Posted on 09/26/2008 9:27:41 AM PDT by dangus
Peter was spanked in Acts 10. No need to spin that with many words.
Amazing.
Face it, Peter was to be blamed, and Paul called him out on it. There's no need to try to invent some other Cephas out of whole cloth just to defend unscriptural doctrines invented hundreds of years after the NT was written.
Whether Cephas is Peter or not, the teaching that Christians arent bound by Jewish customs is Peters own. In neither case does Cephas commit heresy, only sinfulness, so If Cephas was Peter, the incident speaks to Peters impeccability (absence of moral fault), not his infallibility (absence of falseness). Whereas Catholics alone hold that Peters infallibility was unique and borne in an office which could be succeeded, it is quite dangerous to any Christians faith to allow that the author of sacred scripture may have been a heretic.
First, in verse 11, St. Paul says: "But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned." I find it interesting that he says "I opposed him to his face." This implies, to me, at least, that he was dressing-down someone who normally outranked him. He would not make a point of a statement implying boldness ("to his face") if he were dealing with just any old mucky-muck. I, for one, do not refer to a rebuke of my daughter, for example, as one I make "to her face"; but if I were to rebuke my boss' boss, say, then, yes, I very well might make a point of mentioning that I "rebuked him to his face." No. It is clear that St. Paul is rebuking even Peter himself! And he has the courage of his convictions to do it right to his face.
Second, in verse 14, we have two more pieces of information. Here's the verse: "But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?" This Cephas that St. Paul is referring to is a Jew. I am not aware of any other Jew who had the name "Rock," either in Hebrew/Aramaic, or in Greek, or some other language translated into Greek. It was meant to be of singular significance by Christ, and it would be "cheeky" at best for some other Christian to be using it at the same time Simon Peter yet lived. It would be even cheekier for a Jewish Christian to be using it, since it would obviously not be his given name, and he would have had to deliberately adopt it. The second piece of evidence from verse 14 is the fact that this Cephas is "compelling" the Gentiles to live like Jews. Really, how many Jewish Christians were running around in St. Paul's day who had authority sufficient to be ordering the Gentile converts around on various matters? How many fewer than that were there who also were known as "Cephas," but were not Simon Peter himself?
To me, this is a no-brainer. St. Paul has to screw-up the courage to rebuke someone of higher station than himself. This person he is rebuking, therefore, is presumably of Apostle rank. He is specifically referred to as being Jewish, and he is specifically rebuked as one with authority over Gentile converts. Who on earth could all of this add-up as referring to other than Simon bar Jonah, AKA Simon Peter, AKA "Cephas"? And who among Jewish Christians of the First century would have had the nerve to "co-opt" the name given to Simon bar Jonah by Jesus Himself? And, if there were such a personage, of such high rank, why haven't we seen any other evidence of his existence?
Correct. Peter was a little slow to fully understand what the new covenant was all about. (Acts 10+11)
1. What do you mean Peter was spanked? Are you mixing up chapters? Acts 10 Peter takes it upon himself (at the command of Christ, of course) to overturn thousands of years of Jewish practice and law, and does so with commanding authority so that he is obeyed!
2. Spin? I think I did a pretty good job of pointing out the pros and cons of an article ...
3 ... that I also demonstrated wasn’t a defense of Catholic doctrine. (Catholic doctrine survives intact either way this one goes.)
I just came across what I thought to be a very surprising line of reasoning.
>> Face it, Peter was to be blamed, and Paul called him out on it. There’s no need to try to invent some other Cephas out of whole cloth just to defend unscriptural doctrines invented hundreds of years after the NT was written.
<<
Wow! It never ceases to amaze me how people argue with posts they’ve never even read, based on the presumption “so-and-so is a different creed then me, so if I believe this, I can presume he means the opposite of this.”
I draw your attention again to the summation of the article:
Whether Cephas is Peter or not, the teaching that Christians arent bound by Jewish customs is Peters own. In neither case does Cephas commit heresy, only sinfulness, so If Cephas was Peter, the incident speaks to Peters impeccability (absence of moral fault), not his infallibility (absence of falseness). Whereas Catholics alone hold that Peters infallibility was unique and borne in an office which could be succeeded, it is quite dangerous to any Christians faith to allow that the author of sacred scripture may have been a heretic.
In what way could you possibly characterize that as as a try to “invent some other Cephas out of whole cloth just to defend unscriptural doctrines invented hundreds of years after the NT was written” ?
“Whether Cephas is Peter or not, the teaching that Christians arent bound by Jewish customs is Peters own.”
It would seem you’ve missed the reading of Peter’s vision in Acts. Peter had no authority to teach such a thing until it was given him.
>> It would seem youve missed the reading of Peters vision in Acts. Peter had no authority to teach such a thing until it was given him. <<
Yes, yes, yes. We all agree that Peter had received such authority from God. Can we dispense with the gotach games? Peter had no evidence, but his own word, that God had ordained such things. Even after the fact: If Simon Magus had said or done such things, they would not have called Cornelius’ household’s ecstatic prayers miraculous.
>> Peter was a little slow to fully understand what the new covenant was all about. (Acts 10+11) <<
Slow? Yes. But he was the first mortal man to do so.
Not exactly! Paul had to instruct him on matter.
He most certainly did have proof beyond his own word as was clear at Pentecost. You simply have presented a question that has been well answered and deny the answer.
Dangus, you've got your own agenda and you can't support it. In fact, you're now becoming ridiculous.
Well, I, for one, have no trouble admitting that Cephas needed correcting from St. Paul in the matters discussed in Galatians, even while most certainly acknowledging that it was "that" Cephas - Simon Peter - who is being addressed. In fact, it seems clear enough to me that the passage provides more evidence, not less, for Catholic claims about Peter's office. Look at my post 6, if you like, to see what I mean.
Besides that, though, I'm not particularly sure that dangus is even "sort of" insisting on this Cephas not being Simon Peter. He is only posting it as an interesting theory. It is hardly necessary for the Church to "invent" this idea, and certainly not to buttress doctrines "invented hundreds of years after the NT was written," for there are no such doctrines to begin with.
>> Not exactly! Paul had to instruct him on matter. <<
Uh, no. Go read Acts 10-11. Peter got it first. He then maybe failed to live up to it, but he got it.
>> Dangus, you’ve got your own agenda and you can’t support it. In fact, you’re now becoming ridiculous. <<
And what would that agenda be? Mind-reading and name-calling so soon? The funny thing is that post was inspired by me citing Galatians 2 in another post that Cephas was Peter. In doing so, I bumped into the assertion that he wasn’t. I was intrigued by something that contradicted my assertion, so I shared it with everyone.
What’s funny is that even though I explain how this notion is irrelevant to Catholic doctrine, and even post the refutations to this argument in the original post (which I found relatively persuasive), I get attacked for having an agenda.
Attacked? What, then, is the purpose of the post? If ant?
>> Attacked? What, then, is the purpose of the post? <<
Does EVERY post on FR religion forum have to have a belligerent, sectarian agenda? Besides, even if you insist on TURNING every post into a sectarian war, can’t you do better than mind-reading and name-calling?
>>If ant? <<
I can’t guess what you mean.
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