Rewriting Peter as an Intertextual Character in the Canonical Gospels

Finn Damgaard

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780367873820
• eBook ISBN: 9781317402374
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Peter is a fascinating character in all four canonical gospels, not only as a literary figure in each of the gospels respectively, but also when looked at from an intertextual perspective. This book examines how Peter is rewritten for each of the gospels, positing that the different portrayals of this crucial figure reflect not only the theological priorities of each gospel author, but also their attitude towards their predecessors. Rewriting Peter as an Intertextual Character in the Canonical Gospels is the first critical study of the canonical gospels which is based on Markan priority, Luke's use of Mark and Matthew, and John's use of all three synoptic gospels. Through a selection of close readings, Damgaard both provides a new critical portrait of Peter and proposes a new theory of source and redaction in the gospels.

In the last thirty years there has been an increasing appreciation of the gospels' literary design and of the gospel writers as authors and innovators rather than merely compilers and transmitters. However, literary critics have tended to read each gospel individually as if they were written for isolated communities. This book reconsiders the relationship between the gospels, arguing that the works were composed for a general audience and that the writers were bold and creative interpreters of the tradition they inherited from earlier gospel sources. Damgaard's view that the gospel authors were familiar with the work of their predecessors, and that the divergences between their narratives were deliberate, sheds new light on their intentions and has a tremendous impact on our understanding of the gospels.

1 REWRITING A PARADIGMATIC APOSTOLIC PORTRAYAL

The Figure of Peter in the Gospel of Mark

DOI: 10.4324/9781315682174-2

In the shadow of Paul

As mentioned in the introduction, New Testament scholarship on Peter was for a long time closely connected to an interest in Paul. The scholarly interest often focused on the differences or even contrasts between the two apostles, and even though many Petrine scholars would now emphasize Peter's mediating role (cf. Dunn 1977: 385–386, Perkins 1994: 184, and Bockmuehl 2010: 8), Baur's polarized view of early Christianity as a dichotomy between Pauline and Petrine Christianity is probably still visible in the equation of pro-Paulinism with anti-Petrinism in, for instance, the writings of those scholars that regard Mark as a Paulinist and find an anti-Petrine tendency in the gospel (Goulder 1992: 875, Goulder 1994: 16–23, Marcus 2000a: 487, Sim 2014: 90–97, and Elmer 2014: 683–695). In reopening the debate about Mark and Paul, Joel Marcus, for instance, argues that the negative things Paul and Mark write about Peter and the members of Jesus's family are among a number of ‘striking similarities’ between Paul's letters and Mark. Though the figure of Peter is not in focus in Marcus's article, in his conclusion he does suggest that a study of Paul's and Mark's attitudes to Peter would support his thesis, since “not everyone was as negative as Paul about Peter and Jesus’ family – but Mark was” (Marcus 2000a: 487).¹ In contrast to Marcus's view, I argue that Mark was not particularly negative concerning Peter. Even Baur thought that there was more in Mark's portrayal than polemics. According to Baur, Mark was written after the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (the Griesbach hypothesis; cf. Baur 1851: 4–110) and represented a later mediating position between Paul and Peter. In my view, Mark was not interested in undermining Peter's position. On the contrary, he seems to recognize his authority in order to exploit it and bolster his own case. As we shall see, this was also the case in Paul's use of Peter. If Mark was a Paulinist (which I believe is possible; see now the discussions in Wischmeyer et al. 2014 and Becker et al. 2014), he probably copied the way in which Paul exploited the authority of Peter in the same manner. It is, however, not only Paul's portrayal of Peter that may have influenced what Mark wrote about Peter; as I shall suggest, Paul's portrayal of himself may also have helped to shape Mark's portrayal of Peter.

Previous research on the figure of Peter in the Gospel of Mark

Mark's picture of Peter is notoriously complicated, and there is no scholarly consensus about it. Scholars disagree strongly about how to understand the apparent “negative” portrayal of Peter (and the disciples) in Mark. As Robert Herron has shown (Herron 1991: 8–9, 89–115), redaction critics, in general, support a polemical interpretation of Mark's presentation of Peter (such as Kuby 1958: 52–64, Tyson 1961: 261–268, Weeden 1968: 145–158, Weeden 1971, and Kelber 1972: 166–187), while narrative critics mainly interpret the negative portrayal as purely pastoral: either as a foil to introduce a significant teaching of Jesus (Best 1977: 377–401, Best 1978a: 11–35, and Best 1978b: 547–558) or as a literary device by which the reader is given an example with which both to identify and improve (such as Tannehill 1977: 386–405, Vorster 1987: 63–76, and Borrell 1998: 196–198). Redaction critics have viewed Mark's portrayal of Peter and the disciples as Mark's way of expressing his hostility towards his theological opponents. In this hypothesis, Peter and the disciples should be seen as literary representatives of people living at the time in which Mark wrote his gospel. In contrast to such a rather simplistic view of narrative communication, narrative critics have stressed that the gospel actually seeks to draw the readers into personal identification with Peter and the other disciples. With the portrayal of the disciples as “fallible followers” (I take the expression from Malbon 1983) of Jesus, Mark invites his readers to identify themselves with the disciples, not as models to be imitated, but to recognize the human weakness and take stock of their own situation (Vorster 1987: 74 and Borrell 1998: 197).

The reappraisal of Mark's portrayal of the figure of Peter by literary critics has even led some scholars to claim that Mark displays a positive interest in Peter (Bockmuehl 2012: 132). This evaluation is also closely related to the distinction between Peter and the other disciples which Timothy Wiarda has argued for in his article “Peter as Peter in the Gospel of Mark” (Wiarda 1999). While redaction and narrative critics alike have usually stressed that Peter's role in Mark is that of spokesman for or representative of the disciples (Tyson 1961: 262, Brown 1973: 62, Tolbert 1989: 209 and Shiner 1995: 63), Wiarda claims that Peter is portrayed with a large degree of individualization and distinctiveness and he is therefore not typical of the disciples. According to Wiarda, Peter is only clearly presented as a spokesman in Mark 10:28–31, but functions more as a kind of “opinion leader” (in Mark 8:27–30; 14:27–31) and “outspoken member of the group” (in Mark 8:31–33; 9:2–8; 11:20–21) in the other episodes of the gospels in which scholars traditionally have claimed that he acts as a spokesman for or a representative of the disciples (Wiarda 1999: 34). Wiarda's appreciation of Peter as a more individualized character in Mark has led some scholars to a more positive view of the Markan Peter, since individualizing details often mean that “the reader [who] becomes more interested in what happens to the character, will see things from the character's viewpoint, and will sympathize with the character” (Wiarda 1999: 36). Wiarda's argument about Peter's individuality in Mark has, for instance, been accepted by Richard Bauckham and used to advance his own argument about the Petrine perspective in Mark. In Bauckham's view, it is thus “entirely plausible that this kind of individuality is the kind that was conveyed by Peter's own recounting of the Gospel stories” (Bauckham 2006: 180). According to Bauckham, the gospels were written “within living memory of the events they recount” (Bauckham 2006: 7). Bauckham does not believe that the Jesus traditions circulated anonymously, but argues that they were intimately connected to eyewitness testimony. Adopting the view of Martin Hengel and Samuel Byrskog (Hengel 1983: 252–257, Hengel 2006: 58–78, and Byrskog 2000: 272–292), Bauckham has therefore advocated a reconsideration of the fragment from Papias of Hierapolis on the relationship between the Markan author and Peter (Bauckham 2006: 155–182), which has mostly been considered historically worthless in previous scholarship (see, for instance, Niederwimmer 1967: 178–185 and Zuntz 1984: 69–71). Though I do not share the optimism concerning the truth of Papias's claim that Mark really was Peter's interpreter (ἑρμηνευτής), I agree with these scholars that we should certainly pay much more serious attention to Papias. I am not, however, convinced of its historical claim that Peter's teaching lies behind the Gospel of Mark, but as the oldest comment on the Gospel of Mark, it provides us with important information about how the gospel was read.

Reading the Gospel of Mark on the basis of Papias's note

According to Papias, he had heard from a presbyter that Mark wrote down from memory what he had heard Peter teaching:

And this is what the elder used to say: “When Mark was the interpreter of Peter, he wrote down accurately everything that he recalled of the Lord's words and deeds – but not in order. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied him; but later, as I indicated, he accompanied Peter, who used to adapt his teachings for the needs at hand, not arranging, as it were, an orderly composition of the Lord's sayings. And so Mark did nothing wrong by writing some of the matters as he remembered them. For he was intent on just one purpose: to leave out nothing that he heard or to include any falsehood among them” (καὶ τοῦθ’ ὁ πρεσβύτερος ἔλεγεν· Μάρκος μὲν ἑρμηνευτὴς Πέτρου γενόμενος, ὅσα ἐμνημόνευσεν, ἀκριβῶς ἔγραψεν, οὐ μέντοι τάξει τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ κυρίου ἢ λεχθέντα ἢ πραχθέντα. οὔτε γὰρ ἤκουσεν τοῦ κυρίου οὔτε παρηκολούθησεν αὐτῷ, ὕστερον δὲ, ὡς ἔφην, Πέτρῳ· ὃς πρὸς τὰς χρείας ἐποιεῖτο τὰς διδασκαλίας, ἀλλ’ οὐχ ὥσπερ σύνταξιν τῶν κυριακῶν ποιούμενος λογίων, ὥστε οὐδὲν ἥμαρτεν Μάρκος οὕτως ἔνια γράψας ὡς ἀπεμνημόνευσεν. ἑνὸς γὰρ ἐποιήσατο πρόνοιαν, τοῦ μηδὲν ὧν ἤκουσεν παραλιπεῖν ἢ ψεύσασθαί τι ἐν αὐτοῖς). (translations of the fragments of Papias are from Ehrman 2003)

The fragment is preserved by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History (3.39.15), and should probably be dated to around 110 (Bartlet 1933: 20–34, Körtner 1983: 88–94, 225–226, Schoedel 1993: 261, Bauckham 2006: 13–14, and Elmer 2014: 675–676). With the reference to the elder, Papias refers, however, to an earlier period in his life when he collected the material for his work. Like the majority of scholars, I believe that “the elder” refers to the elder John who appears in Papias's preface to his work which is preserved in the Ecclesiastical History (3.39.4). According to Papias, John the elder had been a personal disciple of Jesus together with a certain Aristion and both of them were still active when Papias collected his material. The tradition that Papias refers to here can therefore hardly be later than 90–100 (cf., for instance, Munck 1959b: 240 and Bauckham 2006: 17–20). Moreover, as we shall see, it seems likely that the elder had even adopted his view from an earlier tradition. As Josef Kürzinger has convincingly argued (Kürzinger 1983: 11; see also Watson 2013: 125–129), there is a close connection between Papias's note on the Markan order and his statement about Matthew: “Therefore (οὖν) Matthew put the sayings in an ordered arrangement (συνετάξατο) in the Hebrew tongue, and each interpreted them to the best of his ability” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.16, translation slightly modified).² While the statement about Matthew was probably originally a part of Papias's larger argument concerning the order of Mark and Matthew, Eusebius has unfortunately disturbed the argument by inserting his comment: “This then is what Papias says about Mark. And this is what he says about Matthew” and thereby divided the argument as if Papias is giving separate information about the two gospels. Once we have recognized that Papias's two statements on Mark and Matthew is part of a composite argument about the relationship between the order of Mark and Matthew, it becomes much clearer what the original meaning of the passage was. The elder is not making an argument here concerning the apostolic authority of Mark (such as Walter Bauer and Kurt Niederwimmer suggested when they argued that Papias was countering an emerging attempt to attribute the authority of Peter to gnostic thought; see Bauer 1934: 70–71, 187–188; and Niederwimmer 1967: 186), nor does he himself voice a critique of the Markan order (Collins 2007: 4) – he actually assumes general agreement on these points; instead he is concerned with defending Mark (cf. also Watson 2013: 124). If this defence should have weight and meaning, we may assume that Papias (and the elder) assumed (!) that the readers shared their assumption, namely that Mark really was Peter's ἑρμηνευτής, and that the Markan order was unreliable. As John Kloppenborg has rightly argued, the problem with the Markan order probably turned up in the wake of the formation of Matthew, “the most probable explanation for the elder's apologia on Mark's behalf is not that in itself Mark gave the impression of an incomplete and disorganized account, but that when compared with another gospel, which had both a different arrangement and more material, Mark appeared deficient” (Kloppenborg 1987: 53, italics in original). If, however, Papias and the elder really considered Matthew to be superior to Mark, why did they take the trouble to defend Mark at all? The most likely explanation seems to be that it was the Petrine tradition that persuaded them to defend the gospel in spite of it being defective. Given that Papias and the elder favoured Matthew, it seems unlikely that they themselves had invented the connection between Mark and Peter. If Papias's statement about Peter was his own apologetic innovation, it is also somewhat strange that he belittles him when he puts him after Andrew in his list of the disciples in the Ecclesiastical History 3.39.4. It seems rather to be a tradition which Papias had to come to terms with. If, however, it was not the making of Matthew and the question of the gospels’ order that turned up in this connection that brought about the link between the author (Mark) and Peter, what then was it?

As noted above, a group of scholars (most noticeably Martin Hengel, Samuel Byrskog and Richard Bauckham) have argued that the Petrine tradition dates back to the Gospel of Mark itself. According to Bauckham, Mark has incorporated the Petrine perspective in several ways:

1. Mark uses a literary device in order to mark his principal eyewitness by mentioning Peter both at the beginning and at the end of his story. Bauckham suggests that the use of inclusio may have been a known technique of popular biographical works that indicated eyewitness testimony (Bauckham 2006: 124–127, 132–145).³ Apart from the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John, Bauckham does, however, only offer two other examples of this pattern, namely Lucian's work on Alexander (Alexander the False Prophet) and Porphyry's work on Plotinus (Life of Plotinus). In Lucian's account, the name of Rutilianus, a Roman aristocrat and supporter of Alexander, forms the inclusio, and in Porphyry's work, it is Amelius, one of Plotinus's most prominent disciples, who has this function. Lucian and Porphyry, however, wrote their biographies considerably later than Mark wrote his gospel, and, as Bauckham himself admits, it is somewhat hazardous to use Lucian's work on Alexander (which is a parody) to elucidate characteristics of the biographical genre (Bauckham 2006: 136). Moreover, since the Life of Plotinus may in fact be modelled after the gospels, the most that can be said about the pattern here is that it perhaps reflects the use of the pattern in Mark (cf. Bauckham 2006: 145). The argument seems also weak in relation to Luke and John. In Luke, the named women (whom Bauckham thinks provide the inclusio) are introduced nowhere near the beginning of the gospel, and it is not much better in John, where Bauckham argues that it is the Beloved Disciple who provides the inclusio which means that he has to identify the unnamed disciple in John 1:35–40 with the Beloved Disciple. As argued by Eric Eve, this is “surely a bizarre way to advertise one's eyewitness source” (Eve 2014: 145). Though Bauckham's idea of the inclusio as a literary device seems to rest on dubious evidence, the fact that Mark mentions Peter's name both at the beginning and at the end of the story is, however, probably indicative of the important role Peter has in Mark.
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Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgement
• Introduction
• 1. Rewriting a Paradigmatic Apostolic Portrayal: The Figure of Peter in the Gospel of Mark
• 2. Alienating Peter: The Figure of Peter in the Gospel of Matthew
• 3. Rehabilitating Peter: The Figure of Peter in the Gospel of Luke
• 4. Reinventing a Paradigmatic Disciple: The Figure of Peter in the Gospel of John
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index