Talk:Authorship of the Petrine epistles

Petrine authorship

Hi ADM, i notice you recently created the page on the authorship of the Petrine epistles. What has led up to this? I'm currently writing a paper on 2 Peter and Jude and will probably add a few references after my paper is complete. paulgear (talk) 06:38, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't write the article myself actually, I just assembled some relevant information that was found in two separate entries, first Epistle of Peter, and second Epistle of Peter. I think it makes sense to distinguish the question of authorship from the general topic of scriptural analysis.

Regarding petrine authorship, while I think it is quite likely that someone like Silvanus wrote the first (and/or second) epistle on behalf of Peter, I don't believe that this removes the fact that the epistles are petrine in character. I'll explain a bit : most modern encyclicals on behalf of the Pope are written by ghostwriters like Silvanus. Caritas in Veritate, Mystici Corporis Christi and Pascendi Dominici Gregis are signed by the Pope, but most of these texts were actually written by his curial assistants andd theologians. But that's just how the Church writes its own documents. The same phenomenon most likely occurs for the pauline epistles, by the way.

ADM (talk) 06:45, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The article is informative and fairly well written, and I believe it's a valuable addition to Wikipedia.

The article does suffer however from anonymous authority and numerically vague expressions; "Most scholars today conclude", "Some scholars believe", "Dissent among a minority of scholars", etcetera... There's also an slight aura of editorializing in the piece, not quite in keeping with the tone of an encyclopedia.

I didn't want to spam citation requests and "avoid weasel words" all over the text, but I do believe it's an issue that needs to be addressed. Unfortunately I'm not an authority on Petrine epistle authorship, and am loathe to make the changes needed myself. Currently the only solution I can see would be to eliminate a good bit of it, which I don't believe is actually the answer.

Philip72 01:32, 30 March 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.99.193.181 (talk)

The article is a ridiculous mess. "Most scholars say X, but other scholars disagree, pointing to Y" is for issues where the jury is still out. The article should emphasize MUCH more clearly than it presently does that virtually all scholars reject Petrine authorship of both, particularly 2 Peter, and the only dissenters are fundamentalists and very conservative evangelicals. 182.249.241.28 (talk) 08:37, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Redirect

Why does Epistles of Peter redirect here? The topic of this article is most obviously a subtopic of the epistles themselves. Disambiguation would have been the correct choice. One person's very specific article with unaddressed problems would likely not appear first in a serious encyclopedia, but perhaps is typical of wikipedia. 24.190.51.21 (talk) 14:52, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Revert

I have reverted WP:FRINGE edits. WP:RS/AC is not to be messed with. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:16, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

You removed recent peer-reviewed citations and reverted to non peer-reviewed citations that are between 10 and 35 years old.

You might consider the fact that paradigm's shifts and long held beliefs change when new work is completed.

Who is actually the fundamentalist here? The one who updated an article to include the most recent peer-reviewed work, or the one who insists that the way things were is good enough and reverts to old ideas? 184.145.132.234 (talk) 20:50, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Provide evidence from mainstream Bible scholars (not biased apologists with an axe to grind against mainstream Bible scholarship) that the paradigm did change.

DARVO is not evidence that the Petrine authorship is a tenable claim inside the mainstream academia, in the 2020s.

Let me tell you a "secret": if the 'gelicals and the fundamentalists don't get offended by it, it is quite probably not mainstream Bible scholarship.

So, I have provided several sources from the 2010s if not from the 2020s, including two books written by the adversaries of the academic consensus, who nevertheless acknowledge this consensus for what it is. When even people who fight tooth and nail against the academic consensus state it as it is, you're clutching at straws. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:38, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

I will rewrite and resubmit. Maybe this time you will actually review the content and the sources instead of deleting with your eyes closed. 184.145.132.234 (talk) 23:00, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Again, the deal is: provide evidence that the Petrine authorship isn't dead in the water inside the mainstream academia. I have offered evidence for my WP:RS/AC claims. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:11, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

I am collecting the most recent dissertations and peer-reviewed articles. In my rewrite I will pay special attention to those recent developments in technical analysis that have cast large question marks over earlier scholarship.

In the meantime, I have added a quotation from Ehrman which clarifies the limitations of the position currently presented. 184.145.132.234 (talk) 02:27, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Your POV is still WP:FRINGE, and you're still clutching at straws. You can't win this dispute, because in the mainstream academia the Petrine authorship really is dead in the water. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:07, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

As I pointed out in Chapter 2, it also helps to think concretely about how the secretary hypothesis might explain how Peter himself could have written 1 Peter. He could not have dictated the letter to a secretary, because he was not trained in Greek compositional and rhetorical techniques. Nor could he have dictated the letter in Aramaic and asked the secretary to translate it into Greek, because the letter contains sophisticated forms of argumentation and presentation that work only in Greek and presupposes knowledge of the Greek Old Testament, not the Hebrew version, which Peter himself would have been familiar with. And it does not seem possible that Peter gave the general gist of what he wanted to say and that a secretary then created the letter for him in his name, since, first, then the secretary rather than Peter would be the real author of the letter, and second, and even more important, we don't seem to have any analogy for a procedure like this from the ancient world.

— Bart Ehrman

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 03:16, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Your edits to our article show that you have absolutely no idea about how the ball is played in this academic field, inside the mainstream academia. Your POV belongs to gullible evangelicals, who think that conservative evangelicals offer a serious challenge to mainstream Bible scholars, rather than to people who are well read in mainstream Bible scholarship. Conservative evangelicals think that the truth of the Bible should never be seriously questioned, and I'm afraid that means their scholarship is incompatible with the tenets of the historical method. Or with the tenets of biology. Or with the tenets of archaeology. Unlike most Catholics and liberal Protestants, who agree that the Bible verses which have been scientifically debunked should be interpreted metaphorically. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:45, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

the above comment is blatantly false. It misrepresents my personal view, current scholarship and the view of prominent Chrisrian scholars by presenting a myopic view of this issue. You have demonstrated an intolerance to skepticism and a dogmatic attachment to a ten year old position.

The fact is that secretaries were used. Erhman himself admits, "There is no doubt that the apostle Paul used a secretary" (p. 134)

Furthermore, the arguments presented against Petrine use of secretaries in Forged have not under gone peer-review and were debunked by Erhman himself only two pages later in that same book:

"...evidence that derives from the brief, stereotyped letters typically found in Greek and Roman circles is not necessarily germane to the 'letters' of the early Christians." (p.136)

Meanwhile, entire peer-reviewed books by far less popular scholars have been published on this subject in the past 10 years, some introducing new technological methods of analysis into New Testament Studies from other areas of the classics, but you will delete any reference to their work because their data does not support the previous paradigm to which you are so dogmaticaly attached.

I will rewrite this article. But, it will take time because so much research as been done in the past ten years it will take me considerable effort to collect it all.

Fortunately, fundamentalists such as yourself will always be forced to bow to the facts. 184.145.132.234 (talk) 10:05, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

DARVO won't help you.

Now there are 17 footnotes (in the WP:LEDE only) which WP:V my claims about the Petrine authorship. I guess I can double that number, using only major scholarly works from past 20 years, from both sides of the fence. But at a certain point it becomes tedious to provide WP:RS/AC references ad nauseam. And not all of the 17 footnotes could be even remotely considered as dated: check the publication year (while I do allow a difference of say 10 years for some books which got republished).

As in that cartoon with the Credible Hulk, I do provide serious scholarly references when I get angry. I invite you to do the same.

Above the above quote: you might think it is based upon original research performed by Bart Ehrman. It is not, he quotes his sources.

Murphy's laws for Bible scholarship:

1. Some things hardly change;
2. If things change, they don't change for the better. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:28, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I have completed my collection. I will now conduct a literature review and develop an annotated bibliography. When completed I will rewrite this article with proper unbiased academic sourcing.

Are you aware of how much evidence has been produced in the last ten years to demonstrate that a tradesmen in Galilea would have actually had a working knowledge of Greek?

Are you aware of the simple fact that the name of Peter's brother, Andrew, is Greek and has no Hebrew equivalent. And, that Phillip (their fellow Galilean) also has a Greek name and is shown conversing with Greeks in the New Testament - Greeks who we are told approached him because he was a resident of Galilea...

You really need to catch up on the literature. There is considerable archeological and linguistic evidence that have converged to support the idea that Galilea had considerable greek influence.

But, don't worry. I will dig deep into the cross-disciplinary sources to elucidate the most recent research findings and include ONLY peer-reviewed materials.

I hope you can understand that it is only a matter of time. If you are familiar with this topic, you understand that the academic consensus has already shifted several times in the past 100 years. Initially Petrine authorship was widely accepted as per the standard method in textual criticism. Later, authorship of Peter's Epistles was assigned to Paul due to the Pauline influence. Later research demonstrated that the Pauline influence had been overstated and the "Petrine School" theory became the dominant view.

At present the linguistic and archeological evidence, along with technical advances in textual criticism have resulted in current scholarship arguing that Peter's authentic authorship, through a secretary or otherwise, is a much more reasonable explanation than previously understood.

But, don't worry. You will read all about it soon enough. It should only take me 6 or 7 months to complete the article. 184.145.63.179 (talk) 13:32, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

You need WP:ECREE sort of WP:RS to show that the WP:RS/AC got overturned. WP:FRINGE scholars won't do.

And be mindful of the boiling pot effect: your choir might agree with your preaching, but mainstream academia doesn't.

If your source of information is Brant Pitre, it is an unfortunate choice. He does not realize that Catholic Bible scholars have moved away from fundamentalism, and that he has been left behind. Similarly if your source is Bernier: both Bernier and Pitre are very low on the pecking order, to the extent they're not even considered bona fide scholars, but simply apologists.

And you're not paying attention: I have cited several WP:RS/AC claims from the past five years, which all of them give the lie to your claim. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:44, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

"both Bernier and Pitre are very low on the pecking order, to the extent they're not even considered bona fide scholars, but simply apologists." I though Brant J. Pitre was a random weirdo and propagandist instead of a scholar. His article outlines his fringe ideas: "In his works, Pitre has consistently defended the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, the perpetual virginity of Mary, the divinity of Jesus, and traditional authorship of the Gospels. His books have been praised by Bishop Robert Barron and several Roman Catholic leaders." Basically, he defends crappy ideas that were outdated by the 19th century. Dimadick (talk) 11:15, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

N.B.: in the mainstream academia there is no dispute about Petrine authorship; Petrine authorship is dead in the water. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:22, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

virtually all scholars reject Petrine authorship of both, particularly 2 Peter, and the only dissenters are fundamentalists and very conservative evangelicals. 182.249.241.28 (talk) 08:37, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 19:24, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

• Just a note that dissertations and articles aren't the kind of sources we need, because they typically argue a personal view. We need monographs or such, and specifically sources that state that such-and-such is the majority or even consensus view.Achar Sva (talk) 08:17, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

FTN notice

This is being discussed at WP:FTN. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:05, 22 May 2023 (UTC)