Review in: Biblical Theology
Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology 2002 32: 150
Review door: Paul J. AchtemeierGevonden op: http://btb.sagepub.com/content/32/3/150
A Review
Article : John H. Elliott, 1 Peter: An Appreciation
John
H. Elliott, I PETER.
A NEW TRANSLATION WITH
INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARY Anchor Bible 37B. New York, NY: Doubleday (Random
House), 2000. Pp. xxiii + 956.
Cloth, $60.00.
Professor
Elliott’s commentary on 1 Peter belongs among the very best coninientaries on
this epistle published within the past half-century. That this commentary
merits the high praise I give it will come as no surprise to those who have
followed Professor Elliott’s work over the past four decades, particularly his
seminal publications regarding 1 Peter. Beginning with his masterful doctoral
dissertation on 1 Peter 2 (1966b) and continuing through his cri de coeur about the epistle’s status as
step-child in the exegetical enterprise (1976), Professor Elliott has produced
a steady stream of articles and books about 1 Peter that no one in the
scholarly guild could afford not to read (1966a, 1966b, 1968, 1970, 1976, 1979,
1980, 1981, 1982a, 1982b, 1983, 1985a, 1985b, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1995a, 1995b).
It is all drawn together here in his Meisterstück, which well reflects his long
and productive career in this area of academic endeavor.
I
There
are several points that attest the excellence of this commentary. There is
first and foremost the exhaustive research that underlies the volume, attested
to by the voluminous evidence presented for the points made as well as for the
points gainsaid. That evidence covers primary sources from the world within
which 1 Peter was written, as well as voluminous secondary materials in any
number of languages. That evidence is sifted, evaluated, organized, and clearly
presented; there are no snap judgments in this book.
Again,
Elliott has done an excellent job in integrating Old Testament evidence and
background in his book. He constantly relates the theological movements in 1 Peter
to the Old Testament and to Second Temple Judaism, thus giving significant
depth to his discussion. The same can be said for the New Testament. There are
constant discussions of links between points made in 1 Peter and in the remainder
of the New Testament. Elliott does not fall into the trap of seeing literary
influence on 1 Peter from those New Testament writings. He accurately
accounts for such similarities on the basis of common traditions, but he does on
a regular basis show how the theology of 1 Peter
is related to that of the other New Testanient writings.
In another
area, Elliott is sensitive to the conipositional devices and patterns employed
by the author of 1 Peter. There are lengthy charts illustrating the kind of rhetorical
strategies used to enhance the literary appeal of the letter to its hearers.
And Elliott is as good as his observations about 1 Peter. Repeatedly pointing
out the kind of alliteration used in this letter, Elliott himself shows a like talent
when he writes, in relation to 1 Peter 5:2, that “elders are not to be
leaders for lucre or ministers for mammon” (829). Again, pointing to an
occasional neologism in 1 Peter, Elliott again shows similar talent when he
uses the word “complexify” (844). But maybe that is a neologism only to old
fogies like me.
On the
historical background of the period during which the letter is written, Elliott
again gives ample and interesting information, as he does on the geographical locations
of the persons to whom the letter is addressed.
Finally,
in the matter of socio-historical perspective, Elliott has continued his
impressive analysis of the place of the material in 1 Peter within the
honor/shame categories that so dominated Mediterranean culture at the time this
letter was written. You will hear more on that point later from others, but no
comment on this book from the viewpoint of recent scholarship would be complete
without calling attention to this signal contribution of Elliott’s commentary.
II
In
much of this Elliott has taken positions common to the better commentaries on 1
Peter produced within the past decades. For example, he correctly argues that
the letter is a literary unity, not an adapted homily, whether baptismal or
other, tricked out with introduction and conclusion (874). Elliott is too good
a literary analyst to miss the fact that the letter is a literary unity. Again,
Elliott argues that the letter is pseudepigraphic, written sometime during the
last third of the first century, almost surely stemming from a Petrine group in
Rome-points that all have been supported by most of the better recent research.
Two final, minor but important points: Elliott correctly argues that the
“briefly” of 5:12 represents a literary convention of first-century
letter-writers, and is not meant to be taken literally in any
twenty-first-century sense (876), as he correctly sees that that same verse
contains a summary of the intent of the letter (880), thus providing one more proof of
the literary unity of the letter.
To the
points made above concerning some of the conclusions Elliott has in common with
recent scholarship, let me add some further points where I would find myself in
complete agreement with his views on 1 Peter. I can list only a small number,
since those agreements, as you will see, range from the very broad to the very
specific.
First,
and perhaps most significantly for me, I agree with the general perspective of
the letter Elliott sets out at the conclusion of his Introduction (152); it is
worth quoting in full:
. . . the present commentary seeks to show how the essential perspective
of this letter concerns, not a cosmological
contrast bctween life on earth and home in heaven, but a social tension between maintaining the
identity and integrity of the Christian people of God and experiencing the
abuse and pressures of a hostile
society.
Several
points need emphasizing here. The first is that the letter concerns real
problems for real persons in the real world regarding how to live as real
Christians in the midst of essentially social pressures. It is not, as Elliott
likes to say, about “pie in the sky”; it is about how to live as a cohesive
group in the real world (322, 367, 461, 480-81).
The
second point to emphasize, and with which needless to say I also agree
completely, is that the pressure facing those people was largely social, not
political or imperial in origin. Like any oriental religion, Christianity was faced with official Roman skepticism,
but at the time 1 Peter was written, there was no official edict banning
Christianity. Pliny’s letter to Trajan makes that clear enough. As a result, it was hostile neighbors, not
hostile governmental bodies with anti-Christian policies that were plaguing the
hearers of this letter (e.g., 607, 631, 779, 788). Third, implied in that
statement is the point that Christians are not called by the author of 1 Peter
to conformity with the customs of the Greco-Roman world. Quite the contrary, as
Elliott makes clear more than once (e.g., 863, 869), the advice is to
non-conformity when conformity would compromise the integrity of the Christian
reality the hearers are seeking
to embody. The advice is to conform if it secures public approval, provided it
involves no sacrifice of Christian identity (562), but that is a long way from
sacrificing Christian ideals by conforming to Greco-Roman social customs.
On
another key issue in 1 Peter, I find myself in basic agreement with Elliott’s
solution to the problems posed by 1 Peter 3:18-22. O n all major points we are
in agreement; on occasion we interpret linguistic evidence in differing ways,
but the conclusions remain compatible. Included in that is the agreement that
the imprisoned spirits in 3:19 are unrelated to the dead in 4:6 but that they
are related to the supernatural powers mentioned in 3:22, and that there is no
descetuns ad iriferos implied
in 3: 19.
I also
applaud, and incidentally agree with (!) the point that the author of 1
Peter chose, in the fragments of the Hawtufel included in the letter, to put
major emphasis on slaves (2:18-25) and wives (3:l-7) because of their
paradigmatic illumination of the status of all Christians within the social
situation in which they lived. Like that of slaves and wives, their
contemporary social structure allowed the Christians little true freedom for
expression or action.
Again,
I agree that 1 Peter originated with a Petrine group in Rome, a point I ought to agree with since I first was convinced
of it by Elliott’s writings! I also agree-and this I did not first lcam from
Elliott-that Silvanus is not the secretary but the bearer of the letter (872);
the linguistic evidence makes that all but certain. A few other, minor points: I agree that the basic thrust of the
Greek word pistis is best rendered as “trust” rather than “belief” (378,860),
that the Greek word ktisis (2:13)
is to be rendered as “creature” rather than “institution” (489), and, I think very importantly, that derivatives of the Greek word upotasso are best rendered with some fomi of the English word
“subordinate” (484438) rather than sonic form of“be subject to” or “obey.” The
point is not to give in no matter what-the point is to assume the place in the
social order which one is allotted, including, I
would
argue, its modification brought about by membership in the Christian community.
III
Let me
now turn to an important aspect in any scholar’s overall understanding of 1
Peter, namely the role played in the letter by metaphor. It is at this point
that one must celebrate Elliott’s insight into the importance of “family”
terminology in the Epistle, but I shall return to that in due course.
There
is general agreement that metaphor is a key element of the theological strategy
of the author of 1 Peter, a point made the more obvious by the numerous
metaphors that appear. Among the more evident are living stone, rebirth,
newborn babe, milk (of the word), gentiles, used in the letter to describe
non-believers of any racial originreaders of pagan origin are urged in the
letter not to be like gentiles-and the numerous terms normally used to describe
the family. A major metaphor is also represented by terminology used in Jewish
literature to describe Israel. As Elliott
notes (e.g., 113,447), the fact that the author of 1 Peter simply takes over
the terms originally applied to Israel and uses them without comment to
describe the Christian community clearly identifies Israel as a major metaphor
in this argument.
One of
the major problems any interpreter of 1 Peter faces, therefore, is to
determine whether there is a root metaphor used by the author that informs and
shapes the argument of the letter. Elliott, in one of the major contributions of
his commentary, identifies as root metaphor the Christian community as the
household of God (444). It is this figure, Elliott argues, that the author
employs to inform the readers about the way they must act towards one another
in the face of overt social hostility, and it is this figure that provides the
way of life as well as the
mode of believing for the nascent Christian community.
Also in this regard, Professor Elliott has, I think, modified to
some extent an earlier view regarding the words “strangers and aliens.” In
earlier writings, e.g., A HOME FOR THE HOMELESS, one gained the impression that
he thought they were used exclusivcly to describe the actual social condition
of the readers. Contrarily, 1 had
argued that given the exclusive use of this phrase in Greek literature to refer
to Abraham, and Abraham alone, the phrase must be understood as metaphorical,
within the larger controlling metaphor I had wanted to identify as Israel as chosen
people.
While
Professor Elliott continues to argue that unless there is compelling reason to
see the phrase as nietaphorical, it needs to be taken as literal description of
social reality (461), he does now also argue that while some of the readers
“may have been aliens in the lands where they resided prior to their
conversion” (460), “eventually the estrangement that subsequent adherents of
the movement also experienced made it possible for our author to describe the
entire brotherhood as a community of strangers and resident aliens” (461). Thus
allowance is made for a metaphorical as well as a literal use of the phrase.
Because this was a major difference between Professor Elliott and myself in
interpreting 1 Peter, I have spent more time on it than was perhaps warranted. Nevertheless,
I welcome this qualification in emphasis, and would find little to argue
against it.
That
is not to say that I still do not have some disagreements, although they are
for the most part minor, and often represent differing ways of evaluating the
same evidence, placing differing emphases on differing elements within that
evidence. Understanding the Greek word barileion in 2:9 as the adjective “royal,” modifying
priesthood, or as the nominal “royal residence’’ is one such example; Professor
Elliott has argued for the latter. I am also not entirely convinced that there
are as many imperatival participles in 1 Peter as Professor Elliott finds, and,
in a startling about-face, I would
see the description of wives in 3:3 as
containing references to social and economic reality, whereas Professor Elliott
would not (564). Being by nature skeptical, I am not so convinced as Professor
Elliott that the Silvanus mentioned as the one who delivers the letter is necessarily
the same Silas/Silvanus mentioned in Acts and Paul, or that the Mark of 5: 13
is the same John Mark who also appears in Acts and is credited with a Gospel.
Such differences are, however, minor quibbles.
IV
Let me
conclude by pointing to what I see as the major contributions of the Commentary.
Foremost is the argument for household and family terminology as the root
metaphor and key conceptual framework for understanding the intention of the
author of 1 Peter. In what I take to be an unparalleled fashion, Elliott
contends for this major insight not only into 1 Peter, but also into the larger
mode of self-understanding practiced by the early Christian community.
The
second major contribution is the location of certain terminology in the letter
within the domain of the honorshame conceptuality of the first-century
Mediterranean world. It is presented in a persuasive and illuminating way, and
helps the reader gain purchase on the kind of world within which, and for
which, 1
Peter
was written.
A third major contribution is represented by the carefill and sensitive discussion of the
hermeneutical problem posed for our age by 1 Peter’s discussion of wives in 3:1-7
(585-99). It is the best such discussion I know, and shows the extent to which
Professor Elliott is sensitive not only to the social situation in which the
letter originated, but also to the social situation within which its message is
now to be understood. That sensitivity is i n the end perhaps the most abiding
characteristic of this fine Commentary on 1 Peter.
Paul J. Achtemeier
Th.D., Professor Emeritus of Biblical Interpretation
Union Theological Seminary & Presbyterian School of Christian
Education,
3401 Brook Road, Richmond, VA 23227
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