While this pattern highlights the Savior’s suffering and his utter aloneness during his atoning journey that night and the next morning, it also teaches us lessons about ourselves as disciples. Nevertheless, while we cannot-and should not-try to judge the motivations of the historical figure of Peter, the actions of the literary character certainly fit into the clear pattern of betrayal, abandonment, confusion, and fear that permeates the narratives describing Jesus’ arrest and condemnation. But in light of his proven bravery, courage, great devotion, and limitless love for the Master, could we not give him the benefit of the doubt and at least forgive him as his Savior seems to have done so fully.” After reviewing several possible motivations for Peter’s actions, he concluded, “I do not pretend to know what Peter’s mental reactions were nor what compelled him to say what he did that terrible night. Kimball, responded to criticisms of Peter. For instance, in a well-known speech to Brigham Young University faculty and students in 1971, then-acting President of the Twelve, Spencer W. This prevailing tendency has encountered occasional resistance, however, by some within the Latter-day Saint community, which has a long tradition of respecting leaders and avoiding unnecessary criticism. Nevertheless, there is a long tradition of using Peter’s failing that night first as a criticism of the Apostle himself and then as a model of how believers should not act. As a result, in Peter’s case, as in the case of so many others in the scriptural record, we ought to be particularly careful about how we judge the actions and especially the motivations of historical figures about whose circumstances we know so little. ĭespite this, the apparent inconsistencies in the accounts caution against definitive interpretations of exactly what happened that night, let alone why Peter acted as he did. Despite these differences, the attestation of the denials in all four Gospels and the unlikelihood that early Christians would create a story like this about one of their leading figures establishes the historicity of the basic story in the minds of even skeptical biblical scholars. All four Gospels then have accounts of the fulfillment of Jesus’ words to Peter, though these differ even more significantly than do the accounts of the prediction, seeming to disagree in the timing of Peter’s disavowals, the people to whom he made the denials, and even in the details of where these statements occurred (see Table 2: The Fulfillment, p. Beyond this, however, the Gospels present differences in the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ pronouncement and use two different grammatical constructions in quoting it (see Table 1: The Prediction). They each contain accounts of a prediction, in which Jesus announces that before the rooster crows that next morning Peter would deny Jesus three times.
All four of the canonical Gospels contain versions of the same basic story, presumably drawn from some sort of primitive Passion narrative, probably oral but perhaps even written, that was familiar to all of the evangelists. Nevertheless, a memory of Peter’s denial was a clear part of the Christian communal memory of what occurred that terrible night. Peter had been impulsive before and would be again even on a few occasions after, but abandoning and, even worse, denying association with his Lord seems clearly out of character with the disciple otherwise known as “the rock.” In many ways Peter’s denials stand in glaring contrast with the portrait of Peter painted elsewhere by the Gospels. But nothing stands out so poignantly as his repeated denial that he either knew Jesus or that he was one of his followers. These include his overconfident declaration that he would never deny his Lord, his inability to stay awake during his watch with the Savior in the garden, his impulsive attempt to defend Jesus by the sword, and his eventual flight. The Passion narratives that chronicle Jesus’ suffering and prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, his arrest, and the subsequent abuse and false judgment that followed also include accounts of Peter’s actions that night. “And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.