peter had no training in rhetoric only that they considered his training insignificant. As has already been pointed out, by the time the ex-fisherman stood before the Senhedren he had had just over three years training, the bulk of which was full time, with someone that had left the best of their religius teachers speechles. Indeed the very context of Acts demonstrates that Simon Peter had an extraordinary knowledge of scripture and rhetoric.

Unless you are going to dig yourself deeper into the hole of selected vision your posts have thus far demonstrated and suggest the Peter of Acts wasn't the fisherman of Galilee, one has to recognise that the disciple Simon Peter was, even in his early years, a capable speaker that demonstrated a commanding knowleged of scripture. What reasonably would that same man be capable of after an additional 30 years of study, travel and experience? (That was not a rhetorical question, you might like to address this and related points).




JW

[JehovahsWitness]

Moreover, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian all quote the letter, naming Peter as writer.*

The four you named also thought that the Pastorals were written by Paul.

Did you make this comment meant in order to suggest their testimonies regarding scripture have been discredited and everything they wrote should be their disregarded? If so you will have to explain your point further if you expect it to be taken seriously. If not, what relevance?

(If you are referring to the pastoral epistles of 1 and 2 Timothy and the letter to Titus, I cannot see how anyone could argue they were not written by Paul...but perhaps you refer to some other writings)



I await clarification,

JW

[JehovahsWitness]

Internal evidence upports the above. We know from Acts that the disciple ex-fisherman Peter figured among the leading men at Jerusalem, and that Paul was introduced to a leading man Peter soon after his conversion. It stretches credibility to breaking point to suppose that the writer of the Letters, that later had the authority to endorse that same Paul's writings in his letter, was another Peter, writing under the same name, indeed one has to wonder how anyone could seriously propose such an idea.

The author's just claiming to be Peter. It's pseudonymous..

That has yet to be proven. You have yet to offer any credible proof that we are dealing with pseudonym. No supporting documentation , no contemporary manuscripts, no "church father " testimony, nothing! ...

Except perhaps a request we suspend disbelief and accept that a letter written by who knows who cirulated under the name of the famed Apostle Peter, got past Paul and the other leading men of the Christian community, who were according to documented accounts, actively fighting against the circulation of unauthorized material.

All you have offered to support the above is supposition. Supposition that someone who demonstrated an impressive knowledge of scripture, lived originally in close proximity to with Greek speaking communities, is reported on several occasions to have travelled and interacted within said communities, studied full-time for years with a master of rhetoric and Hebrew scripture, travelled according to Luke's account at the very least to major cultural and economic centers, headed an international religious community, moved if early church tradition is to be believed to Babylon, couldnt possibly have written two short letters which demonstrated linguistic skills in the language so common amongst the Jews they translated their holy scripture into it.

Is this the level of critical thinking they teach at theological seminaries nowadays?



JW

[Difflugia]

Unless you are going to dig yourself deeper into the hole of selected vision...

...if you expect it to be taken seriously.

Is this the level of critical thinking they teach at theological seminaries nowadays?

Oh, my. Zing!

Their categorisation of the Peter of the gospels as "uneducated" doesn't mean that Peter had no training in rhetoric only that they considered his training insignificant.

Indeed the very context of Acts demonstrates that Simon Peter had an extraordinary knowledge of scripture and rhetoric.

You're just saying that "uneducated" can somehow still mean educated.

Maybe translating "ἀγ�άμματος" as "uneducated" is incorrect in context. Maybe Acts was wrong or lying about Peter being ἀγ�άμματος. As I mentioned earlier, I consider it possible (not probable, but possible) that the Gospels and Acts fictitiously paint Peter as an uneducated Palestinian fisherman, while the real Peter, the one Paul spoke of and who perhaps wrote 1 Peter, was a Greek-educated Jew of the diaspora. In any case, the Gospels and Acts describe Peter as uneducated, while the author of 1 Peter can only reasonably described as educated.

You've pointed out a set of arguments that, if believed, would erase the gulf between uneducated and educated. I, however, don't believe it. More importantly, scholars don't believe it.

From The New Oxford Annotated Bible:

The high level of its Greek prose, the letter’s rhetorical sophistication, and familiarity with Hellenistic religious thought seem inappropriate for a Galilean fisherman and missionary to Jews (Gal 2.9).

From The Oxford Bible Commentary

Despite I Pet 1:1, the author is unlikely to have been the apostle Peter. The cultured Greek of the epistle makes it perhaps the most literary composition in the NT.

From The HarperCollins Study Bible (this particular page isn't in the Google Books preview, so I didn't bother to link it):

Although the readers are suffering for their faith, there is no hint of current or impending martyrdom as there is, for example, in Revelation, a document often dated in the late 90s. If 1 Peter represents the earlier stages of such eventually lethal suffering, it would point to a date in the late 80s. This date and the high quality of the Greek suggest that 1 Peter is pseudonymous.

From Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene by Bart Ehrman:

Yet more significant is the basic question of whether a book like this could have been written by Peter. As we have repeatedly seen, Peter himself was an Aramaic-speaking, lower-class fisherman from rural Galilee. There is nothing to suggest that someone in that socioeconomic situation would have gone to school to learn to read and write. This letter, on the other hand, is written in high-quality Greek by someone who is fluent in the language and who, as it turns out, is thoroughly imbued with the Jewish Scriptures in their Greek translation. Of course, it is technically possible that after Jesus’ resurrection, Peter went back to school, took some Greek classes, did some advanced work in Greek composition, mastered the Jewish Bible in Greek, and then penned a letter such as this to a group of people that otherwise he was not known to be ministering to. But it seems unlikely.

From Peter: The Myth, the Man, and the Writings by Fred Lapham:

In spite of robust efforts to maintain genuine authorship for 1 Peter, the tide of scholarship has unquestionably turned in favour of a later date.

From Theology of the New Testament by Georg Strecker

1 Peter is written in a refined Greek. These features, as well as the exclusive use of the LXX, would be remarkable for a writing by Peter the disciple of Jesus, since according to Acts 4:13 he was uneducated and according to Mark 14:70 was recognizable by his Galilean dialect of Aramaic.

From 1 Peter by David G. Horell (the Google Books link is to an ebook without page numbers, but it's on page 21 of the paper book):

It is by no means impossible that Peter knew some Greek, since Greek language and culture had spread across Palestine since the conquests of Alexander the Great. Indeed, Karen Jobes has recently suggested that 'the Greek of 1 Peter arguably exhibits bilingual interference that is consistent with a Semitic author for whom Greek is a second language'. But it seems somewhat unlikely that the fisherman described in Acts as 'uneducated' (Acts 4.13) would produce such a well-crafted letter. Similarly, the quotations from the Jewish scriptures in the letter generally follow the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Again, it seems more likely that Peter would have known and used the Hebrew versions of these scriptures. Furthermore, there is in fact little indication of Peter's own experience in the letter; the parallels with the Gospel traditions are not extensive, nor do they by any means suggest a particular link with Peter.

Need more?

Did you make this comment meant in order to suggest their testimonies regarding scripture have been discredited and everything they wrote should be their disregarded?

(If you are referring to the pastoral epistles of 1 and 2 Timothy and the letter to Titus, I cannot see how anyone could argue they were not written by Paul...but perhaps you refer to some other writings)

Yes and yes. Even if they don't agree with it, those familiar with modern biblical scholarship (Haha! Zing!) know that the near-universal consensus rejects Pauline authorship of the Pastorals. That's actually one of my quick shibboleths for determining whether an unfamiliar commentary is scholarly or apologetic (Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and the composition date of Ruth are two others).

If you "cannot see how anyone could argue they were not written by Paul" (again, even if you don't agree), then you probably just need to read more, or at least more things that are scholarly rather than apologetic.

The Problem with the Pastoral Epistles is out of copyright and available in its entirety at Google Books. There has been some criticism of using the number of hapax legomena in the various Paulines as a valid argument against Pauline authorship and the discussion has since been refined a bit, but that book is still referenced and makes a good introduction to the observations that led to the modern consensus.

All you have offered to support the above is supposition.

In this response, I tried very hard to move beyond supposition. Let me know if I need to try harder.

[JehovahsWitness]

You've pointed out a set of arguments that, if believed, would erase the gulf between uneducated and educated. I, however, don't believe it. More importantly, scholars don't believe it.

I dont care if you believe it or not, I am simply asking if you have a coherent counter arguement to the points I have presented that amount to more than axiom?

More importantly, scholars don't believe it.

You might like to modify your nouns for fear you give the impression of speaking in absolutes. You have more than adequately demonstrated your ability to cut and paste from your favorite experts (congratulations on that) now, if you feel inclined to present any actual reasoning to show why you agree with them, preferably with a few concrete examples, I await the post. Multiple post simply repeating your claim "Simon Peter couldn't have written it", "Simon Peter couldn't have written it" is of no interest, as they neither counterargue the njmerousmpoints I have made (and no "well I don't believe it" is not a counterargument) nor do they finish any new information to consider.

JW

[JehovahsWitness]

From The New Oxford Annotated Bible:

The high level of its Greek prose, the letter’s rhetorical sophistication, and familiarity with Hellenistic religious thought seem inappropriate for a Galilean fisherman and missionary to Jews (Gal 2.9).

The book of Acts obviously has the ex-fisherman Peter from the inception preaching to non-jews (Acts 10), participating in the judicating between the Hebrew and the Greek speaking Jews (without, I might point out any mention of a translator) (Acts 6) and, since we are referencing Paul's testimony, presumably living or at the very least having close association with Gentile Christians in Syrian Antioch; the same Antioch were it is reported large numbers of Greek-speaking people were becoming believers. (Compare Ac 11:21-26; Gal 2:12). Obviously then, Galatians 2:9 is not implying Peter had or was to have, no further contact with hellenized Jews or would cease having any opportunity to progress in his knowledge of the culture which was proving to provide so many new converts.

Indeed those that take the position that "Galilean fisherman" (a misnomer if ever there was one, since all indications are the Simon Peter had long hung up his fishing nets), could not have possibly been so familiar with "with Hellenistic religious thought" seem to have forgotten it was this same man who played a major role in the Jerusalem council where the leaders of the then growing Christian community discussed the very matter and to what extent Jewish law should be imposed on gentile converts (Acts 15).

Further, it seems clear from the Account of Acts and the Pauline epistles that any division of focus and responsibilities Galatians 2:9 represents was far from absolute. If Paul the "Apostle to the nations" spent plenty of time preaching to Jewish communities, while spending the majority of time mjnjstering to gentiles (as was the case) what impedes Peter from mirroring that?

CONCLUSION The Simon Peter of the book of Acts and Galatians is one who is reported not only to be knowledgeable of Greek language and culture but someone that had sufficient authority to participate on theological judgements related to them. It seems reasonable then to conclude that if Galatians 2:9 reflects a general division of focus and responsibility between Paul and Peter, nothing therein implies Simon Peter originally from Galilee and one of the formost leaders of the community according to Paul, didnt have or could not aquired in 30 years, the level of familiarity with Hellenistic culture to write the epistles that bear his name.