TJieodore W. Jennings, Jr. The Meaning of ... - Quarterly Review

etained some of the oral style appropriate to a mixed audience of clergy and laypersons,
which may not be inappropriate in an article oriented toward preaching from these texts.
2. This is a real letter written as part of the Capital Fund Campaign of University
Christian Church, Fort Worth, Texas, cited by permission of the author.
3. Acts is volume two of the Gospel of Luke; Revelation, though containing much
apocalyptic content, is not in the form of an apocalypse, but is a letter to seven churches
in Asia.
4. Critically, of course, does not mean "negatively" or "without faith.*' The
opposite of critical is "uncritical," i.e. "naive." This is not the place to present detailed
evidence for regarding 1 Peter as pseudonymous, which may be found in most recent
commentaries and introductions to the New Testament.
5. The biblical data and reliable historical conclusions that may be inferred from it
are summarized in Oscar Cullmann, Peter; Disciple, Apostle, Martyr (New York:
Meridian Books, 1958), and Raymond E. Brown, Karl P. Donfried, and John Reumann,
eds, Peter in the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House; New York:
Paulist Press, 1973).
6. Cf. Pliny's letter to Trajan, ca. 115 C.E., which reflects the threat and harassment
Christians had to endure but does not reflect a persecution initiated by the state. The
persecution was still local, not the "world wide" distress common to the whole church,
of which 1 Peter speaks (4:12-14; 5:8-9).
7. Cf. Leonhard Goppelt, Der Erste Petrusbrief, KEK 12/1 (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1978), 60-64.
8. The letter composed in Peter's name was actually written by an elder, 5:1. Rome
is indicated by the symbolic name "Babylon" in 5:13, which indicates that the letter
is not merely a personal letter from "Peter," but is from one church to another.
9. In 2:9-12, the modern reader familiar with the Gospels would naturally think of
Matt. 5:38-48; but 1 Peter cites Ps. 34:12-16.
10. Wilhelm Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. 1, Gospels and
Related Writings, Rev, Ed. (Louisville: Westminster/John KnoxPress, 1991); Writings
Related to the Apostles: Apocalypses and Related Subjects, Vol. 2 (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1964).
11. The same style occurs in Colossians and Ephesians, also from the Pauline school
and reflecting much liturgical language. Col. 1:3-8 and 9-20 are one sentence each, as
is Eph. 1:3-14.
12. The point is only grammatical, of course. All pronouns in Greek must be
masculine, feminine, or neuter and in grammatical agreement with their antecedents.
The imagery here is of "God the Father," but how such imagery, is best interpreted
today is a different issue than the grammatical antecedent of the pronoun.
13. Some samples confined to the issue of interpreting biblical imagery and
representing a spectrum of approaches: Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward
a Philosophy of Women's Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973); Phyllis Trible, God
and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Overtures to Biblical Theology Series (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1978); Robert Hamerton-Kelly, God the Father, Theology and Patriarclvy
in the TeacMng of Jesus. Overtures to Biblical Theology Series (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1979;) Keith Watkins, Faithful and Fair: Transcending Sexist Language
in Worship (Nashville, Abingdon, 1981); Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and
INTERPRETING 1 PETER AS A LETTER 109