As mentioned in a posting below, the new commentary on 1 Peter by Ben Witherington is now out, but alas, still not yet available to me. But as also pointed out below, the main part of his Introduction in the same commentary is available on the publisher's website.
I have now read this Introduction, and I must admit; it represents one of the best presentations I have read of the case for understanding 1 Peter as written for Jewish Christians.
I shall present his main arguments, and some counter arguments. Comments are indeed welcome from readers, as this is rather a very important issue for understanding the whole letter of 1 Peter.
Witherington states at the beginning of his discussion that 1 Peter is part of an ongoing social relationship between the author and the audience. That seems to indicate that he presupposes some initial and continuing contact between Peter and his audience, and Witherington in fact both argues that Peter, the apostle, is the author, and that he had done extended missionary work in the regions mentioned in 1 Peter 1:1.
Witherington starts out by trying to establish the possibility, yes the plausibility, that there were a ’quite sizeable Jewish population in the provinces listed at the beginning of 1 Peter’ and that these were ’well integrated into the social ethos of the region, having become quite Hellenized.’ (p. 25). Trebilco’s book on Jewish Communities in Asia Minor becomes his most used helpmate here.
This is an important part of Witherington’s set of arguments, as it helps him to understand some of the crucial passages of 1 Peter as possibly denoting Jewish Christians, not necessarily Gentiles.
Furthermore, he states that 1 Peter is the only NT document that systematically addresses the issue of Christians being resident aliens within the macrostructures of the larger society (p.23). It is somewhat surprising, however, that, at least in this Introduction (I have not seen the Exegesis proper sections yet), he does not deal more extensively with the question of a possible other source domain for these terms than the OT/LXX. Of course he is correct in assessing that when used in the OT, they are used about the Jews; but does that observation necessarily imply that 1 Peter uses them in the excact same way?
Let us then consider how Witherington reads some of the passages most often used in deciding the ethnicity of the readers of 1 Peter.
1) 1 Peter 1:17: If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile (paroikia).
Here Witherington's argument in his Introduction is hard to understand (and again: I have not read his exegesis of this particular passage). But in his Intro he says: “Whatever else one may say about Gentiles living in these regions, they certainly would not have seen themselves as living in some sort of exile presently or in the past, even if they had become Christians, nor would they see themselves as resident aliens. They were living in their own native provinces and regions (p.28).” Hence he considers them as Jewish.
Counter comments. It looks like W here wants to read the term paroikia as a primarily social term; but this view of Elliott has not received unanimous support, and it is hard not to avoid some sort of metaphorical meaning, even if also social aspects remain. I have suggested that these two aspects are kept together if we see them as part of proselyte language, but it is possible to retain these aspects even without my particular reading. It is also important to observe that this is an admonition to the readers, the verb is in imperative, it concerns their present and future lives; hence I consider it quite possible for Christians to consider themselves as a kind of resident aliens being Christians without having a Jewish background. Cf. here 2:12.
2) 1 Peter 2:12: Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.” In this passage we have the term ethnesin (Gentiles). The readers are to live Christian lives among the ethnesin. Literally it means ‘nations’ or ‘peoples’, and is an ethnic term. W says: “It would be rather strange to say to an audience of Gentiles, or largely Gentiles, to live like Christians among the Gentiles. Gentiles do not talk about themselves as ‘the other nations’” (p. 25).
Counter question: But to me it here seems that Witherington is not taking into account the new life of his readers, a new life, that also represents a new identity. Hence, if the author is here suggesting that the readers are to consider themselves as a kind of ‘third people’ (cf. Christians, 4:16), this admonition of living honorably among the Gentiles would be fully understandable, and there would be little strangeness about such an expression as that contained in 2:12.
3) 1 Peter 2:10:” Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. ” Could this have been said about Jewish readers?As this is a quotation made up from Hosea, I here agree with Witherington that it is quite possible to use such characterizations of Jewish Christian readers, as Hosea was here surely talking to Jews in his time.
4) 1 Peter 4:3-4: “You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. 4 They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme.” Witherington suggests that “this is fairly typical polemical rhetoric” (p.29), and surmises that if the readers before they became Christians were highly hellenized Jews, they might have been very much acculturated in the local societies. Hence Peter is “warning these Jewish Christians against having any longings to go back to their past Gentile-like behavior...”
His argument relies to some degree on his view of the readers as having been highly hellenized Jews before they became Christians. Most scholars find 4:3-4 to be more relevant as a description of former Gentiles, even though Jobes has argued for a view very much like that of Ben Witherington here (Jobes, 1 Peter (BCNT), p. 268), and she provides many examples from history. Again I admit that W’s interpetation of this passages is possible, though the use of ‘lawless idolatry’ (athemitos eidwlatriais), is hard for to read as a general description of former Jews.
I admit Witherington is making a good presentation of his view. According to my reading, it is crucial to his view that the Jewish readers of the regions to which this letter was sent to (1:1), were highly hellenized. If not some of these passages would not be easy to fit into his view (esp 4:3-4). Furthermore, still according to my reading of his Introoduction, he understands terms like paroikos and parepidemos as social terms (though without subscribing completely to the views of Elliott). I am not yet convinced of that reading.
I do find his Introduction to this letter very stimulating and suggestive. Hence I am looking forward to see how he reads the whole of 1 Peter in light of his view of the readers and their situation.
