Peter Denies Jesus and the Rooster Crows Twice: The Cock Crowing Dilemma Explained (Examining the Bible)

Peter Denies Jesus and the Rooster Crows Twice: The Cock Crowing Dilemma Explained from the series Examining the Bible by Robert Alan King is a book with 7,200 words. There have been many crows by the critics insisting that Mark's account of Peter's denial contradicts that of Matthew, Luke and John, but as the reader will discover, this is nothing but an imaginary problem arising from a misunderstanding of what Jesus actually meant by "before the cock crows twice" (Mark 14:30). King approaches this assumed problem by examining many different factors that will unfold the clarification in a logical manner and provide the evidence that all four Gospels writers are saying the same thing. The only discrepancy that really exists is in the minds of the critics, and not within the Bible itself.

Since many of those trying to respond to the critics have argued that the "cock crew" clause at the end of Mark 14:68 is not part of the original rendering, King first analyzes the witness of the Greek manuscripts and shows how this is an unconvincing argument and thus does not resolve the dilemma. However, King also takes a unique approach of fusing the testimony of ancient documents with scientific research to carefully place the entire episode of Peter's denial in its proper historical context. The book is a thorough, but fun adventure through the annals of history and the halls of science to explore the phenomenon of rooster crowing and ancient man's reliance upon it as a means of measuring time. Some of the ancient passages about roosters and crowing are quite humorous, others are fascinating, so the readers will be both entertained and enlightened by this discussion.