Peter Apocalyptic Seer

This study fills a gap in previous research concerning the portrayal of Peter in Matthew, especially the research of narrative-critical studies. Although narrative-critical studies generally recognize that Matthew has portrayed Peter and the disciples as recipients of revelation at points, they almost entirely neglect the apocalypses or apocalyptic literature more broadly as a potentially helpful background for this motif, nor does the motif itself figure significantly into their conclusions. Therefore, Part 1 of this study examines fourteen different Jewish and Christian apocalypses in order to determine generic aspects of how the apocalypses portray their seers, and to identify specific textual features that support these generic aspects of a seer's portrayal. These specific textual features then provide the guiding coordinates for Part 2, which assesses the influence of the generic portrayal of apocalyptic seers on the portrayal of Peter and the disciples in Matthew's Gospel and main source, Mark's Gospel. Like the apocalypses, both Evangelists deploy the features of exclusionary statements, narrative isolation, dissemination details, and emphasis of cognitive humanity and emotional-physical humanity to portray Peter and the disciples as the exclusive recipients of revealed mysteries, and as humans who encounter the mysteries of the divine realm. This leads to the conclusion that both Evangelists envisaged Peter and the disciples as apocalyptic seers in some sense. However, Matthew's redaction of Markan source material, incorporation of Q source material, and his own special material yield a more fully developed, or more explicit, portrayal of Peter and the disciples as apocalyptic seers than his Markan predecessor. The study concludes by focusing directly on Peter's significance for Matthew and his earliest audience. The research suggests that Peter's significance was, in part, as principal apocalyptic seer, which requires revision to the predominant scholarly conclusions about Peter in Matthew.

After playing second fiddle to the apostle Paul for a long, long time, Peter has received increased scholarly attention of late. This book builds on the recent resurgence of interest in the apostle Peter. Nineteen internationally prominent scholars of early Christian history here examine and reassess the historical Peter and his significance in Christian texts from the first three centuries. Giving due attention to archaeological data and recent scholarship, the contributors offer a comprehensive view of Peter through analysis of both New Testament texts and later, noncanonical literature. Markus Bockmuehl concludes the volume by considering present-day questions about the role of Peter, popes, and church leadership.

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.

The Apocalypse of Peter is the first modern collection of studies on this intriguing Early Christian book, that has mainly survived in Ethiopic. The volume starts with a short survey of the Forschungsgeschichte and a discussion of the old question regarding its eventual inspiration: Greek or Jewish. It is followed by a new look at the circumstances of its finding, the composition of the codex and its character, and also by a new edition of the Bodleian and Rainer fragments. The major part of the book studies various aspects and passages of the Apocalypse the nature of the Ethiopic pseudo-Clementine work that contained the Apocalypse, false prophets, the Bar Kokhba hypothesis, Paradise, the post-mortem 'baptism' of sinners, the grotesque body, the pattern of justice underlying our work, the Old Testament quotations and the reception of the Apocalypse in ancient Christianity. The book concludes with a study of the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter. As has become customary, the volume is rounded off by a bibliography and a detailed index.

A STUNNING, PROVOCATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON THE DISCIPLE PETER AS DEPICTED BY MATTHEW "In this highly controversial work on Peter, Robert Gundry's intellectual gifts and remarkable powers of analysis are displayed to an even higher degree than in his previous publications. . . One need not agree with Gundry's conclusions to acknowledge that the penetrating exegesis presented here and the nature of the argumentation as a whole demand serious reflection and engagement. Those who pay close attention to this brief but unusually weighty book will not be able to read Matthew in quite the same way that they did before." --MOISES SILVA author of Biblical Words and Their Meaning "Peter, long thought to be 'prince of the apostles' and one of the heroes of the Gospel of Matthew, is shown here to be neither. This extraordinarily closely argued volume by Robert Gundry offers a compelling case that Matthew constructs the figure of Peter as a failed disciple and an apostate. . . A courageous book that will require scholars to reassess how the Peter of Matthew came to be, in Gundry's words, 'airbrushed' and turned into a model of disciple and central figure in ecclesiastical memory." --JOHN S. KLOPPENBORG University of Toronto "If Bob Gundry is known for anything, it is for his dogged pursuit of the meaning of Scripture. Here he once again provides fresh, penetrating analysis--in the present case, leading to an unsettling conclusion. Provocative, as he can often be, Gundry is never boring but always instructive and well worth a careful reading." --DONALD A. HAGNER Fuller Theological Seminary

The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.

Did Luke intend Peter's visionary command to eat 'unclean animals' in Acts 10 to suggest the dissolution of the Jewish Law? Whilst scholars have argued over sources, inconsistent redaction and later reception, many have failed to notice here the novel use of a type of transgression anxiety dream. John Moxon shows how by the incorporation of such naturalistic motifs, Luke takes "revelation" in a new and decidedly psychological direction, probably imitating similar developments in Graeco-Roman biography. If the vision reveals an illegitimate transfer of disgust within an exaggerated halakha of separation, then its target is prejudice and inconsistency, not the Jew-Gentile divide as such, as underlined by the ironic contrast with the pious Cornelius. In this reading, Luke's non-supercessionism is maintained, whilst showing him acutely aware of the kinds of nightmare holding many back from the nascent Gentile mission.