Did Matthew intend to show the apostle Peter as an apostate?
I don’t do a lot of book reviews on my blog. I usually
reserve them to Goodreads.com (a site specifically for book reviews) and
occasionally Amazon.
But every once in a while, a theology book has greater significance
than just its own contents and arguments.
This would book would seem to be the opposite. It really
doesn’t seem to be anywhere in the public consciousness anymore. On Goodreads, three
other people rated it, and one other person besides me wrote a review (and it
was only one sentence long). Other than some reviews by religious scholars at the
time the book came out, it just hasn’t been a big thing.
So why would a niche book that most people even among theology
nerds probably haven’t read be worth additional attention?
The reason I felt compelled to address this now-5-year-old book with some
depth – and push through it despite it not being all that enjoyable of a read –
is because this book wasn’t written by some nobody. It also wasn’t written by
some theological liberal at Union Theological seminary or a secular university.
It was written by Robert Gundry.
Robert Gundry is scholar-in-residence at Westmont College in
Santa Barbara. Westmont is a really conservative Christian college that affirms
biblical inerrancy in its statement of faith. I heard about this book because
it was featured in Christianity Today. Gundry was defended (prior to this book)
for his views on inerrancy by apologists Nick Peters and JP Holding in the book
Defining Inerrancy. And, being an annihilationist, it was noteworthy to me that
in 2013, I attended an in-person debate on the doctrine of hell between Dr. Gundry
and Dr. Webb Mealy. Gundry defended the traditional view of hell as a place of
eternal torment, and did so mostly on biblical grounds.
The fact that a book that ostensibly seemed on its face to
contradict the teaching of the Bible would come from a relatively big name in
New Testament studies with an ostensibly conservative background seemed like
kind of a big deal.
It took a few years for me to actually get around to buying
and reading this book, but I gotta say, I was taken about at how theologically
liberal it was. The final chapter, as noted in the review, basically takes a
page from non-Christian Bible skeptic websites. Of course as believers who have
a high view of scripture we must have answers for the supposed contradictions in
the Bible, both of outside issues (e.g. science, history), and core theological
issues (Gundry says Matthew says Peter was damned while other writers say he
was saved and also really important as an apostle).
I don’t read a lot of unabashed theologically liberal books
by non-Christians or those who profess faith but in practice hold to a pretty
different worldview than those who form any form of orthodox, conservative Christianity
(whether Catholic, Orthodox, evangelical, etc.). If this book was written by Bart
Ehrman, that would be par for the course. But this came from someone who
ostensibly wears out Jersey.
The following is my review on Goodreads.com. It is a bit
long, but I can assure you, it could have been far longer lol But in all seriousness, there was a lot in this relatively short volume, and I really only looked
at a handful of examples and specific issues that can give a feel for the work as a whole. I believe that I have covered broadly
what needed to be covered.
Was this review as much a visceral need to tackle the
content of this book because of its nature (thoroughly liberal with an
evangelical veneer) as it was a reasoned determination that me doing so it
would be of great service to Chrisendom? Probably. If I did cold, calculated
cost-benefit analysis, I may have chosen to stop reading early on and instead save
hours of time to use for other purposes.
But at the same time, progressive Christianity and its older
sister theological liberalism, both in their overt forms and in their influence
on evangelicalism, are something we as believers with a high view of scripture and
even just basic traditional beliefs have to be able to reckon with. While
Gundry comes across here as more of an old-school theological liberal than a
modern progressive Christian, we need to be aware that these sorts of things
have been influencing the church and show no sign of stopping. We need to be able
to deal with it, both for ourselves and for others in the flock.
Goodreads Review:
In some aspects, a book like this is tricky to give a simple
evaluation of because of what it tries to put forth.
The thesis of the book, as the title indicates, is that the
Gospel of Matthew portrays the apostle Peter as a false disciple and ultimate
apostate.
Of course, it is clear from the Bible (e.g. John 21:15-19) and
everything known about church history that Peter repented after denying Jesus,
was restored to his apostleship by Jesus, and was clearly not a false disciple.
So the whole premise of this book is that in Matthew’s narrative, Matthew
taught something that is clearly untrue.
For anyone who holds to not only biblical inerrancy, but
even less stringent views on the Bible’s accuracy that hold the Bible to at
least be generally true and not contradict itself on major theological
teachings, this whole premise is to be dismissed outright. I’ll just refer to
such a view of the Bible’s reliability as infallibility (although I daresay
what is called “infallibility” is still stricter than what one must hold to
reject the premise of this book from the start).
Now, if it were the case that Matthew explicitly and clearly
taught that Peter was a damned apostate, and in doing so contradicted other
books of the Bible, then those of us who hold to any form of biblical infallibility
would have a real problem that needs to be addressed. But Gundry doesn’t even
attempt to argue that Matthew is explicit about it. Gundry instead attempts to
piece things together like a detective, without outside influence from other
books of the Bible (except when he occasionally does).
The 9th and final makes clear where Gundry is coming from.
Gundry mentions and takes for granted numerous supposed Bible contradictions,
including the contradictory teachings about the final fate of Peter. The conclusion
is that the Bible’s frequent contradictory teachings likely had pastoral
purposes. In the case of Matthew, the message is to be careful not to stray
from the way of God because if even Peter could lose his way and be damned, you
must be diligent.
One could be forgiven for thinking that Gundry hails from a
secular university or a liberal seminary, not a college as theologically
conservative as Westmont, given his utter dismissal of any semblance of
accuracy in the Bible’s teachings about even major theological topics.
With that whole framework in mind, this book doesn’t offer
much to most believers because the case this book makes assumes an entirely
different paradigm of what purpose the Bible serves and how we understand it.
Without Taking The Rest of the Bible Into Account
Now, with that all said, what about Gundry’s argument that,
in a vacuum, Matthew should be understood to teach that Peter is an apostate?
If we pretend that the rest of the Bible shouldn’t shed light on what Peter
does later, if we aren’t concerned with harmonizing Matthew with the rest of
scripture, if we ignore the doctrine of infallibility and just let the text
speak for itself alone, does Gundry make a convincing case that Matthew saw Peter as an
apostate?
Not really.
I mean, Gundry makes some good points, and its not as though
there is no basis for his claim (given the above assumptions). However, there
is nothing clear or obvious in Matthew that indicates that Peter is an
apostate. There are a lot of individual, disconnected verses that have to be
pulled together to assemble themes that Gundry argues would have been noticed
by Matthew’s original readers.
Overall, much of Gundry’s case is more along the lines of
one who has the conclusion in mind and attempts to show that there is enough
evidence to justify the claim, rather than approaching the text in a
straightforward manner and seeing such a teaching.
One major theme, for example, is that Jesus talks about
false believers at various points in Matthew. Gundry puts forth that Matthew’s
readers would have been expected to see similarities between Peter and false
believers and understand that Matthew was implying that Peter was one of them
(even though Matthew never says anything explicit to that effect).
Gundry also makes a big point about Matthew 10:33, how if
you deny the Son of Man, He will Deny you. He argues that nowhere in Matthew
does Matthew say there is a way to be forgiven, so it is implied within Matthew
(in a vacuum), Matthew is saying there is no way to be forgiven.
But we know from Matthew 12:31-32 that “all sins and
slanders” can be forgiven except blaspheming the Holy Spirit. When Gundry
addresses this verse, he ignored the reference to sins and only pays attention
to the part about words “spoken against” God (page 54-55). But if all sins can
be forgiven – if the person repents – then there is no reason to think that
Matthew is saying that there is no way to be redeemed in Matthew 10:33.
Even just taken from a logical standpoint, to say that
denying Jesus is absolutely unforgivable poses a logical problem in Matthew 10:33.
Gundry argues that since Jesus says He will deny those who deny Him, and makes
no qualifications, therefore if you do it once you are damned no matter what.
But following that logic, wouldn’t it mean that if you confessed Christ before
men once you are therefore irrevocably saved? But what if you have done both?
On what basis do you say which one is absolute, as they seem to contradict each
other?
We all know that this is not how it works. We generally
accept that what matters is what you do at the end. It isn’t a one-time thing,
just as those in Matthew 25:31-46 don’t go to hell because they refused to help
Jesus’s brothers one time or go to heaven because they helped someone one time
(since whatever the exact context of Matthew 25:31-46, most people do not only help
or only refuse to help 100% of the time).
Connections made are at times a bit of a stretch. For example,
Gundry connects the fact that people weep and gnash their teeth outside of
places in parables about damnation with Peter weeping outside when he realized
that he denied Jesus like Jesus had predicted. Gundry expects the reader of
Matthew to see Peter weeping and associate this with damnation. However, this
is a stretch because: 1. People weep in all sorts of circumstances, 2. nowhere does
Matthew (or any Gospel writer) say that Peter gnashed his teeth, which is obviously
part of “weeping and gnashing of teeth”, and 3. This is not the last time we
see Peter. It’s not like the last time we see him he is weeping and (not)
gnashing his teeth, and so it might imply his ultimate end. This is just a man who
cries because he feels bad about something he did in the later-middle (not end)
of a (true) story that he is part of.
At one point, Gundry emphasizes the fact that in Matthew
28:7, the angel tells Mary to tell the disciples that Jesus had risen from the
dead, not “the disciples and Peter” like in Mark 16:7. The reasoning
is that Mark came first, Matthew copied Mark, so Matthew leaving out “and Peter”
must mean Peter was not considered part of the group anymore.
Or, maybe, “the disciples” was sufficient in Matthew because
Peter was, ya know, one of the disciples…Gundry opposes such a response, but
largely on the assumption that Matthew copied Mark and must have removed “and
Peter” for some grand, theological reason. Such an assumption is just that: an
assumption.
Also, if we’re looking at Matthew alone, and expecting the original
readers of Matthew to do likewise and not consider anything else they would
have known from church teachings or other scriptures, why are we looking at
Mark now to make an inference about what Matthew must have meant?
A similar line of reasoning occurs when comparing Mark 5:37
with Matthew 9:23-25. In Mark, when Jesus heals Jairus’s daughter, it notes
that only John, James, and Peter got to stay with Jesus when he performed the
miracle. This, of course, honors them in a way. Gundry points out that “the
parallel in Matt 9:23-25 makes no mention of the exceptions, and therefore of
the privilege that Peter enjoys with James and John [in Mark]” (page 67). The
implication is that this is one more example of Matthew withholding from Peter
the honor given to him by Mark in order to convey (covertly) to the audience
that Peter is a false disciple.
Of course, the fact that Matthew also didn’t mention James
or John is overlooked. Matthew didn’t omit that Peter shared the privileges
held by John and James. Matthew omitted any mention of any of them having a
privileged position in this passage. Was Matthew arguing that James and John
were false disciples as well?
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
The least problematic chapter is probably chapter 7 about false
discipleship. While I do not agree with all of Gundry’s points, it’s not crazy
to say that false discipleship is at least a theme in Matthew.
However, like in a lot of the book, it is presumed that
since this theme is established, Matthew must have been hinting that Peter was
a false disciple. The fact that Judas is treated as a real disciple until the
end is part of Gundry’s argumentation throughout the book and here as well. Gundry
then highlights ways in which the two are similar.
However, if anything, this could be argued as evidence
against Gundry’s thesis. When Matthew wanted to show a false disciple, he did.
His name was Judas. Matthew was not covert about it. Matthew showed how all the
disciples were treated as real disciples, and then one of them overtly betrayed
Jesus, was condemned by Jesus’s own words, and then committed suicide and was
not part of the team any longer. His ending is very different than Peter’s. Peter
is still alive and still reckoned as a disciple despite Jesus and everyone
knowing what He did (it wasn’t a secret) (Matthew 28:16). And unlike with Peter,
Matthew doesn’t require the reader to read between the lines to know that Judas
was an apostate.
Regarding the last time we do see Peter, albeit as part of a
group (Matthew 28:16), Gundry does acknowledge that Peter’s implied inclusion
among the 11 is seen by some to show that Peter was restored by Jesus and not
damned. After all, Jesus sends the 11 out to make disciples of all nations,
which sure sounds like they are all real apostles.
Gundry rebuts this claim on the grounds that, because Jesus
speaks of false disciples, we should expect that Peter would be there with the
rest even if He was an apostate.
But Peter’s inclusion at the end of Matthew raises a lot of
questions and lends weight against this view. Peter had already abandoned
Jesus. It is not as though he simply was part of the group and had yet to show
his true colors, like foul fish among good fish (page 66, cf. Matthew 13:38). He
already had. So wouldn’t the fact that Jesus would include Him among the
disciples whom He sent out to convert the whole world imply that at the very
least, they probably had a conversation about what happened or something? Even
in a vacuum, it is implied that something happened because, again, what Peter
did in denying Jesus was not a secret. Matthew, when writing 28:7, wasn’t
ignorant of what he wrote two chapters earlier.
Weaknesses in Gundry’s Overall Method
Of course, this goes question of Peter being among the 11 segues
into the whole reason why you have to take into account more than just the one
book when you have a whole Bible. Treating the Gospel of Matthew as a completely
standalone entity is just an intellectual exercise we do to grant premises of Gundry’s
thesis in order to evaluate his arguments. It makes no sense in the context of
actual history.
Matthew’s original readers might not have had access to
every book of the Bible – especially since some probably hadn’t been written
yet – but either before reading Matthew or soon after (if they unbelievers who converted
to Christianity after reading it), they would know who the apostles were and what
they did and were probably still doing at the time. They would know Peter was
in at least a leadership role (if not the leadership role) and was clearly not
an apostate.
Furthermore, the rest of the Bible fills in things that are
unsaid. For example, we know that Judas is replaced by Matthias in Acts 1:21-26,
meaning there still would be 12 apostles on 12 thrones despite Judas falling
away (cf. Matthew 19:28). We also know that Jesus did have a conversation where
He restored Peter in John 21. And we know from various points of the book of
Acts that Peter was a Spirit-filled apostle who accepted persecution and spoke
the word of Christ boldly. This gives the admittedly negative light that Matthew
(and the other Gospels to a lesser extent) put on Peter an entirely different significance
than what Gundry says Matthew asserts. Peter is not the damned apostle, but the
poster child of redemption.
That may not mean as much if you take the position that Gundry
does, that the Bible is full of contradictory teachings and we should focus on
the pastoral intent of the writer and not the actual content (since at least a considerable
amount of it is not factually accurate). But you don’t have to be a fundamentalist
to stop and think that maybe, one book of the Bible may have information that
is relevant to another. We would treat any collection of related documents that
way.
Concluding Remarks
I have to reiterate again that there’s no clear teaching
anywhere in Matthew that indicates that Peter was damned. That is why Gundry
has to appeal to allusions and to little uses of specific words that readers
supposedly were supposed to catch. It isn’t as though Matthew, at face value,
says that Peter is an apostate and I am only giving a few small points to
reconsider that. Gundry is having to build a case from scratch, and so the
weaknesses in his case are very significant.
There are tons of additional points that Gundry attempts to
make – no one can say that the book is shallow. But it should be evident at
this point that thesis has weaknesses even when you go through the intellectual
exercise of ignoring the rest of the Bible.
With all that in mind, this book comes across more as
something written to be written than something that actually contributes to the
study of scripture.
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