<p>14:70 <i>But he again denied it. And after a little while, again they that stood by said to Peter- </i>John says that a group of men made the second accusation; see the parallel texts at the commentary on :66. Luke says that Peter replied to the second accusation which Matthew says was made by a<i>&nbsp;woman</i> by saying &ldquo;<i>Man</i>, I am not&rdquo;. Clearly the accusations and denials were in groups- the second &lsquo;denial&rsquo; involved a number of people a man, a woman and plural men making accusations and Peter denying them all. If we put together the various records of Peter&rsquo;s three denials, it seems clear that a number of accusations were made, and he replied slightly differently each time. But there were three groups of accusations and denials. We can imagine the scene- there was a whole group of men and women present, all within earshot, and once one person made the accusation, others would&rsquo;ve chimed in. But the account is stylized to group the denials in three groups, and Peter obviously perceived this after his final oath of denial. But in fact it seems that each denial was a series of separate denials. Indeed the tense of the verb &ldquo;denied&rdquo; suggests he kept on and on denying.</p><p><i>Of a truth you are one of them; for you are a Galilean</i>- <br />From the larynx of a Palestinian Jew there came the words of Almighty God. And yet He spoke them in the accent of a rural Galilean. We know this because Peter was identified as being one of the Lord's close disciples because of His accent (Mt. 26:73; Mk. 14:70). The dialect of Aramaic used in Galilee was a permanent topic of sarcasm in Jerusalem circles. There is a story in the Mishnah (bErubin 53b) which mocks how the Galileans pronounced words which began with a guttural deep-throat consonant. It ridicules how a Galilean in Jerusalem tries to buy something in a market but is mocked by the merchant: &quot;You stupid Galilean, do you need something to ride on <i>hamair</i>- a donkey, or something to drink <i>hamar</i>- wine, or something to make a dress with <i>'amar</i>- wool, or something for a sacrifice <i>immar</i>- lamb&quot;. What an essay in God's preference for using the things which man despises- that He should arrange for His Son to speak His words in the most humanly despised dialect of the ecclesia. In this context, it is interesting to note the debate over the original text of Mk. 5:41, where the Lord is recorded as saying the Aramaic words <i>Talitha kum in</i> the oldest manuscripts, but it seems this has been changed to the more grammatically correct <i>Talitha kumi</i> in later codices. <i>Kum</i> would apparently have been the slovenly Galilean way of speaking, whereby the masculine form of the imperative is joined to a feminine subject. It could be that the Lord spoke in the Galilean way, technically incorrect grammatically- as a Londoner might say 'We was waiting for a bus' rather than 'we were waiting...'; or an Ulsterman 'how are yous all?' rather than using the more correct 'you' for 'you' plural. If this is so, we have another window into the person of Jesus. There was a naturalness about Him, an expression of the ultimate image of God in totally human form, which was so attractive.</p>