An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 237: Suffering is good for you (1 Peter 1-5)

1 Peter 1-5
Suffering is good for you.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

1 Peter 1

“Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.”

This could be interesting, if this is, as the first verse claims, Peter the Apostle. The previous epistles were by Paul, who came later, and Timothy, his pupil. James, perhaps, was the same James as the apostle but I don’t think that was made explicit. What occurred to me the other day is that these epistles mention Old Testament stories but make no mention about the doings of Jesus, apart from His death and resurrection. I’m expecting, at some point, some mention along the lines of “And remember when Jesus bought Lazarus back to life” or some such specific reference. The lack of such things gives credence to the theory that the Gospels were written after the Epistles were written, as a kind of prequel back-story to the man-god Jesus that Peter, James and Paul were preaching about.

Anyway, this letter is addressed to various people in the Asia Minor region, and gives praises in the name of Christ. As can be seen from the quote above we see the beginnings of the Holy Trinity litany.

Peter praises his readers for their faith in someone they did not meet –“Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory”, and makes mention of them being patient for their salvation, which is due them because of their belief – “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you”. So, Peter is quite clear; the rewards for their faith is an everlasting life in heaven.

He continues with the same theme I’ve noticed before, that of the Christ sacrifice being a kind of mystical conduit that allows worshippers to access the eternal realm, through a kind of spiritual rebirth – “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever”. It is the “Word of God” that is a pure an incorruptible thing, although it is not clear from the context what exactly the “Word of God” means – it would appear to be the gospel, but is it the entirety or does it refer somehow to Jesus’ sacrifice?

We also see the phrase “all flesh is grass”, comparing the mortal, physical realm that withers away with the immortal spiritual realm of God that Peter sees as pure and eternal.

1 Peter 2

“Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme”

Peter makes mention of the sacrifice of Jesus and how it removes the sins of the believers as a kind of sin offering; oddly enough He’s referred to as dying “on the tree” rather than a crucifix. Could be a translation artefact. Jesus, to Peter, was a man “who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth”. He refers back to OT scripture again, conflating Jesus with the prophecy that “Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded”, and considers his fellow believers to be “a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people”. I seem to recall something like this, Isaiah probably, and Peter is quite clever here turning what was probably a political statement meant literally into a metaphorical one. The “nation” is the Christian brotherhood, not any political nation.

Nevertheless, Peter warns his followers to obey the local laws – “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme, Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well”. He also tells servants to put up with their masters, even if they are cruel – “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward”. This is justified because suffering is good (possibly because it reminds the beaten servant of the sufferings of Christ). God likes it, apparently, if you put up with a lot of crap for your faith.

1 Peter 3

“Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;”

I wonder if it was Peter that slipped that stuff about women knowing their place into the Epistles of Paul, because he expands on that theme at some length here, telling women to be subservient to their husbands and to dress soberly - “Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel”.

One the other side, men are told to look after women as the “weaker vessel”, so it’s not all one-sided, but it does relegate women to the position of a kept thing. But then again Peter also talks of mutual respect - “be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous”, by which I think he means within the Christian community, and not necessarily any further.

Later we get the pitifully vague advice to “eschew evil, and do good”. Well, thanks for that. It’s the Baked Potato Song all over again – “Do be Good, Don’t be Bad, Thank you Baked Potato” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPsY_nhTtxg )

The last section is all about how lovely it is to suffer, because Christ suffered on the cross. And so if people pick on you for being a Christian, that’s great because you get to be all suffering and that just like Jesus. “For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.”

1 Peter 4

“Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.”

Peter continues on praise of suffering, because “he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin” and looks at times when “we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries”. That doesn’t sound so bad to me; all this self-mortification stuff is very depressing and really gets you nowhere.

Except, of course, that Peter here is preaching an eschatological message where “the end of all things is at hand”, and that even if you are a righteous person you’ll barely scrape a pass. Not that there’s any mention of hellfire and punishment, merely that you will not be “saved”. And that it’s better to suffer for being a Christian than for being a murderer. Which seems like a bit of a false dichotomy, since these Christians aren’t really hurting anybody. I would have thought that would have been a better argument against being a murderer – that killing people causes destruction and misery. But hey, guess not.

Finally, because to be honest this chapter is dull, “for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead”. Preaching to the dead? How was this accomplished?

1 Peter 5

“The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed”

This is a short chapter to finish with, and notably Peter starts by saying that he was a witness to “the sufferings of Christ”. Not, I note, His life, which you would expect, but merely the “suffering”. That’s a pretty ambiguous statement if you look at it carefully. You’d expect (or rather, I’d expect) Peter to have said something along the lines that he was a witness to the ministry of Christ as much as the “suffering”. Now, given the theme of the rest of this Epistle, the “suffering” is the main thing, and given that rest of the Epistolic writings so far, the resurrection is the magical event that gives Christianity its focus, the idea of resurrection and/or remission of sin (depending on which Epistle you’re reading). So I can see that it would be noted.

But this is not incompatible with the “mystical Jesus” theory, without Peter even needing to lie. Paul was a witness to Christ, remember, within his own terms, but only to a mystical vision. What’s to say that this isn’t what Peter is referring to? Although we take it to mean that Peter was stood at the foot of Golgotha watching Jesus get crucified (which he wasn’t, he was warming himself by the fire in the High Priest’s servants quarters, according to Gospel), there’s no reason for it not to mean that Peter had a very powerful vision of this Christ figure suffering “on the tree”.

Either way, Peter feels that he has an important message to tell people, and evidently this is a time when the Christian church (as a loose conglomerate) has many followers – this Epistle is signed from Babylon, for example. Peter has some concrete advice - “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”.

A rare mention of the devil here. Which makes me wonder again about the potency of the message. You’d think that an all-powerful God would be able to create an incorruptible message that can’t be ignored, yet it looks like the devil (not capitalised here, so I’m not going to either) is able to turn people aside from the message. It’s that old Problem of Evil again.