Abstract
This monograph is a revised version of a doctoral thesis written under the supervision of Richard Longenecker and Kelly Iverson at the University of St Andrews. The author seeks to find the conceptual background to the statement made by the author of 1 Peter concerning the necessity of Christian suffering (1 Pet. 1.6). That background, Liebengood argues, is to be found in the eschatological programme of Zechariah 9-14, with the images of shepherds, exodus, and fiery trials being found both in Zech. 9-14 and 1 Peter.
The monograph is arranged in seven chapters. After the introductory chapter, the next three chapters of the book examine the eschatological programme of Zechariah and its reception in subsequent literature, the image of shepherd in 1 Pet. 2.25 and Zechariah, and the relationship between fiery trials in 1 Peter and the eschatology of Zechariah. Building upon this the author lays out potential echoes of Zech. 9-14 in 1 Peter. Then, in chapter 6, the author identifies Zech. 9-14 as the substructure of 1 Peter’s eschatological programme. Finally, in the last chapter, some conclusions are briefly stated.
The thesis draws heavily on the work of Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (1989). Here Liebengood employs Hays’ seven criteria to judge the plausibility of an echo. In relation to the sixth criterion ‘History of Interpretation: Have others “heard” the same allusion?’ Hays’ statement is cited that ‘this criterion should rarely be used as a negative test case to exclude proposed echoes that commend themselves on other grounds’ (p. 17). It is debatable whether this criterion can be so conveniently neglected in cases when it does not support a proposed echo, but it can be readily invoked when it provides the desired result. Turning to the evidential chapters that are the basis of the case being mounted, the shepherd metaphor can be considered first. The key verses are 1 Pet. 2.25; 5.2, 4. Liebengood rejects the suggestion that 1 Pet. 2.25 draws upon Isa. 53 and Ezek. 34. However, the positive points of contact with Zech. 9-14 are extremely weak, that is if they exist at all. Given the ubiquity of shepherd imagery in Judaism, and the lack of any specific textual connection, this appears to be a case where the author is drawing on a widely known religious imagary without being specifically dependent on any one text. The next chapter of the monograph considers the fiery trials metaphor contained in 1 Pet. 1.7 and 4.12, and argues that it draws upon Zech. 13.8-9. While both 1 Pet. 7 and Zech. 13.9 refer to the testing or proving of gold there are key differences. In Zech. 13.9 the refinement of gold is said to be analogous to the way the pure remnant are brought through the fire. By contrast, in 1 Pet 1.7, gold is said to be perishable even though tested with fire, and that is contrasted with faith that will be found at the appearing of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1.7). Together, these supposed links in shepherd imagery and the metaphor of metallurgic refinement form the basis on which Liebengood establishes the case for viewing Zech. 9-14 as forming the substructure of 1 Peter.
It is worth noting that in the NA28 table of Citations and Allusions (appendix III), no allusion or citation of Zechariah is listed as occurring in 1 Peter. Even within a work extremely sympathetic to the quest to find allusions, Beale and Carson’s Commentary on the Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament (2007), in Carson’s extension section on 1 Peter (pp. 1015-1045) not even a single allusion to Zechariah is identified anywhere in 1 Peter. In the end there is no obvious evidence to support the thesis that Liebengood puts forward. If, however, Liebengood is correct, then one must congratulate the author of 1 Peter on managing to bury the dependence of his ‘substructure’ on Zechariah 9-14 so deeply that it has taken two millennia to spot it. Others might think there is another explanation.