Is it possible that Peter didn’t hear a rooster crow three times, but heard the Temple Crier? So what’s the real story

    I read an interesting commentary last week about Jesus' final days, and would like to share some of it with you.  In Jesus’ final days, Christ told his disciple Peter  “before the cockcrows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”  Later that evening Peter is recognized as one of Christ’s disciples,  only to claim for the third time “I never knew the man.” Just then he hears the rooster crow, hanging his head in shame.
    There’s just one problem,  according to the Mishnah, the earliest compilation of rabbinic oral law, Chickens and Roosters were not allowed  in Jerusalem at the time. Since roosters and chickens are dirty and can find their way in and out of almost anything, for fear  they would find their way into the Temple and the Holy of Holies,  there was a ruling that chickens could not be raised in Jerusalem  due to concerns about keeping the temple pure.  We have to remember that, although the temple was also used as a bustling market place,  the laws where probably not always followed.                                                                                       According to the article it comes down to translation.  In  original translations the word was not rooster crows,  but cockcrow.  Could cockcrow in this context relate to a man called “the Temple Crier”?  That man was a  priest at the Temple. He was the one who had the responsibility of unlocking the Temple doors every morning before dawn. Every night this priest would lock the doors to the Temple and place the key in an opening in the floor of one of the Temple side rooms. Then he would place a flat stone over the opening and place his sleeping mat over the stone. He would literally sleep over the key to the Temple. In the morning he would arise at first light and retrieve the key.  He would then proceed to unlock the doors to the Temple and cry out three statements in a loud voice: "All the cohanim (priests) prepare to sacrifice”. "All the Leviim (Levites) to their stations”. "All the Israelites come to worship”. Then he would repeat these statements two more times.                                                        “The Temple Crier” was called ‘alektor’ in Greek, which can either be a ‘cock’ or ‘man’ (cock is Gever in Hebrew).  Could ‘Alektor’ here be incorrectly assumed to be the ‘cock’ or ‘rooster’ instead of the Priestly Temple Crier?                                                            While this example does not change the meaning of the event , it does serve to illustrate how  English reading Bible students,  as well as other languages have been shortchanged in their understanding of some of the events and customs as they actually took place. Considering the possibility it was not a rooster but a Temple Crier, could this piece of information  carry any insights worth considering.                                                It does not change Peter’s realization of his betrayal of Jesus, but it could bring some awareness of the real issues involved for Peter and for us. The crowing of a rooster would have had no spiritual significance in itself to Peter if that’s what he had heard. But if Peter was hearing the call to sacrifice, the call to service, and the call to worship, those words were likely to have brought the stunning revelation to him that he had failed on all three counts.    Jesus was to be the ultimate Sacrifice, though Peter wouldn’t have known that as we do. But where was the willing sacrifice that Peter had so boldly  proclaimed, to go to prison or die for Jesus now? Where was his calling to serve the Lord as he was sure he always would? And where was his worship now that he suddenly felt so far from Jesus and so far from God? But our God is a Loving and forgiving  God. On the morning of Jesus resurrection,  Mark 16: 6,7, Peters' name is mentioned,  “He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and 'Peter' ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee.  There you will see him, just as he told you.”                                                                                                  More importantly, there's another thing for us to consider , knowing what we do know now, that Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, we have to ask ourselves, “What would we do if we where put in Peter's situation today?”                                                                                                                                    Bob W.                                                                     Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”     Luke 22:34 (NIV)