The death of Peter and Paul at the hands of Christians

First off, I just wanna say that I’m glad nothing else bad happened yesterday. So I hope that the world and the internet can resume a place or normality for the next few days 🙏

And look, I know that my biblical “scholarship” comes totally out of left field when compared to the rest of my blog. But I’m just gonna say it: this stuff gets hits. And I’m not claiming to be the next Bart Ehrman. But I’ve always said that at my core I’m a historian. And that’s what this blog is. It’s not never ending shitposting or deranged ramblings. It’s history. And when I die, which I stated yesterday will probably be by firing squad, this is how people will remember me.

So let’s explore the topic at hand: the death of Peter and Paul by the hands of Christians in the first century CE. I’m not saying that that’s what happened. I’m saying that’s a claim. And I’m not saying it’s a good claim, but it does provide a few interesting points.

The passage often pointed to as evidence is in Ist Clement chapter 5. For those who don’t know, 1st Clement is one of the earliest Christian texts not found in the New Testament. It was written in the late first century. Because I’m a proud graduate of Reddit University, I often rely on the scholarly work of my peers. So this excerpt is pulled directly from Reddit in both the original Greek and English translation:

“διὰ ζῆλον καὶ φθόνον οἱ μέγιστοι καὶ δικαιότατοι στύλοι ἐδώχθησαν καὶ ἕως θανάτου ἤθλησαν λάβωμεν πρὸ ὀφθαλμῶν ἡμῶν τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ἀποστόλους· Πέτρον, ὃς διὰ ζῆλον ἄδικον οὐχ ἕνα οὐδὲ δύο ἀλλὰ πλείονας ὑπήνεγκεν πόνους, καὶ οὕτω μαρτυρήσας ἐπορεύθη εἰς τὸν ὀφειλόμενον τόπον τῆς δόξης. διὰ ζῆλον καὶ ἔριν Παῦλος ὑπομονῆς βραβεῖον ὑπέδειξεν, ἑπτάκις δεσμὰ φορέσας, φυγαδευθείς, λιθασθείς, κήρυξ γενόμενος ἔν τε τῇ ἀνατολῇ καὶ ἐν τῇ δύσει, τὸ γενναῖον τῆς πίστεως αὐτοῦ κλέος ἔλαβεν, δικαιοσύνην διδάξας ὅλον τὸν κόσμον καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ τέρμα τῆς δύσεως ἐλθὼν· καὶ μαρτυρήσας ἐπὶ τῶν ἡγουμένων, οὥτως ἀπηλλάγη τοῦ κόσμου καὶ εἰς τὸν ἅγιον τόπον ἀνελήμφθη ὑπομονῆς γενόμενος μέγιστος ὑπογραμμός“.

“Because of envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars have been persecuted and contended unto death. Let us set the good apostles before our eyes. Peter, who because of unrighteous envy, not once or twice but endured many afflictions and having borne witness went to the due glorious place. Because of envy and rivalries, steadfast Paul pointed to the prize. Seven times chained, exiled, stoned, having become a preacher both in the East and in the West, he received honor fitting of his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, unto the boundary on which the sun sets; having testified in the presence of the leaders. Thus he was freed from the world and went to the holy place. He became a great example of steadfastness.”

Agreed that if Peter and Paul’s deaths were a result of state persecution from the Romans, as is often believed, this would be an odd way to describe it. Additionally, you can read a larger explanation of this theory here from Chrissy Hansen and there’s an academic paper floating around from a guy named David Eastman (that I didn’t read).

There’s a few reasons why I find this theory interesting. First off, in my view,, it provides a greater insight into early Christianity as socio/political movement which mainstream scholars often fail to explore. I agree with JD Crossan that the Jesus movement was a response to Roman power and authority. While there was little distinction between religion and politics in the ancient world, I still think when movements spring up against power…and there were many in Judea where the Jesus movement hailed from…that factions come along and turn on themselves, sometimes with violent consequences. That’s the nature of radical politics and I think first century Christianity would have been no different. Secondly, as Hansen pointed out, this solves a great mystery in the New Testament as to why there’s no account of the death of Paul (or Peter) from the author of Luke-Acts, with the implication being that in order to portray Christianity as a unified front, the author omitted the story altogether.

If true, then this puts the nail in the coffin of Jonathon Bernier’s earlier dating of the Gospels. If you recall, I reviewed Bernier’s book Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament a few years ago. I think I was intrigued by his arguments but felt that too much of it hinged on Luke-Acts being completed BEFORE the death of Paul which is Bernier’s explanation for why there’s no account in the New Testament. Today, I think Luke-Acts was certainly aware of Josephus, which would date it post-90CE, presumably well after Paul’s death. BUT, as Bernier’s arguments highlighted, the omission of Paul’s death (as well as the first person passages in Acts) need explanation from scholars, none of which I have found totally convincing.

But before I get on board with the explanation that Peter and Paul were killed by competing Christians, I require more evidence. An opaque passage in Ist Clement and a few omissions only hints at something. It doesn’t explain it. Which leads us to a huge problem in biblical studies particularly regarding the New Testament era: there’s too much we don’t know. The people leading this movement weren’t educated. Outside of Josephus and the NT itself, there’s little chronological account. Regarding the Jesus movement and archeological evidence, there’s been little slam dunk discoveries, if any. And the sad part is that there probably never will be. If any does appear, it would take at least a decade to authenticate and it would still be subject to controversy and debate. In short, none of this will be settled in our lifetimes.

So all of this is open to interpretation and speculation. The possibilities are endless. We know Paul was itinerant. Perhaps his ship sunk and all of his remains have been consumed the Mediterranean Sea. Maybe that’s why there’s no account; because no one knows what the fuck happened to him! Maybe Peter dropped dead of a heart attack in the middle of the desert? We just don’t know folks 🤷‍♂️

Probably never will.

Was the Gospel of Mark written in Alexandria? (Or Rome? Or Antioch? Or Thessalonica? Or Crete? Or…)

I wasted the entire day yesterday going through Gospel of Mark and a bunch of scholarly texts trying to figure out where the Gospel could have been written. I learned a bunch of not shit. Well, that’s not entirely true. I did learn some things. But I ended up with more questions, which is usually the case when anyone reads Mark.

According to “scholarly consensus”, the Gospel was probably composed in Rome. Why do they think this? Because it was likely addressed to a gentile audience and, according to tradition, “Mark” was a companion to Peter who is presumed to have died in Rome. But as I discussed in my last post regarding the subject, Peter is portrayed as kinda a moron and a coward in Mark, which even if Peter portrayed himself in that light (for whatever reasons) I find it highly unlikely that an author who knew the Apostle would write about him that way. But that’s just one reason (among many) on why I’m not convinced that Mark is based on Peter’s DIRECT recollections. Therefore the Roman/Peter tradition is highly dubious.

Antioch is another serious candidate. Paul was heavily involved in the early church there and Mark, in my view, is heavily influenced by Pauline theology. Because Mark was likely widely distributed to Christian communities around the Mediterranean, and Antioch was the center for a lot of missionary work, this church should probably be considered the leading candidate.

The only issue I found with this is that Antioch is also considered the location where the Gospel of Matthew was written. I suppose it’s possible that both could have been composed there and it’s clear that Matthew was VERY influenced by Mark; apparently over 90% of Mark is in Matthew. But because Matthew seems at odds with Pauline theology, it appears as though his Gospel is a response to Mark’s, which would be odd if they hailed from the same church (unless Christians found Mark to be lacking and/or Pauline theology advanced to such a point in the ten or so years between the writing of these two Gospels that they felt Mark needed amending). With this under consideration, it actually appears as though Mark would have been more likely to have been written in Antioch as opposed to Matthew, but that’s a different story.

Another interesting candidate is North Africa, specifically Alexandria. This thought occurred to me while reading chapter 15, when Mark addresses Simon the Cyrene, who was the father of “Rufus and Alexander”. Who the fuck is Rufus and Alexander and why bring them up at all? There’s been attempts by scholars to link these names to others mentioned in the New Testament, but I should point out that unless you were rich or of nobility, you didn’t have a last name in those days. So just because the name “Rufus” appears in one of Paul’s epistles or in the Book of Acts, that doesn’t mean it’s the same Rufus son of Simon. I find Helen Bond’s explanation far more plausible, that Rufus and Alexander were members of the church that Mark was addressing. And where was Cyrene? That’s in modern day Libya.

Now that doesn’t mean shit in the whole scheme of things, but it did get me to consider the possibility that Mark was written in Alexandria, another center of early Christian activity. So with that hypothesis, it’s my obligation to disprove it. Therefore the obvious question should be: “if Mark was written in Egypt, why wasn’t it written in Coptic like the Gospel of Thomas, which was **possibly** written around the same time?”. Come to find out, Koine Greek (the language Mark was composed in) was widely used in Alexandria. For example, Philo, a first century Jewish philosopher based in Alexandria, wrote in Koine Greek. So the fact that Mark was written in Greek does not pose a problem to my Alexandrian theory. But I ran into another problem: Mark’s Jesus addresses the Pharisees a lot, which, according to Burton Mack, were only located in Judea and nowhere else. Philo, again a contemporary of Jesus, didn’t appear to know that they existed. I don’t find this argument from Mack convincing, but there it is.

Honestly, the best “evidence” for the Alexandrian theory is that the churches in Egypt claim Mark as their founder. Again, this historical Mark didn’t actually write the Gospel of Mark, but…if we squint our eyes…it might be easy to see how early church leaders attributed this gospel to Mark, especially if it came out of Alexandria.

“Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament” by Jonathan Bernier

New Testament scholarship has plenty of quacks. Not only from Christian apologists who argue that everything in the Bible is literal and true, but also from atheists who argue that Paul pulled the entirety of Christianity and Jesus out of his ass. Some argue that there’s no harm in arguing for such outrageous claims (which usually rely on mere conjecture) but that’s simply bad scholarship.

And bad scholarship is just that: bad scholarship. (And honestly, atheists, of which I consider myself, should know better)

Unfortunately there’s just too many holes in New Testament history, and given the nature of its study, it’s understandable that people are going to have some strong opinions. Moreover, new evidence is few and far in between, so scholars sometimes let their imaginations run wild with what scant data there is.

Nevertheless, MOST academics, ranging from the secular to the devoutly fundamental, can agree on a few things: 1st Thessalonians is probably the first Pauline epistle (likely written in 52AD) and the Gospel of Mark is the oldest gospel (likely written just after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD). In fact, I’d argue, from the perspective of academia, these dates could almost be deemed ironclad.

Few, if any, from the hardline atheist side (especially the “mythicist” school) would move these dates forward, largely to put as much distance between the (“alleged”) death of Jesus and the first written accounts. In fact, from this perspective, only the most ardent apologist would attempt to do so.

Then there’s Jonathon Bernier’s Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament.

The book was released this year, so I don’t know what it’s academic reception is. But a few armchair scholars are already labeling it a work of apologetics. And that’s a bit too harsh, in my opinion.

Nevertheless, when one pushes the dates of the gospels up by nearly 30 years, it should raise a few eyebrows. Much of this argument hinges on the dates of Luke (and by extension, the Book of Acts), which is largely agreed to be the last synoptic gospel written. I agree with Bernier that the “we” passages in Acts have been a difficult thing for scholars to explain, especially if we want to date Luke/Acts post 90AD. Additionally, Bernier makes a compelling (although not fully convincing) argument that the ending to Acts wouldn’t quite make sense to readers had it been completed sometime after Paul’s death.

Yes, Bernier is a professor at a theology school attached to the University of Toronto (but honestly, those are the only places you can find a job teaching about history of early Christianity and the New Testament). But he certainly doesn’t rely on “apologetics” to make his arguments. You may not find it compelling, but I think the importance of Bernier’s work is to highlight that an earlier dating for the New Testament is not entirely unfounded.

This book may not be a “paradigm shift” in New Testament studies, but the author does ask important questions and the knee jerk reaction shouldn’t be to label it apologetics.

Besides, doubt in god and Christianity shouldn’t hinge on Jesus’s existence or the dating of the New Testament. That’s a weird argument to make. So atheists, particularly ones like myself who can appreciate the New Testament for its historical and (at times) artistic value (as opposed to misusing it by believing it to be some holy document), should be open to reading Jonathon Bernier’s work.