A brief survey of some of the most recent commentaries on 1 Peter, demonstrates a preference for a Gentile ethnicity, or at least a majority of former Gentiles among the recipients of this letter:
But then, I later arrived at the position that the author (whether Peter or not) probably did not have that close knowledge of his readers. How could he possible know recipients of such vast areas as those described in 1:1? Cf. here Elliott, 1 Peter, p. 93:” information .....is at best inferential, and reflective of what the author presumes to know concerning his hearers/readers and their situation.”
I also became of the opinion that the recipients were considered by the author of 1 Peter as “first generation Christians, that is, they were still in a process of being socialized into the Christian world view. We might describe them as being in a liminal situation as newly converted Christians” (Strangers, p. 148). Hence we are hardly able to decide how the first readers were composed ethnically; what we have to deal with, is the author’s perceptions of his readers. And here I have been more and more close to the view argued by J.B. Green in his commentary from 2007 (esp. p 6): the readers are described as Christians, and, described in terms taken from the terminology of Israel. It is in light of these that I also suggest that he may use proselyte terminology without considereing them to have been actual proselytes (like e.g., van Unnik, and following him, McKnight). Hence questions about the real first readers ethnic composition are rather irrelevant. What we have, is primarily the author’s perceptions of them: they are Christians, comprising a new people.
How do you think about that?
But then, I look forward to see Witherington’s arguments for an explicit Jewish audience.
6 comments:
Thanks for this reply. (Joel Green, in this case, is Joel B. Green, by the way. I've subscribed to your blog since it began...) I read Ben Witherington's introduction some time ago while it was still in manuscript form. When you have had a chance to work through it, perhaps we can discuss it further.
Regarding the question whether Gentiles could have made sense of 1 Peter's intertextuality, it has seemed to me that Paul's letters provide something of a test case. In spite of the scriptural arguments Paul makes, say, in 1 Cor 10, who would argue that the target audience for 1 Cor was Jewish? To admit that faith communities were predominately Gentile allows for a Jewish presence, including, then, the possibility that such persons might have helped those less familiar with Israel's Scriptures to make sense of scriptural arguments/labels (etc.). What is more, the potential presence of a "letter carrier" previously involved in the generation of the letter would also allow for an interpreter who could help with this process. Of course, there is the larger question of what sort of knowledge of the LXX can be presumed of Gentile Christians... (The whole issue is of interest since a related argument has been made by Jervell with regard to Acts -- which, he says, must have been written by a Jew to Jews; from Jervell's perspective, who else could make sense of it?)
A key issue for Ben, though, is an historical argument regarding the presence of Jewish Christians on the Anatolian Peninsula at the time of 1 Peter's writing -- a line of argument he bases at least in part on the work of Paul Trebilco. I haven't seen an easy line from Paul's work to the conclusion Ben wants to draw from it and, when I was in New Zealand last year, discovered in conversation with Paul that he didn't either.
Well, I should not get too far ahead of things here, since you have not had opportunity to consider Ben's work.
At the end of the day, though, I would side with you regarding the relative superfluity of the discussion, given the pretty clear construction of 1 Peter's "reader" in the text itself.
Joel Green
Thanks for your comment; I appreciate it very much.
Your point concerning 1 Cor as an analogy is well taken; and as I try to say in my posting, it seems that more and more scholars are open for a mixed community of readers of 1 Peter. Well, as now Witherington's chapter on the readers are available, I will read it, and come back to it. May be, after all, he too will favor a mixed readership, but with Jewish Christians representing the majority??
Great discussion! And Joel, your commentary is worthy every cent and more! Very helpful for students and preachers like myself! Just wondering though, what evidence do we have of Letter-carriers performing this function? Anyone know of any literature on this matter? It seems a priori plausible, but is there evidence for this?
Hey.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "letter-cariier having this function", probably: having the function ov being 'letter-carrier'? I deal with the issue of letter-carrier in my book 'Strangers in the Light', pp. 9-37: *The Making of 1 Peter in Light of Ancient Graeco-Roman Letterwriting and Distribution.' The latest book by DB Capes, RReeves & ER Richards is also helpful: Rediscovering Paul. An Introduction to His World, Letters and Theology (IVP Academic 2007),esp. pp. 80-82.
However, I admit, if you by 'evidence' mean evidence form other sources, we don't have very much to go by except occasional remarks in NT and other Greco-Roman letters.
But I may be wrong here......?
Thanks for the reply, and please forgive my ambiguity. I was referring to the function of the Letter-carrier of interpreting the letter. On pg 6, of Joel Green's commentary he writes:
the person or persons who conveyed the letter across the area of Asia mentioned in 1:1 would have served not only as letter-carriers but also as performers of the letter, interpreting it to these groups of Christians. We can imagine their attending to the interplay of the letter with its scriptural intertexts.
Again, Joel above makes the comment that: the potential presence of a "letter carrier" previously involved in the generation of the letter would also allow for an interpreter who could help with this process.
What evidence is there that the Letter-Carrier could perform the function of interpreter, and possibly explain inter-textual echoes or allusions throughout the writing, 1 Peter, in question?
I think it's a priori plausible that a letter-carrier could perform the letter and explain inter-textual echoes, but I'm curious as to whether there is evidence of this phenomenon.
Hope that explains my question better. Thanks for your help!
ciao, sean D.
Sean, I was thinking of E. Randolph Richards' book, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing (2004). / Joel Green
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