St. Peter's Wife?

[o_mlly]

I am currently in the process of writing a fictional story portraying the life of St. Peter in the Gospels, and naturally the issue of his wife came up. Since he was married and was living with his mother-in-law in Capernaum as a fisherman when he met Jesus, I am trying to figure out what his wife’s name was, and possibly an idea of what his mother-in-law’s name was as well, so that I can portray them in my story. If anyone has any information about this, I would very much appreciate it.

Since your story is fictional, perhaps you intend to portray Peter’s mother-in-law in a light-hearted way as the stereo-typical Hollywood version Jewish mother-in-law who meddles constantly reminding her son-in-law that her daughter could always have done better.

If so, you might weave together Peter’s betrayal as somewhat motivated by Jesus’ cure of his mother-in-law allowing the woman to continue badgering the poor man.

 

[scameter18]

Since your story is fictional, perhaps you intend to portray Peter’s mother-in-law in a light-hearted way as the stereo-typical Hollywood version Jewish mother-in-law who meddles constantly reminding her son-in-law that her daughter could always have done better.

If so, you might weave together Peter’s betrayal as somewhat motivated by Jesus’ cure of his mother-in-law allowing the woman to continue badgering the poor man.

That would be an interesting portrayal.

 

[patrick457]

The Gospels tell us that Peter, Andrew, James and John were partners in a fishing business.

I’m very sorry if I sound too slow here, but could you point me to passages to such effect?

Something that is vastly over-emphasised. The legal position of women in Israel was far in advance of any other pre-Christian society.

Correct. Now, what I meant is the ‘legal position’, not the ‘social status’ of women, which is indeed very high in Israel’s case.

This is certainly not true of the Gospels which quite often mention women among the crowd, e.g. on the Via Crucis - and please don’t tell me it was “exceptional” for women to weep at the death of a well loved rabbi

They do, when they figure into the narrative. There are other times when the women are not counted, such as in the feeding of the 5000, or more specifically, 5000 men not counting the women and children.

I don’t claim to be a Greek scholar, but I do know that the fact that a noun happens to be masculine in grammatical gender has nothing to do with being “androcentric”!

Again this is not true of the Gospels which are remarkable for the little details which they mention.

Point taken.

According to the (protestant) Oxfordd Companion to the Bible, Capernaum was “a fishing village in the first century and had a population not more than one thousand”. I have no trouble believing that literally every man, woman and child in the town had gathered to see Jesus.

That is also a possibility that I will take into consideration.
Still, various people give different estimates: as you mention, the lowest, and more probable, estimate comes around 1,000 to 1,700 residents (according to Jonathan Reed) while the largest estimate is approximately 25,000 (as per H.C. Kee)!

As for Clement of Alexandria who lived 200 years after St Peter and who is the only ancient source (and a second hand one at that) who mentions any supposed wives of the Apostles after their Apostleship began, the reliability may be judged by his assertion that even the vehemently celibate St Paul had a wife, which claim was refuted above.

Your translation is also faulty in its claim of supposed “women deacons” which we know did not exist. No doubt a false translation of the Greek word for “servant”.

Wow. Good catch!

 

[Petergee]

I’m very sorry if I sound too slow here, but could you point me to passages to such effect?

Luke 5:1-12.

Correct. Now, what I meant is the ‘legal position’, not the ‘social status’ of women, which is indeed very high in Israel’s case.

They do, when they figure into the narrative. There are other times when the women are not counted, such as in the feeding of the 5000, or more specifically, 5000 men not counting the women and children.

This expression sounds sexist to modern English speakers, but I’m sure it was not intended to be. It means more like, “If you think 5000 men is a lot, there were more because that’s not even counting the women and children”.

It also possibly reflects that, as in many Middle Eastern cultures today, women did not mix with unrelated men in public, so the men were probably sitting separately from the women and children, and the Apostles did not make an accurate estimate of the numbers of the latter because it would have been considered very rude for a man to look directly at an unrelated woman. (Remember how shocked the Samaritan woman at the well was when Jesus, a stranger to her, directly spoke to her.) Remember the Evangelist is talking about how many were fed and ate their fill. Men, especially manual workers which most of them would have been, eat a lot more than women and children.

Thank you for your humble and charitable response.

 

[biblemutt]

Acts 12:12 When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, who is called Mark, where there were many people gathered in Prayer.

[Reference here is to Peter and the angel of the Lord releasing the Chains and leading Peter out of the prison of Herod.]

1 Peter 5:13 The chosen one at Babylon sends you greeting, as does Mark, my son.

This would appear to make Mark, the son of Mary and Peter. This would also appear to make Peter and Mary the parents of Mark and also husband and wife since having children without being married at that time was against Hebrew Law.

Perhaps this may be of help to you in your research.

Blessings to all.