Vox Petri: A Theology of Peter

by Gene L. Green, Michael J. Gorman (Foreword)

Peter stands at the beginning of Christian theology. Christianity's central confessions regarding the person of Jesus, the cross, salvation, the inclusive nature of the people of God, and the end of all things come to us through the apostle who was not only the church's leader but also its first theologian. Peter is the apostle for the whole church and the whole church resonates with his theology. We sing his song, though we may not have glanced at the bottom of the page in the hymnbook to see who wrote the words and composed the tune. Peter is the "lost boy" of Christian theology, a person overlooked as a theological innovator and pillar, but his rightful place is at the head of the table. If we look closely, however, we may recognize that he has been seated there all along. "This book is the most ambitious attempt yet to reconstruct Peter's own theology from the various sources in the New Testament. Many have said that this cannot be done. They should not continue to say that without reading this book." --Richard Bauckham, University of Cambridge "Studies on the theology of Paul abound. But what about Simon Peter? Can a 'theology of Peter' even be written? In his impressive Vox Petri, Gene Green outlines striking and often-overlooked points of convergence between the testimony of Peter as preserved in the Gospel of Mark, the Acts of the Apostles, and 1 Peter. The end result is a major contribution to Petrine studies and a must-read for anyone interested in whether the voice of Peter can still be heard in the pages of the New Testament." --Brant Pitre, author of Jesus and the Last Supper "Recent scholarship has sought to revisit Simon Peter's long-neglected and frequently caricatured profile as the leading disciple of Jesus in Scripture and early Christian memory. But what might happen if one were to take one logical step further, drawing out and synthesizing such glimpses of a remembered Peter into a more coherent picture of this first among the apostles? Gene Green offers his answer in a composite theology of Peter as a New Testament teacher and one who 'got by with a little help from his friends,' yet can rightly be pictured at the wellspring and 'head of the table' of Christian theology. Warmly recommended as a book with which to think about the shape of the apostolic church, its leadership, and its beliefs." --Markus Bockmuehl, University of Oxford Gene L. Green is Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and Graduate School. He previously served as Professor of New Testament, Dean, and Rector of the Seminario ESEPA in San Jose, Costa Rica. In addition to Spanish commentaries on the Petrine epistles and Thessalonian letters, his publications include The Letters to the Thessalonians and Jude and 2 Peter.

Genres: Theology

514 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 14, 2020

About the author

Gene L. Green (Ph.D., University of Aberdeen) is professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois. He has written commentaries on 2 Peter and Jude (Baker Exegetical series) and the Letters to the Thessalonians (Pillar series).

Reviews

[Matthew McBirth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Gene Green. His work in this book is exceptional in quality and quantity. However, it is too long. Green ends up repeating himself multiple times throughout the book, and not just in review sections. To be honest, the best part of the book is Green's work on testimony, history literature, and establishing that Peter's voice - even if not always his exact words - is reflected accurately in Mark, Acts, and 1 Peter. I'd recommend this book to particular people wanting to dive into theology from a non-Pauline perspective. Green is accurate in saying that at the beginning of Christian theology, Peter stands as a (potentially THE) leading influence on what we believe today.

[Dave Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm really mixed on this book. I really, really like the premise. Green presents a really strong case for the Petrine voice as the dominant strain that lies behind the NT writings (Gospels and letters). I am nearly entirely convinced of his position, and thus this remains a crucial piece of theology regarding this aspect of Chrsitian history, our understanding of the text, and our view of history. His basic case rests on a familiar assertation to anyone who has spent time with writers within the New Perspecctive (on Paul), which is that the Protestant tendency to elevate Paul as Christendom's core figure and voice has come at the expense of much. Usually that focuses on how it has tended to relegate the Gospels themsleves to the shadows of our Pauline "theologies", which then misses the Gospels while misunderstanding Paul outside of his own Gospel context. Green takes this same reasoning to another step yet, which is to establish the claim that in relegating the Gospel's to the shadow's of Paul we have equally lost sight of Peter, leading to a clear absence of scholarship around Peter, and similarly the absence of a clear Vox Petri (theology or voice of Peter). Peter gets relegated to a function of the Pauline narratve rather than having any historical force himself.

This is, as Green would suggest, important and even crucial because of the degree to which Peter stands behind Mark, which then gives shape to the other Gospel Traditions as part of an existing "conversataion", a conversation that then bleeds into the Acts of the Apostles and the letters with prevelance and relevance. We, then, need to recalibrate our understanding of the text by stepping back and begining with Peter before moving outwards into the larger picture in order to understand what is going on with this conversation.

As I said, it's a strong premise, and almost entirely convincing (to me). If I had a critique of this book though its that it should have been a whole lot shorter. And it's not a long book to begin with. The real problem is that in making his case in the first few chapters, Green then uses the buik of the rest of the book to actually go through this process of beginning with the Gospel of Mark and then working through each book that contains what he argues to be a definable Vox Petri. The issue is that these treatments are clearly limited in their scope, even in larger parts devolving into devotional like territory (replete with his own theological assumptions and Tradition). That's not necessarily bad in and of itself, but it also doesn't take long to see the repitition. He could have established the same point in a single sentence that applies to all of the material he is walking through book by book. This kind of muddles what precisely this book is, and undermiines a bit its scholarly focus on a historical level, which is actually what I wanted more of. He had me, and I was ready to be taken even deeper into this premise. Instead all of the time spent on each book keeps our head relatively above water, giving time to stuff I had to wade through hoping to get back to the stuff of the first few chapters, which it never really does (outside of a nice final summary that connects the book by book summary to the first few chapters. That was stong).

In any case, I strongly recommend the first few chapters of this book. Less so the rest of it. Overall though I found it worth my time to open up a door I hadn't given much thought to before.