Hail, hail, the gang's all here

Hail, hail, the gang’s all here

Readers may cut out at this point, but what the heck do we care, what the heck do we care -- in Bible Seminar this morning we will read together and talk about Mark 14. It begins with priests and lawyers conniving to arrest and kill Jesus and goes through his arrest and being hauled before the temple authorities. At chapter’s end, Peter in the courtyard is weeping in shame because he has indeed, as Jesus predicted at the Last Supper, shown the white feather with his denial after blustering that no matter what the others do, he would never do such a thing. 

Some scholars have tied Peter’s denial, reported in all four canonical gospels, and his being sharply chastised by Jesus (Get behind me, Satan), and his lack of faith that caused him to sink when he tried to walk out on the water (Matthew 14:28f), and his foolish utterance on the mountaintop in the gospel transfiguration story, to probably dispute later about leadership in the early church, perhaps between those who regarded Peter as leader and those who supported James. There may be hints of dispute at Galatians 1:18-24, and especially in Galatians 2, Paul himself being no admirer of Peter, whom he considered a coward and hypocrite, and confronted. And Luke at Acts 21 makes it seem that James, not Peter, is in charge in Jerusalem.  

So, who was in charge, and was there struggle over church leadership, and is there a subtle undercurrent to discredit Peter?

TW+