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Name: Dennis •
Title: Peter under St. Peter's •
Date posted: 03/05/07 12:48
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Q: In the 1940s, the Vatican conducted an excavation under the altar of St. Peter's Basilica and found several other altars from different Christian eras all stacked up over each other at that precise site.
At the bottom level, they found a 1st century mausoleum, that was part of a larger cemetery complex (a literal street of the dead). But on that mausoleum, sitting directly under the 3 or 4 Christian altars built on top of it since, were _all kinds of 1st-2nd century grafiti_ identifying it as the tomb of St. Peter.
They even found bones in the tomb of one man (the only one in the tomb) in his sixites (about the right age of Peter at the time of his death) in that particular mausoleum.
When I was in the seminary in Rome in the mid-1990s, I had a chance to see visit the "street of the dead" and catch a glipse of Peter's tomb under the Vatican, with a "Christian Archeology" class that I took at that time.
I think that the Vatican has recently opened the "street of the dead" under St. Peter's Basilica to the general public.
Dennis
[email protected]
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Name: golfdane •
Date: 03/05/07 14:46 |
A: Then this might interest you:
http://www.leaderu.c-om/theology/burialcave.htm-l- (no hyphens anywhere in link (the forum software adds hyphens to links at random)).
http://www.aloha.net/~mike-sch/peters-jerusalem-tomb.htm
(hyphens- before and after jerusalem).
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Name: KRS •
Date: 03/05/07 14:47 |
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A: Interesting, I read about this find, but the evidence I saw indicated it was a second century Mausoleum, what's your source on the first century date?
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Name: Dennis •
Date: 03/05/07 17:55 |
A: A: Interesting, I read about this find, but the evidence I saw indicated it was a second century Mausoleum, what's your source on the first century date?
Truthfully, my source would be the Vatican itself. Pope Paul VI opened the site to the public in the late 1960s a few years after the Second Vatican Council with the claim that the bones of St. Peter were probably found.
I'd be interested in the source of your 2nd century source as well...
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Name: Dennis •
Date: 03/05/07 18:04 |
A: This is the web-address of the Vatican's excavations' office. Note that if one applies in advance, one can see the site of St. Peter's tomb.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia-/institutions_connected/uffscavi/documents-/rc_ic_uffscavi_doc_gen-information_200401-12_en.html
Dennis
[email protected]
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Name: KRS •
Date: 03/05/07 22:04 |
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A: Hmm, mine was from FF Bruce's New Testament History, but I haven't read the work in a few years, and might be confusing the Mausoleum with the graffitti.
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Name: golfdane •
Date: 03/05/07 22:05 |
A: @Dennis
Did you check the links I pasted in? They should work if you remove the hyphens I didn't list.
I guess we can both agree, that they can't both be Simon bar Jonah AKA Peter the Rock.
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Name: KRS •
Date: 03/05/07 22:08 |
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A: Incidentally, the presence of Peter son of Jonah in this same graveyard opens another possibility: its possible that this is a second century gnostic forgery or religious site. If we have two sites claiming to be the burial place of Peter, I'd tend to hold to the one that corresponds to whats found in Eusebeas, since he did have a lot of written sources at the time. The Chevron is niether a Jewish or Christian symbol in the first or second century, but its possible that a gnostic group might have used it, and there is some evidence indicating that the Ebionites developed a lot of gnostic tendencies in the second century.
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Name: Dennis •
Date: 03/06/07 3:14 |
A: The thing is that there really is a _long_ tradition of both Peter's (and Paul's) martyrdom in Rome, going back to the 1st century letter of 1 Clement, a letter that incidently refers to the _still operational_ Jerusalem temple.
Given that Nero's persecution in Rome took place in 66 AD and the Jerusalem temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the letter could have been written as early as between those two dates.
Second, there was a race track next to the cemetery where Peter was buried. (Indeed, the Obylisk in the center of St. Peter's square is supposed to have been taken from the remains of this race track to its present position.
Tacitus reported that Christians during the Nero persecution were crucified ... in the middle of the race track for the entertainment of the spectators, something that revolted even him. The presence of Peter's tomb in a cemetery (the street of the dead) near the 1st century race track is, in fact, _also_ very compelling... as is Constantine's building of the first St. Peter's basilica over that tomb (the present basilica is built over the Constantinian one, even though it would have desecrated a fairly large cemetery full of other people's graves in the process... something that would have needlessly pissed off a lot of Roman citizens, unless Constantine had good reason to believe that he knew what he was doing.
As for Simon bar Jonah ... one has to go again and check ... how frequent were names like Simon and Jonah in 1st century Palestine.
Yup, it's a neat coincidence ... but my guess would be that Jerusalem would have been full of Simons, some of whom had fathers named Jonah...
Indeed that's probably why _we no longer use_ the "___ son of ____" approach to giving names. It just doesn't work well to identify individuals.
Dennis
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Name: KRS •
Date: 03/06/07 4:08 |
A: Right, I agree with you in general, about the possiblity of a coincidence in this. I'm not stating that I think this is a second century hoax; while none of us is unbiased, I'd say the possiblity of a gnostic hoax is kind of a chuckles based on some similar occurances.
As to Peter, I agree, the tradition is very early, though I would probably date Clement after Domitian rather than Nero.
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Name: Dennis •
Date: 03/06/07 6:20 |
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A: The thing though is that there is a a tantalizing passage in 1 Clement that talks of a _still functioning_ Jerusalem temple. That could not be after 70 AD. Cheers.
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Name: KRS •
Date: 03/06/07 19:14 |
A: I don't remember a reference (guess its time to pull out my copy of the apostolic fathers) but does it mention Jerusalem specifically? There was the temple built in Egypt after Antiochus began selling the high priesthood, and while pretty much every Jew in the world rejected that temple, would Clement necessarily know that?
The passage I find difficult for the early date is the reference (63?) to the Roman believers that had lived among the church at Rome "from youth to old age," While they defined an elder as someone much younger than we do today, this seems to require the church to have been at Rome for an extended period of time, and the earliest layer of the Church was expelled with the rest of the Jews by Claudius in AD 50, probably over the disputes between the Jewish Christians and non-Jewish Christians.
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Name: Dennis •
Date: 03/06/07 20:51 |
A: Hi there.
This is the passage in question:
1 Clement 41 ...
CHAPTER 41 -- CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT.
Let every one of you, brethren, give thanks to God in his own order, living in all good conscience, with becoming gravity, and not going beyond the rule of the ministry prescribed to him. Not in every place, brethren, are the daily sacrifices offered, or the peace-offerings, or the sin-offerings and the trespass-offerings, but in Jerusalem only. And even there they are not offered in any place, but only at the altar before the temple, that which is offered being first carefully examined by the high priest and the ministers already mentioned. Those, therefore, who do anything beyond that which is agreeable to His will, are punished with death. You see, brethren, that the greater the knowledge that has been vouchsafed to us, the greater also is the danger to which we are exposed.
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One can find the text of 1 Clement on the internet at:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.-com/text/1clement-roberts.html
Cheers,- Dennis
PS - I was extremely surprised by the _present tense_ reference to the Jerusalem temple when I first read it, as was my Patristics professor then as well. But it checks out in the Greek as well.
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Name: KRS •
Date: 03/07/07 3:36 |
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A: Hmm, yeah that is interesting. I'll have to check it in Greek later, its not displaying correctly on my browser, and I don't want to play with fonts tonight. If its all in the present, than thats probably the case. There is the phenomenon of the historic present, but thats always interspersed with aorists and perfects. I'll have to weigh that through.
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Name: Dennis •
Date: 03/08/07 2:53 |
A: In Raymond Brown and Peter Meier's book ANTIOCH AND ROME - NEW TESTAMENT CRADLES OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY (New York: Paulist Press 1983), they place 1 Clement at being written about 96 AD.
With regard to the present tense decription of the Jerusalem temple, they write in footnote 360 on page 169: "[The use of the present tense] does not indicate a pre-70 date for 1 Clement, before the destruction of the Temple. In AD 93 (about the time of 1 Clement) Josephus, Ant 3.9-10; #224-55, describes the Jerusalem sacrifices and priestly actions in the present tense."
I still find the present tense use fascinating. Further, the later one places 1 Clement, the _less likely_ (if would seem to me) that Clement, would particularly care about events in Corinth which would be the stated purpose of Clement's letter. And the less likely would Clement's invocation of Paul's (as well as Peter's) martyrdom in Rome and Paul's connection to Corinth be impressive to the Corinthian church.
Cheers!
Dennis
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Name: KRS •
Date: 03/08/07 8:42 |
A: True, but with Josephus, the present could be a trick of the memory; like someone referencing the recently deceased with the present tense because you're used to doing it that way. Since he probably could afford an Amuensis, thats not unlikely since the man lived around the temple for a long time. That wouldn't work with Clement, however.
Historic Presents are used to present vividedness so its possible that Clement might use it this way, but I don't know about anything else that would fit, and I've never seen a clear string of historic presents before (I had an Arminian friend argue it in Romans 7, but I think that was a case of special pleading).
The late date goes at least as far back as JB Lightfoot, who dated it around 100, and Holmes revision of Lightfoot and Harmer's translation goes with 95-96, as well.
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Name: lady andromeda •
Date: 03/27/07 9:02 |
A: Dennis & KRS, I haven't *verified* all of this info, I just wanted to pass it on to you. It is regarding *the final destruction of the temple in Jerusalem*:
This info can be found:
http://hometown.aol.com/rdavid-h218/myhomepage/index.html
He- says that after the holocaust of AD70 Jerusalem was in ruins BUT some of its former inhabitants who had left the city before the siege, returned and resettled the city.
There was supposedly a 2nd Jewish War (132-135). This final great rebellion of the Jews versus the Romans was led by SIMON BAR KOCHBA in AD 132-135. Dio Cassius records that the 2nd Jewish war was over Hadrian's attempt to build a Roman temple to the Roman Father-God Jupiter on the site of the former Jewish "Second" Temple on Temple-Mount in Jerusalem.
He says that BAR-KOCHBA claimed himself "King of Israel" Year AD 132 and attempted to re-found the Jewish Monarchy and priesthood. He re-instituted the daily-sacrifices on Temple-Mount; and began rebuilding the Jewish Temple. He appointed a High-Priest, Eleazar. He set up a head for the Sanhedrin. He even minted his own coins.
Israel/Palestine was occupied by Roman troops, the Roman governor, Tineius Rufus, was helpless. The Roman governor of Syria, Publicius Marcellus, came to help him but it took Roman Emperor Hadrian sending his best general, Sextus Julius Severus to quell this rebellion. Hadrian also came and marched on Jerusalem, and reinforced the siege. BAR-KOCHBA was captured and executed AD 135 following a 3 year reign.
Hadrian then razed Jerusalem to build a new capital city for the empire called "Aelia Capitolina. It also states that his successor, Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius reversed Hadrian's edicts and allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem.
Now, AGAIN, I have not *verified* this info. I am just passing it on for the sake of interest. Take care now.
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Name: lady andromeda •
Date: 03/27/07 9:06 |
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A: There is NO HYPHEN in that URL I listed in the previous post. Man, this website is - happy! [smile]
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Name: Anchorite •
Date: 03/28/07 4:00 |
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A: Perhaps this Web site inserts some hyphens, and perhaps for security reasons. I have performed some hyphenectomies will great success.
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Name: andrewh •
Date: 05/07/07 11:48 |
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A: There is NO evidnce in the Bible that Peter ever went to Rome...not a scrap...in fact everything points to him not going there.
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