Historical issues relating to the apostle Peter have been much debated. Was he, for example, simply a poor peasant fisherman when he met Jesus, or was he relatively well off? Illiterate, or well-educated? Was he accustomed to interacting with Gentiles? Did he know Greek well? If he was a working-class Aramaic-speaker who lacked formal education, could he really have written the letters ascribed to him in the New Testament?
In a now-published lecture, “Simon Peter in Capernaum: An Archaeological Survey of the First-Century Village" which was originally given last year at BYU’s 43rd annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium and published in “The Ministry of Peter, the Chief Apostle” (Deseret Book, $31.99), Matthew Grey brings the archaeology of Peter’s hometown, Capernaum, to bear on these and related issues. I draw on his work for this column.
Capernaum was probably settled as a small lakeside fishing village during the second century before Jesus Christ. By the first century A.D. — the time of Jesus and Peter — Capernaum belonged to the Jewish tetrarchy of Herod Antipas, which lay mostly to the west. But it was very near the border of the predominantly Gentile dominions of Herod Philip, to the east. As a border town, and consistent with the gospel accounts, its population included tax collectors (or toll gatherers) and military officers (a centurion, for instance), and very likely also prostitutes and beggars.
Capernaum is best known, of course, for its close association with the origins of Christianity. Among the 1,000-1,500 residents of the first-century village were the early apostles Andrew, James, John and Matthew (Levi), as well as Peter. Most importantly, Jesus made it his Galilean headquarters. Some believe that Peter’s house has actually been identified, though Grey reserves his judgment on this point. (See a previous column titled "Capernaum bears witness of Christ" on deseretnews.com.)
The archaeological data suggest that Capernaum was a lower- to middle-class town in which a population of conservative Jews depended on fishing, agriculture and small commerce for their income and, on the whole, had little contact with Gentiles.
According to Mark 1:16-18 and Matthew 4:18-20, Jesus called Peter and his brother Andrew to the ministry while they were casting small fishing nets into the Sea of Galilee from the shore. Peter also fished with a line and a hook (see Matthew 17:27). These were techniques employed by poorer fishermen with limited financial resources. He wasn’t impoverished — for example, he owned his own home — but James and John, the sons of Zebedee, owned boats and employed hired help.
By contrast, Luke’s gospel represents Peter as a boat owner and a business partner with James and John. But Luke tends to elevate Peter’s status, perhaps with an eye to impressing his Gentile audience. Luke also seems to have been unfamiliar with Galilean conditions. For example, whereas the account of the paralytic in Mark 2:1-12 accurately implies that the man’s friends dug through the dried mud, reeds and straw of a Capernaum house’s roof in order to lower him down to Jesus, Luke 5:17-26 describes them as removing “ceramic tiles” — something familiar to Luke and his urban Gentile readers, but quite unlikely in Capernaum.
Mark (1:21-27), Luke (4:31-37) and John (6:24-59) report that Capernaum had a synagogue, and, thus far, the archaeological data indicate that the village’s residents followed Jewish kosher and purity rules. In this light, Peter’s reported unease at Jesus’ indifference to ritual hand-washing (Matthew 15:1-20; Mark 7:1-23) makes perfect sense, as does his exclamation, during his vision of the clean and unclean beasts, that he’d never eaten anything profane or unclean (Acts 10:9-16). So, too, does his preference for eating with Jewish Christians instead of Paul’s Gentile converts (Galatians 2:11-14).
The evidence from Capernaum strongly suggests that Peter needed to overcome his early upbringing before he was wholly able to embrace the idea of Gentile Christians, and writing his letters probably required help from better-educated assistants. An untraveled man with a rural accent (Matthew 26:73), regarded by the Jewish elite as unschooled and ordinary (Acts 2:7-8; 4:13), he and his fellow apostles were dazzled when they saw Jerusalem (Matthew 24:1).
But the most important questions still transcend archaeology: How did such a man, from such an undistinguished background, become so important, historically — to the point that he even attracted the murderous attention of the Emperor Nero? What took Peter to Rome? What transformed this commonplace fisherman into an apostolic martyr? (See previous column "Why was Peter in Rome?" on deseretnews.com.)
43rd Sperry Symposium: Matthew J. Grey
“Simon Peter in Capernaum: An Archaeological Survey of the First-Century Village" by Matthew J. Grey at the 43rd Sperry Symposium at Brigham Young University in October 2014.
Daniel Peterson founded BYU's Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, chairs The Interpreter Foundation and blogs on Patheos. William Hamblin is the author of several books on premodern history. They speak only for themselves.