#STRask - How Did a Fisherman Write the Book of Peter?

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Questions about how a fisherman could have written the book of Peter, why people say that not mentioning the destruction of the temple indicates an early date for the Synoptic Gospels when John doesn���t mention it either, and why one should think the Bible is special.   How did Peter, being an uneducated fisherman, write the book of Peter, which seems levels above what someone with no education could do? People reason that the Synoptic Gospels should be dated earlier than the destruction of the temple since it isn’t mentioned, but John doesn’t mention it either, and that book is dated AD 80–90. Why should I pay any heed to the Bible when it’s just one of many ancient “holy” books? How can I trust it is special?

This is Stan Teresans, hashtag STR-Ask podcast. And if you've been with us for the last couple of episodes, we have been talking about your view on hearing the voice of God. So now we're going to move from that. That would be my view, Greg's view. She was looking at me. Oh, sorry. Oh, boy. I'm losing it.

You switch subjects there over the sentence. Thank you, Greg. So now we're going to switch from that topic, and we're going to talk about the Bible. So this first question comes from Josh. How did Peter, being an uneducated fisherman, write the book of Peter, which seems levels above what someone with no education could do? Well, there's a presumption being made here. And by the way, a lot of people make it. If you're a fisherman, you're illiterate.

Well, why would somebody believe that? The Jewish educational system required a certain capability in the, I should say, a capability to read or write because they have to learn the Torah. I mean, keep in mind when they are bar mitzvah 13, there's all kinds of stuff that they have to do to qualify for that. to read and to write. The Jews were people of the book, okay? And so many of these people had to memorize, okay, scripture. I think it's kind of a rank disservice to Peter and others that just because they were fishermen, they were illiterate.

I don't see any reason to presume that so much that one discounts the right. writings of Peter, which actually, first Peter was never contested by the early church. Second Peter was a little slow to be received. I'm not sure why, but nevertheless, notice that this is an assumption somebody brings to the task, and they're going to have to justify that assumption, and just saying, well, he's a fisherman, is not enough justification. He was also a Jewish lad when he was younger, and he had to be. be educated as Jewish lads were there in Israel. And presumably he was bar mitzvahed because that

was standard. And this requires a certain level of education, understanding of Judaism and the Torah. You mentioned there were people of the book. I mean, this is what happened when Christians started spreading out over the world and they brought literacy to all these places because they cared about the book that their words were written down that they needed to know. Now, I will also say I came across this, I remembered hearing about this, so I looked it up. There was a study done, I think it was in 2020, about the literacy rate at that time. And they studied, they went to this fortress, a military fortress, that would have had a small number of people. And they used computer analysis to study the handwritings on these fragments of pottery.

I think there were 18 pottery fragments, and they said there were 12 different people who had written on these pottery fragments at this small outpost fortress. And what they said is that this indicates there was a far greater level of literacy at the time in that area than people thought. And the article goes on to say, you know, it pointed out the Bible talks about people reading and writing throughout. It talks about kings and princes reading. It talks about the priest reading. And it also notes, I guess, Ezekiel 4311, the House of Israel. It talks about Israelites in general having the ability to read. So there's all these different things.

The Bible is obviously written for people to read, not just the priest, not just the... Well, it's in Coyne Greek, which is the language of the common person. Well, I'm speaking even earlier, like from the beginning. things were written down for people to read, but you're right. The New Testament especially was spread around and sent around. So I think people have made a lot of assumptions about this, but I would look up this article. I think it's also possible. Couldn't he have used a scribe of some kind? I think at the end of... Emanuances. Yeah, so at the end of First Peter, he says something about through Sylvannis

or someone, I can't remember the name, I've written to you. And so there could have been someone writing it down what he was saying. But I don't think this is anything that should give anyone any trouble. Pause. Okay. The next question comes from Chad. When dating New Testament writings, especially the Gospels, the destruction of the temple around 70 AD is a common litmus test. However, none of the writers mention it, even John, whose writings are dated as 80 to 95 AD. An argument from silence fails when nobody on either side of the event makes any mention of it. Well, this raises a question about the dating of John, doesn't it? I think it's John A.T. Robinson, who's no conservative, theologically, wrote a book called Redating the New Testament. I think

the title, I have the book. And he dates every New Testament writing before 70 AD because there is no mention of the temple being destroyed. So the question that is an entirely appropriate question is why date the gospel of John late in the late 1st century? Why do that? Now, when I've asked people about this, and they do the same with some of the other gospels, even the synoptics, that would be Matthew Mark Luke, they, the reason, there's only one reason I've ever been given. They have, a high Christology. In other words, well, they represent Jesus as the resurrected Messiah, who is the Son of God. And John does that a lot. So it takes a while to put these accretions of myth into these documents over time, so they must have been written later. All right. Now,

notice the assumption there is that the documents themselves are not accurate. The ones we have are not accurate. They don't tell us about the real Jesus. Well, how do they know what the Jesus is, because they're applying a predisposition against supernaturalism to excise it, mentally at least, segments of these things that they think must have been at afterwards. What is the justification for that? So the whole premise of late dating John is, seems to, that many will late date John and the other gospels seems to be suspect because they're importing a bias that isn't required

by the text, but is required by their philosophical presuppositions. Okay, so that's one problem. Secondly, could it be that John was written later and did not have a different kind of purpose so that he didn't mention that? Well, sure. John is a very, very unique perspective, all right, and that's why he's separate from the so-called synoptics, which, seeing the same way is what that word means, overlap each other quite a bit. John is a lot of new material, okay, though it's consistent with what has

been previously revealed. There's a lot of stuff that wasn't in the synoptics. All right. So maybe John had no intention because of his purpose. When it comes to the Book of Acts, though, that is a record of the history of the early church. And we see Luke going step by step by step by step through the history of the early church in which he notes when Stephen gets martyred. And then he notes, when James gets martyred, you know, Peter, James and John. He's out. Okay. But when the Book of Acts ends, there is no martyrdom of Paul. He died in about 63, 64, 65 during the Neuronian persecutions. Paul's still alive at the end. And it kind of ends a little bit abruptly. And so it's like he probably stopped like that because he was then, at the point, writing in the present

moment. That means he finished the book of Acts when Paul was still alive. There was, so if he's recording the dates of these other apostles or significant characters who had individuals who had died, why doesn't he do the same with Paul? Well, the logical thing is he didn't die. And then, and if he didn't die, the temple wasn't destroyed yet, you know. And also in the gospel of Luke, his first work, you have him recording Jesus prophesying the destruction of the temple. Well, why would he, if it's already done, why would he logically put it there? So Luke, Luke Acts, is in a totally different category than the Gospel of John in this regard. It isn't just, well, they're all the same and nobody includes it.

Even John, who we think wrote after it happens, so therefore this is not a good argument. No, it's a great argument because the synoptics are different than the Gospel of John may have had a different intent. And it might be that John was written before 70, all right? So none of these challenges are ultimately decisive. It's not even that they're decisive. They're not even convincing to me. It's fair to raise the question. Wow, why didn't John conclude that?

Well, I don't know. But he could have reason. Maybe it wasn't written late. It was written before. sort of possibility. It's so funny that Chad asked this, because I had the same thought that, okay, well, if I use that as an argument for the early dating of the synoptics, then I guess I guess I can't make that argument anymore because John was later. And then it finally occurred to me one day, wait a minute, I'm kind of begging the question here because maybe it also

applies to John. Maybe that's also a reason to think John was early. And I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me, but I think it could serve to make an earlier date. And I recommend, so Shane Rosenthal, who has the Humble Skeptic podcast and website, he had an article called The Date of John's Gospel Revisited. And I think he had a whole episode on this. And he was talking about how he's seeing scholars move to an earlier date now. And he mentioned Peter J. Williams and Richard Bachman and T. Wright. And he, he, he, he, He gave a bunch of reasons, but a few of them were that, like, the main one that he brings up a lot is the idea of Acts, I guess it's no, gosh, which, which, it must be, yeah, obviously John. John 5.2, where it says there is in Jerusalem near the sheep gate a pool called in Hebrew Betheseda or Bethesda. I'm not sure I have this written wrong here. present tense, which has five porticos. Yes, so it's a present tense statement. And there was a scholar who did this study who said, look, the grammar used here is used to speak about things that are presently existing. And the analogy that Shane Rosenthal always gives is it'd be like, if I were to say, there are in New York City Twin Towers.

Yeah. Like, no one would say that now. and it's a similar construction. So the idea that not only there is a sheep gate, or there is a pool, but also that it's near the sheep gate. So they know where that is, and that also exists. So these are all indications that these things are still standing. So I guess this is one of the reasons why. Well, the point would have to be then that after the destruction, that wasn't the case.

Right, right. Because they're no longer standing or whatever. I've seen that place, you know, it's been excavating. You can see the seven porticoes and everything, so we know that's there, but maybe that got destroyed during the siege and assault. So he has several more indications that John is an earlier gospel. So I recommend people go and take a look at that. Again, the name of the articles, the date of John's gospel revisited, and you'll find a bunch of arguments. And I think it's really interesting.

Yeah, sure. That's great. Okay, Greg, let's go on to a quote. One last thing. If somebody wants to late date the gospel, you always have to ask them the question, why do you think it's late? That is so critical. We kind of just assume, well, it must be late. Everybody says it's late. Well, why? And I've asked lots of scholars, and I've virtually always got the same answer. Well, because it has high Christology. Well, anyway, there you go. Okay, this question comes from Niggle. A friend asked why he should pay any heat. to the Bible, saying it's just one of many ancient holy books. How can I trust it is special? Well, this is, this to me is similar when people ask the question. There were 300 gods.

You look at all the religion. What makes you think yours is the right God? There are all these holy books. What makes you think yours is the right book? Well, first of all, there's not all these holy books. In fact, I had a conversation with West Huff a couple months ago on this question. do ancient near Eastern religions each have their own revealed scripture? And he said, no, sometimes there are, he used a special word, but like prophets or seers that will make proclamations, but there's no delivered scripture of their God revealing himself to people in any particular way. So, characteristically, this is not true.

Now, you have the Quran. The Quran was written in the 7th century after Christ. You know? So, seventh and eighth, I guess. So, you know, it's not really contemporaneous. So the Bible is unique here. The Hebrew and the Christian scriptures are unique in this regard. There are some other things that were there, but it isn't like everybody's got their book. But we're back to this broader question. You've got a multiplicity of options. Why choose one over the other? And the answer is very simple. The reasons. The reasons take 300 gods. I have no reason to think any of those gods are real. And they all seem to be very much like the human beings who worship them and just as

immoral. The God of the Bible is very different. He's not the kind of God that you would invent, all right, probably. So, and one has to look, is there any good reason to believe one option over the other? Look, if somebody goes in, he's got a pain, goes to the doctor. You have a bunch of doctors, look at him. Okay. And they have all different ideas. about what's wrong with them. Okay, how does he decide which is the accurate diagnosis? He's got to think about the particulars and the reasons that the doctor's given, find out which one's the most persuasive. We go through this process all the time of trying to decide between options, and we use our thinking and reason to do so. So when we come to the scriptures,

I actually just gave a talk this last weekend in Huntington Beach, talking about the very particular reasons we have to think that the Bible, which is really a library of books and not just one book, taken as a whole, has fingerprints of the supernatural on it. There's six different evidences. Maybe people can come up with more, but I just talk about six, that indicate that this is more likely a book by God to men in some sense than it is a human book by men about God. Okay? That's a process of analysis. It's the same thing we do with any other circumstance where we have options. And the issues are important. We just think through the option. So can you briefly say what those six things are just in general? Well, it has

that fulfilled prophecy. It has an amazing unity from Genesis to Revelation in terms of the development of what I call the story of reality. It has definite profound insight into the big issues, the big questions that have to do with maybe the existential elements, who are we, where we're going, why are we important? Is there a God? Is there morality, whatever? And then it answers those questions in a way that resonates with our deepest intuitions about the way the world is. Seems to fit. Okay, that's the third one. Fourth one is it's a historical reliability. So it's a record of God intervening in history to show himself and different ways, most profound in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. But you can actually track

the history because there's a lot of detail there. And we can show in many points that the history is accurate to the events they describe, you know, through archaeology and other sources, etc. This is especially true in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. But what's really key in this is at particular with the Gospels is that the record to accurate history that we have in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is a supernatural record of events. So we have supernatural history that's well attested to by eyewitnesses. Okay, that's the fourth reason. The fifth one is the power of this message, this book, this account of reality,

when taken seriously, to change and transform lives in a very unique fashion. And this is universal. It doesn't matter where you live, when you live. People who follow this, not only are individuals, lives changed, but whole cultures are transformed, like the Wesleyan Revival, how it transformed England and saved it in the late 18th century from a revolution that France experienced. I mean, this is historians, acknowledge this without pause, right? And then finally, the survival of this book through, in the midst of tremendous persecution

and criticism, attempts to destroy it physically, and through criticism, have all failed. and it continues to be the number one best-selling book of all history. And those things taken together, it's a cumulative case. The supernatural prophecy, the supernatural unity, the supernatural insight, the supernatural events recorded accurately there, the supernatural change lives, and supernatural survival through time and persecution, taken collectively is very powerful evidence that this book is not like any other book. What makes it easier to evaluate compared to, say, another religious text that might just be ideas about how to live or maybe their ideas about ultimate reality or whatever it is, the thing about the Bible is that it's connected to normal life.

Like, it's connected to history. It's not just one person's ideas that came to them that are untestable. You can't test somebody's, like if there's a single person who has a vision and says, this is how you should live. Well, there's not really a way to test if that really came from a supernatural being or whatever it is. But if God is acting in history, now there are so many people involved writing about what's happening and how God is working through what's happening. And we can look back at history and see how these things happen. And it's just connected with what is happening in the world. And so there's a way to look at it and see, well, what is the evidence that Jesus rose from the dead?

Why should I believe that? It's not just somebody saying, there's an afterlife. Okay, well, what do I do with that? There's no way to evaluate that. So we do have a way to look at it and figure out what is true. So that is the advantage I think the Bible has. In addition, there's – and you mentioned the unity. I think the unity is a great argument because you have all of these authors over 1,500 years,

writing down what all comes together in a cohesive unity of what God has been doing, who God is, what he requires, what he's like. It all fits together. How do you, how does that happen over that period of time with the changing culture and the different people is because it's all coming from the same God? Yeah, especially when none of those writers had the whole story. They just had a peace and they didn't completely understand it. Oh, Abraham, how did Jesus put it, saw my day and rejoiced. Okay. Well, okay, we don't have a lot of content there. We have a promise that we know given to Abraham as to a future fulfillment of a blessing. Abraham had a little piece in each piece. And this is why this course that we have at Stand to Reason, STR.org, it's called the Bible fast

forward. There's eight sessions, 50 minutes each, five zero. And it comes with a like a hundred and 50-page syllabus that I put together, and I teach this, to show the connectedness from the very beginning, the call of Abraham all the way to the advent of Messiah. It's all connected. And it's very obvious when you kind of go through it. That's the unity you're talking about. And just emphasize one more thing that you have in there. It's the insight into human nature that just blows me away sometimes. The Bible knows who we are. God's revelation, he has us. He knows who we are, and you can see the reality of that, and you can see the weaknesses of people, and you can see what God does through them, and it's just, you see how people interact with

Jesus, and it's just amazing. You can see the truthfulness of the way it portrays human beings. It resonates with our deepest intuitions about reality. Well, we could go on and on forever, but we have to go now. Staff meeting coming up. So thank you so much for the questions, Niggle and Josh and chat. We appreciate hearing from you. Send us your question on X with the hashtag STR Ask. Or you go to our website at STR.org and just look for our hashtag STRask podcast page.

And you'll find a link right there where you can send us your question. We look forward to hearing from you. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.