Q: In Matthew 26:34, Jesus tells Peter that before the cock crows, Peter will deny him three times. Luke 22:34 and John 13:38 have the same gist (John 13:38 pictures Jesus saying the cock shall not crow till you have denied me three times). But in Mark, Jesus is depicted saying Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times. In Mark 14:68, a rooster is said to crow after Peters first denial. What did Jesus say: Before the cock crows, or before the cock crows twice? And, either way, dont the accounts contradict each other?
A: First, theres a text-critical issue here. In Codices Vaticanus (B), Sinaiticus (Aleph), Regius (L) and Washingtonensis (W), the phrase And the cock crowed doesnt appear in Mark 14:68. Its also absent from the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript. These are some of our earliest manuscripts. If they had been absent in just Aleph, B, and the Sinaitic Syriac, it would look like they had been excised in a local Egyptian text-family. But they also seem to be absent in Tatians Diatessaron (a Gospels-harmony from about 170) and are missing in Codex W and in one Old Georgian manuscript (the Old Georgian generally echoes the Caesarean Text of the Gospels, rather than the Egyptian (though at times the Caesarean seems dependent upon the Egyptian, so that Georgian evidence isnt all that weighty, just helpful).) So, one could propose that these old manuscripts are correct, and thus the problem evaporates.
But a solution can also be worked out along the following lines: Peters first denial-occasion consisted of three verbal utterances to a servant-girl -- I dont know or understand what you are saying, as Mark 14:66-68 and Matthew 26:69-70, and Woman, I do not know Him, as Luke 22:54-57 says, and, in response to a direct question, I am not [one of His disciples], as John 18:16-17 relates. The combination of the Gospels accounts shows that Peters first denial-episode had three component-parts, each consisting itself of a denial.
Thus, by a strict reckoning, Peter had denied Jesus three times before the cock had crowed even one time. With this approach, Peter doesnt seem to have heard the cock crow the first time at all -- otherwise one would think that he would recover his senses and stop talking. It was only after Peter had gone through two more denial-episodes that he heard the rooster crow, when it crowed the second time. (The alternative is that he heard it, but wasn't thinking that Jesus' idiomatic words had been meant to be literally fulfilled, and so it didn't dawn on him that he was fulfilling the prediction literally. Speaking of which...)
There is yet another way to resolve this alleged discrepancy, and that is to posit that theres an idiom involved here. When Jesus says, in Mark 13:30, Before the rooster crows twice, this is the equivalent of an expression like Before you can say Jack Robinson, or, In two shakes of a lambs tail, -- that is, its primary use is as a general reference of any action that is performed rapidly. In that case, it appears in Mark 14:30 as an emphatic re-statement of what is already said in the verse: Peter will deny Jesus three times that very night.
This would explain why it did not occur to Peter, when he heard the first cock-crowing (taking the text of Mark as it stands in the majority of manuscripts) that Jesus prophecy was being literally fulfilled. He had taken for granted that the words were idiomatic (just as he had most likely assumed earlier that Jesus words that the Son of Man would be killed and rise from the dead on the third day were non-literal).
Matthew, Luke, and John, however, knew that their audiences wouldnt understand that idiomatic expression (and in Rome, Peters audience probably had to have it explained to them, too -- which turns out to be a nice piece of evidence that the account of Peters denials began to take on a stable form at an earlier time, when the apostles were still in Judea, btw), so they simplified the account, omitting entirely any mention of the first cock-crowing and emphasizing only the point that Jesus predicted that Peter would deny Jesus three times before the cock crowed -- this cock-crowing being associated (in another, more widespread idiomatic expression) with the beginning of morning twilight, as alluded to in Mark 13:35.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: First, theres a text-critical issue here. In Codices Vaticanus (B), Sinaiticus (Aleph), Regius (L) and Washingtonensis (W), the phrase And the cock crowed doesnt appear in Mark 14:68. Its also absent from the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript. These are some of our earliest manuscripts. If they had been absent in just Aleph, B, and the Sinaitic Syriac, it would look like they had been excised in a local Egyptian text-family. But they also seem to be absent in Tatians Diatessaron (a Gospels-harmony from about 170) and are missing in Codex W and in one Old Georgian manuscript (the Old Georgian generally echoes the Caesarean Text of the Gospels, rather than the Egyptian (though at times the Caesarean seems dependent upon the Egyptian, so that Georgian evidence isnt all that weighty, just helpful).) So, one could propose that these old manuscripts are correct, and thus the problem evaporates.
But a solution can also be worked out along the following lines: Peters first denial-occasion consisted of three verbal utterances to a servant-girl -- I dont know or understand what you are saying, as Mark 14:66-68 and Matthew 26:69-70, and Woman, I do not know Him, as Luke 22:54-57 says, and, in response to a direct question, I am not [one of His disciples], as John 18:16-17 relates. The combination of the Gospels accounts shows that Peters first denial-episode had three component-parts, each consisting itself of a denial.
Thus, by a strict reckoning, Peter had denied Jesus three times before the cock had crowed even one time. With this approach, Peter doesnt seem to have heard the cock crow the first time at all -- otherwise one would think that he would recover his senses and stop talking. It was only after Peter had gone through two more denial-episodes that he heard the rooster crow, when it crowed the second time. (The alternative is that he heard it, but wasn't thinking that Jesus' idiomatic words had been meant to be literally fulfilled, and so it didn't dawn on him that he was fulfilling the prediction literally. Speaking of which...)
There is yet another way to resolve this alleged discrepancy, and that is to posit that theres an idiom involved here. When Jesus says, in Mark 13:30, Before the rooster crows twice, this is the equivalent of an expression like Before you can say Jack Robinson, or, In two shakes of a lambs tail, -- that is, its primary use is as a general reference of any action that is performed rapidly. In that case, it appears in Mark 14:30 as an emphatic re-statement of what is already said in the verse: Peter will deny Jesus three times that very night.
This would explain why it did not occur to Peter, when he heard the first cock-crowing (taking the text of Mark as it stands in the majority of manuscripts) that Jesus prophecy was being literally fulfilled. He had taken for granted that the words were idiomatic (just as he had most likely assumed earlier that Jesus words that the Son of Man would be killed and rise from the dead on the third day were non-literal).
Matthew, Luke, and John, however, knew that their audiences wouldnt understand that idiomatic expression (and in Rome, Peters audience probably had to have it explained to them, too -- which turns out to be a nice piece of evidence that the account of Peters denials began to take on a stable form at an earlier time, when the apostles were still in Judea, btw), so they simplified the account, omitting entirely any mention of the first cock-crowing and emphasizing only the point that Jesus predicted that Peter would deny Jesus three times before the cock crowed -- this cock-crowing being associated (in another, more widespread idiomatic expression) with the beginning of morning twilight, as alluded to in Mark 13:35.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
.
: This lack of understanding and poor defense of Gods Word has led skeptics to become more confident in their position (that the Bible is not Gods Word
