A wide range of scholars believe that Jesus’ choice of twelve disciples supports the notion that Jesus, like some other Jewish groups, planned a community.120 A more debated saying, but one worth considering, is Jesus’ blessing of Peter the “rock,” with a promise to build his community on him (a passage discussed briefly in ch. 14). The particular stream of Protestant interpretation that dominated twentieth-century New Testament scholarship not surprisingly doubted the authenticity of Matt 16:17-19 (especially the specifically Matthean blessing of Peter). For some the skepticism guarded against Catholic theology,121 but others simply objected (correctly) that Matthew alone reports these lines. Yet for all we know, it could belong to “Q” and Luke simply chose not to follow it here; we cannot know. Likewise, we need not assume that Mark and “Q” are Matthew’s only possible sources.
If one follows Mark’s sequence, this material in Matthew may seem intrusive, and one may argue that Matthew himself has placed an earlier tradition of Peter’s commendation (the existence of which is probably implied by Peter’s central role in the early church)122 in this particular narrative.123 But no other suitable place for commending a Petrine revelation exists in the tradition; certainly after the resurrection commendations on such a revelation would be beside the point.124 More likely, Luke may have simply followed Mark, who omits it, and Mark’s punchy narrative style and emphatic theme of discipleship failure were better served by omitting it if he knew of it.125 Matthean wording126 may be more common where Matthew follows oral tradition rather than Mark.127
Apart from its single attestation, such a saying to Peter is plausible, and more recent interpreters have shown less skepticism. Davies and Allison, for example, argue for authenticity on the following grounds (which I merely summarize here):128 (1) Evidence in Paul (especially Gal 1:11-21); (2) Semitisms; (3) indications of Palestinian provenance by comparison with the Qumran scrolls; (4) the criterion of consistency; (5) the criterion of dissimilarity (gates of hades, keys of the kingdom, and binding and loosing are not distinctively Christian;129 the promise to Peter is not pre-Christian Jewish); (6) geographical setting; and (7) the weakness of the objections to the contrary.
There is little about the saying that is not characteristic of Jesus elsewhere or that fails to fit a Palestinian Jewish environment. Commissionings (Mk 6:7- 11; Matt 10:5-16//Lk 10:3-16) and beatitudes (Matt 5:3-11//Lk 6:20-22; Matt 11:6// Lk 7:23; Matt 13:16//Lk 10:23) appear elsewhere in Jesus’ words and certainly elsewhere in early Judaism.130 Jewish teachers sometimes pronounced blessings on those who gave correct responses, as Jesus does here.131 Jesus granting Simon Peter the chief rank among the disciples best explains his multiply attested leadership role both in the gospel tradition and in the apostolic church.132
Although the passage as a whole is not multiply attested, some of its elements are. This passage calls Peter’s father Jonah,133 but apparently independent tradition preserves a similar name for Peter’s father, “John” (Jn 1:42; 21:15). That Jesus gave him his nickname, “Peter,” is also multiply attested (Jn 1:42, using the Aramaic equivalent). That Jesus gave Simon this nickname also fits Jesus’ authority as a teacher and biblical naming traditions. It is also not a common name,134 hence more apt to be a symbolic nickname (“rock”)135 than the sort of name usually given by parents. That “Peter” translates the multiply attested Aramaic version “Kephas” (Jn 1:42), including in undisputed and pre-Gospel letters of Paul (1 Cor 1:12; 3:22; 9:5; 15:5; Gal 1:18; 2:9, 11, 14), points to very early tradition. Many scholars contend that the persistence of the Aramaic nickname suggests that Jesus may have been its author.136
Nearly every other element of the blessing (not least the blessing formula itself) is at home in a Palestinian Jewish setting, as I and others have shown elsewhere.137 The element most crucial for our point about Jesus’ continuing mission, however, is Jesus’ promise to build his “community” on the rock (coherent with an image in “Q”).138 Some scholars doubt that Jesus could have spoken of a “church,” of followers after his departure.139 But this doubt presupposes that Jesus did not expect a period between his initial mission and the end of the age, whereas many of his extant sayings suggest otherwise.140 (One could also envision an eschatological community after the end; Qumran texts allow both possibilities.) Albright and Mann go so far as to suspect that confessional polemics are often at work in excluding the passage, noting that “a Messiah without a Messianic Community” would have been “unthinkable” to contemporary Judaism.141
Not only did various leaders plan communities to carry on their work;142 a Jewish renewal movement might have employed the same language Jesus did. The Essenes described themselves as the qahal,143 the Hebrew word for God’s congregation in the exodus narrative, which the Greek versions translate as ekklēsia, or “church.”144 Jesus likewise depicts his community as the true, faithful remnant of Israel in continuity with the covenant community of Israel;145 this image coheres with his choice of twelve persons to lead the renewal movement. (What marked it as new was Jesus’ specific designation, “my community.”) 146 This term had a later Christian sense, but also a familiar Jewish sense based on the Greek version of the Old Testament (neither of which would have made sense to uninitiated Gentiles).147 The language of “building up” this community echoes biblical language and was at home in Judaism.148
In favor of Jesus planning for his followers to carry on his work is another disputed, though in this case multiply attested, tradition.149 Scholars dispute whether Jesus sent out his disciples in ministry during his own ministry, as the Gospels suggest; but just such missions would have better prepared them for the rapid expansion of the movement that historically followed under their leadership.150 Moreover, teachers often trained leading disciples in part by giving them practice among themselves and with others. Various elements in the “Q” version of the sending fit well the criterion of Jewish environment better than the later Gentile church (e.g., Matt 10:16//Lk 10:3).151 Indeed, even some elements attested in only one extant location (such as the admonition to freely give as they had freely received, Matt 10:8) fit this criterion.152
