https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wmoI7l ... yayFpqXkBE
JW:
As Larry David would say, a pretty, pretty, pretty good article here supporting Gundry's assertion that GMatthew strengthened GMark's discrediting of Peter and intended to show Peter as a False Apostle:
An Analysis of Matthew 16:13-23 and its Role in the Portrait of Peter in Matthew's Gospel
6 Conclusion: Disqualifying Peter
In this thesis, I have tested Gundry’s description of Matthew’s overall portrayal of
Peter as “apostate” by using the focus of the Caesarea Philippi scene (16:13-23), by
redaction-critical methodology, by exegetical methodology and by thematical methodology.
Matthew’s complex portrayal of Peter reflects his complex relationship to the Gospel
of Mark. Matthew was, nevertheless, reliant on Mark, but simultaneously he seemed
focused on displacing Mark. As the person of Peter shapes Mark’s connection to apostolic
authority, the person of Peter becomes Matthew’s battleground. Matthew gives the
impression that he recognised the reality that Mark displayed a Petrine tradition, and by
rendering Peter as an epiphanic beneficiary in Matthew 16:17-19, he conceded his reliance
on the Gospel of Mark, which was specifically a rich foundation for him. But as his reworking
of Mark reveals, Matthew also regarded Mark as an earnest misrepresentation, and he
chose accordingly to, ironically, introduce this falsity in Peter’s character. Matthew’s
justification appears to have been that he could establish the deficiency of Mark by
illustrating the “apostacy” of Peter—the Rock on whom Jesus would build his church
showed himself to be a sand heap—a paradigmatic, failed disciple. The intertextual
connotation of Matthew’s portrayal of Peter as a failed disciple signifies that the universal
gospel could not be dependent on Peter alone—Mark’s gospel had to be replaced by a
gospel where all Eleven disciples had a sanctioning role (cf. Matthew 28:19-20).1
As one reads the Petrine passages in Matthew, it is obvious that Peter’s notoriety
cannot be used to indicate Primacy. The reverse, undoubtedly, would be nearer to the truth.
A number of notable Matthean key passages come to light which replace 16:17-19. For
example; the uniquely Matthean “walking on the water” pericope, where we discover a
tangible pattern for interpreting the figure of Peter in Matthew’s Gospel. Peter is intended
to “sink” (14:30-31) so that Jesus, as the one who “saves”, is elevated as the “Son of God”
(14:33). Recognising all eleven verses in Matthew 16:13-23 as a pericope wholly alters the
subtleties of vv. 17-19. Peter is yet again diving head-long into a shocking failure—labelled
as a diabolical skandalon. It is another event of a “comparison/contrast” between Jesus (the
1 Damgaard, Rewriting Peter, 53.
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Christ) and Peter, the failed disciple with the same (anticipated) outcome.2 The same
pattern is repeated in the decisive chapters of the Gospel where Peter is ultimately seen
weeping bitterly as he retreats further and further into the darkness, representative of his
separation from Jesus and his failure as a disciple (Matthew 26:75). Reinforcing the
suggestion of perdition in Peter’s bitter weeping (cf. Jesus’ woes on Judas [Matthew 26:24]),
Matthew includes his idiosyncratic version of Judas Iscariot’s penitent, desperate suicide
(distinguished from Acts 1:15-20). Not surprisingly, then, Matthew redacts “and Peter”
(Mark 16:7) from the 28:7 directive to the women at the empty tomb to “‘go quickly and tell
his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to
Galilee; there you will see him’”. Peter will be together with the Eleven while the
resurrected Jesus stands elevated on a mountain peak—a position of divine revelation, and
declares his perfect and absolute “authority in heaven and on earth” (28:16-20)—but, as a
“weed among the wheat” (13:15), he endures as a “non-disciple” and “apostate” amid
faithful and enduring disciples.3 Christology radiates more intensely, in contrast to the
stumbling of “human things”.
4
Matthew 16:13-20 highlights (with other Petrine passages in Matthew), the term
used by Nau—the “Matthew 16:17-19 syndrome”—a patterning of explanatory
ecclesiastical traditions that promotes the allure of a Peter who bids us a living picture of
our faulty but restorable selves. The depictions in Matthew should not devitalise other
depictions in the New Testament. Neither should other depictions weaken the one in
Matthew.5 Nau says any “disconcertion [. . .] at least in the case of Peter, thus turns out to
have been ours”,
6 not Matthew’s. Matthew’s “editorial technique”7 and intent, by
negatively portraying Peter as a skandalon and “false disciple” who apostatised and is
bound for eternal perdition, gives his Gospel extra weight. “False disciple” opposed to “true
disciple”—challenges preponderant beliefs and traditions, to move and inspire us toward a
2 Nau, Peter in Matthew, 110.
3 Gundry, Peter, 100.
4 Nau, Peter in Matthew, 148-9.
5 Gundry, Peter, 108.
6 Nau, Peter in Matthew, 151.
7 Nau, Peter in Matthew, 152.
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“righteousness that exceeds” (Matthew 5:20), a grace and forgiveness that experiences no
limit (Matthew 18:22), and a loyalty to a Lord who reigns “in heaven and on earth”
(Matthew 28:18).8
Theologically, Luke and John negate Matthew’s representation of Peter as a
“false disciple” and “apostate” fated for perdition by showing him alternatively as
rehabilitated and reinstated after his disowning of Jesus (see Luke 22:31-32; 24:34;
John 21:15-22; Acts 1-12; 15:7-11; cf. Mark 16:7; 1-2 Peter). Or is it reversed, that
Matthew negates Luke and John?9
JW:
Of course the problem with concluding that GMatthew shows Peter
ending up a False Apostle is:
16
15 He saith unto them, But who say ye that I am?
16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven.
18 And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
19 I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
That sure sounds like an unequivocal statement that Peter will not just be a successful Apostle but the most successful Apostle. Taylor, like Gundry, tries to undermine/resist this conclusion by righteously pointing out that in general "Matthew" has edited an even worse Peter, and not so righteously arguing that the above should be part of a larger pericope that negates or at least qualifies it to some extent and that likewise other verses in GMatthew negate/qualify it directly or indirectly.
An obvious explanation (I would have thought) is that original GMatthew correctly understood that its primary source, GMark, had a major theme of discrediting Peter, and wanted to make it clearer (and less stylish). 16:17-19 was an
addition by an orthodox (of the time) to support the assertion that Peter was a/the successful Apostle. Keep in mind that if you want to make a major thematic change to your primary source you want to minimize quantity and maximize quality (effect) of the edit. The Way to do that is to put your major assertion(s) in one place, preferably next to the most damaging verse against it.
The best part of Taylor's article is his color coded table inventorying GMatthew's unfavorable and favorable editing of Peter in Appendix 3, Page 60. I have faith that even the Skeptic will be surprised at just how many negative edits "Matthew" made of Peter. I count seven different stories.
Joseph
FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication
by Richard Carrier, Ph.D. (2009)
