Watch: Jesus gives Simon a new name in a scene from The Chosen

Does the scene accurately reflect how Simon Peter's names were used in the gospels? And does it accurately depict the religious practices at Caesarea Philippi?

The Chosen has posted a new clip from Season 4 Episode 2 to its YouTube channel. It’s the scene in which Jesus gives Simon his new name Peter.

I figured I’d take this opportunity to link back to my (paywalled) post from February, ‘When and how did Simon become Peter?’

The Chosen treats the name-giving as a change to Simon’s name—no one is allowed to call him “Simon” any more—but if you look at the New Testament, Simon was still called “Simon” (or “Simeon”, the longer version of the name) by Jesus and most other people all the way through to Simon’s last appearance in the book of Acts.

The name “Peter” (or its Aramaic equivalent, “Cephas”) seems to have been a nickname at first; it was a way to distinguish this Simon from all the other Simons, as when the angel told Cornelius to send for “Simon who is called Peter” at a time when that Simon was staying at the house of “Simon the tanner” (Acts 10:5-6, 32; 11:13). But it doesn’t seem to have become Simon’s default name until some time after the events that are recorded in the gospels and the book of Acts. The people who knew Simon before he got the nickname kept on calling him “Simon”, while the people who got to know him afterwards tended to default to his institutional name “Peter”.

Thus, Paul, for example, always calls this apostle “Peter” or “Cephas” in his letters, and the gospels, which were written some time after Paul’s letters, almost always call him “Peter” in their narration, too—which makes it all the more striking that the characters within those gospels (and the book of Acts) continue to address Simon as “Simon” (or “Simeon”) even after Jesus gives him his new name.

I get into all the details in that post, and I even have charts tracking when the names “Simon” and “Peter” are used by the narrators and when they are used by the characters. Here, for example, is the chart for Mark’s gospel—and note how “Peter” and “Simon” appear side-by-side in Mark 14:37. One is the narrator speaking, the other is Jesus (and this is in the Garden of Gethsemane, so this story obviously takes place after the stories in the other gospels in which Simon gets his new name).

Green is for what the narrator says. Red is for what the characters say.

Click here to get the rest of the data, including charts for the other three gospels.

I haven’t done a full analysis of the episode from which this scene comes yet, but I have written a few things here and there, and I linked to those things in a round-up that I posted when the episode made its streaming premiere in early June.

One other thing worth checking out: This scene takes place in Caesarea Philippi (as per Matthew 16:13) and The Chosen sets it outside a pagan temple (which did exist back then but is not mentioned in the gospels). Laura Robinson, who has written about some of the pseudohistorical elements that have crept into The Chosen,¹ has an entire post on how this scene perpetuates some of the more lurid claims that have been made about this shrine and the beliefs and practices associated with it.

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The Chosen interviews:

• Season 1: Dallas Jenkins, co-writer/director (Dec 2019)

• Season 2: Dallas Jenkins, co-writer/director (May 2021) | Derral Eves, producer, on Christmas with The Chosen: The Messengers (Nov 2021) | Dallas Jenkins on the ‘The Chosen Is Not Good’ marketing campaign (Apr 2022)

• Season 3: Jordan Walker Ross, Little James (Oct 2022) | Vanessa Benavente, Mother Mary (Nov 2022) | Kirk B.R. Woller, Gaius (Nov 2022)

• Season 4: Dallas Jenkins, Jonathan Roumie, Abe Bueno-Jallad, Vanessa Benavente, Yasmine Al-Bustami, and Brandon Potter at the press junket; Reza Diako, Alaa Safi, and Elijah Alexander on the teal carpet (Feb 2024) | Paras Patel and Noah James at the press junket; producers Chad Gundersen and Chris Juen on the teal carpet (Feb 2024)

The Chosen recaps:

• Season 1: review | scripture index
  Episode recaps: The Shepherd | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight

• Season 2: The Messengers review | scripture index
  Episode recaps: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | The Messengers

• Season 3: Episodes 1 & 2 notes | Episodes 7 & 8 notes | scripture index
  Episode recaps: one | episodes two to eight are still in the works

• Season 4: Episodes 1-3 notes

  Episode round-ups: S4E1 | S4E2 | S4E3 | S4E4 | S4E5 | S4E6 | S4E7 | S4E8

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The Chosen can be streamed via the show’s official app (Android | Apple).

1. Did the ancient Jews anoint the feet of their Passover lambs six days before the sacrifice? Did they wrap newborn sacrificial lambs in special swaddling cloths? No, and no, and the earliest sources for both of these claims are apparently only 10-20 years old.