[B-Greek] Matt 10:2: does prwtos refer only to Peter, or to both Peter and Andrew?

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Wed May 9 12:45:59 EDT 2007


On May 8, 2007, at 8:12 PM, Delwyn X. Campbell wrote:

>
>
> I am part of a fellowship group that has been discussing the issue  
> of the development of the Papacy, and one person is arguing that  
> prwtos refers to Peter only, but another is arguing that it refers  
> to both “Peter and Andrew his brother.”  The first person is using  
> prwtos as being synonymous with archos.  The second is arguing that  
> the first one is reading something into the text that is not there  
> in support of a doctrinal position.

Discussion of the Papacy is of course prohibited in this forum. To  
address the language issue the relevant context is:

MATT. 10:1 KAI PROSKALESAMENOS TOUS DWDEKA MAQHTAS AUTOU EDWKEN  
AUTOIS EXOUSIAN PNEUMATWN AKAQARTWN hWSTE EKBALLEIN AUTA KAI  
QERAPEUEIN PASAN NOSON KAI PASAN MALAKIAN.  2 TWN DE DWDEKA APOSTOLWN  
TA ONOMATA ESTIN TAUTA: PRWTOS SIMWN hO LEGOMENOS PETROS KAI ANDREAS  
hO ADELFOS AUTOU, KAI IAKWBOS hO TOU ZEBEDAIOU KAI IWANNHS hO ADELFOS  
AUTOU,  3 FILIPPOS KAI BARQOLOMAIOS, QWMAS KAI MAQQAIOS hO TELWNHS,  
IAKWBOS hO TOU hALFAIOU KAI QADDAIOS,  4 SIMWN hO KANANAIOS KAI  
IOUDAS hO ISKARIWTHS hO KAI PARADOUS AUTON.

In the lists of the 12 apostles Peter is always listed first. The  
first four names given it Matthew's list are pairs of brothers. If we  
look at the relative prominance of these four men in the gospels  
Andrew is the one who stands out because he was NOT a member of the  
inner circle. The inclusion of his name among the four appears to be  
driven by the desire to name brothers in pairs. The rest of the list  
is structured in pairs as well. However, in the first four names the  
two pairs of brothers are connected by KAI which makes the two pairs  
of brothers a group apart from the following eight.

If the author wanted to use PRWTOS as an ordinal to indicate the  
first pair of apostles he could have made this clear both with  
inflection and by placeing some adverb or ordinal as a boundary  
marker between Andrew and James. It might be feasible to use PRWTOS  
as an ordinal for a pair of brothers, since the dual form isn't found  
in the GNT, however, that would be a minority reading of this text.

A.Plummer (Matthew comm. p.147) argues that using PRWTOS as a simple  
ordinal here would be superfluous and that PRWTOS is used here to  
indicate Peter's preeminence among the twelve. I don't see any good  
reason to question this.

Elizabeth Kline

A recent work by R.Bauckham "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels  
as Eyewitness Testimony" has some detailed discussion of the naming  
of the disciples.





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