Skeptics frequently allege that the true story of the real Jesus appears not in the four New Testament Gospels but in other “lost Gospels,” which were suppressed by the early church. One of these allegedly superior sources is the Gospel of Peter. This article will summarize the contents of the Gospel of Peter, discuss the implications of affirming the reliability of the document, and present compelling evidence that the Gospel of Peter is later and less reliable than the four New Testament Gospels.

The so-called Gospel of Peter is discussed by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Ecclesiastical History 3.3.14 (early fourth century). Eusebius indicates that the document had been a topic of debate in the church at Rhossus.1 Although the bishop of Antioch, Serapion, had initially approved the document for reading in the church of Rhossus, upon more careful examination of its contents he rejected the work. In a letter to the church, Serapion noted that while the document was generally in accord with the New Testament Gospels, the Docetists had added some elements in support of their false teaching. Serapion wrote about the Gospel of Peter in approximately AD 200, and his discussion, which is preserved by Eusebius, constitutes the earliest extant reference to the work.

Until the late 1800s, nothing was known of this mysterious gospel apart from the brief mentions by Serapion and Eusebius, and one by Origen (early third century).2 However, in excavations at Akhmim, Egypt, in 1886-87, archaeologists discovered a fragment of a Gospel in the coffin of a Christian monk. The Greek fragment consisted of some sixty verses and dated to the eighth or ninth century. Because the final verse of the fragment identifies Simon Peter as the author, most scholars have concluded that this fragment is a portion of the long lost Gospel of Peter.

Scholars are not sure of the length of the original document. The fragment begins with an allusion to Pilate’s handwashing at the end of Jesus’s trial and breaks off at the beginning of a description of an appearance of the resurrected Jesus to his disciples. This portion of the document was apparently all that was available to the scribe responsible for copying it since ornaments at the beginning and end of his manuscript indicate that the manuscript is complete. This ancient scribe copied all of the gospel that was available to him. On the other hand, Origen claimed that the tradition that Mary’s husband Joseph had children by a previous marriage was preserved either in the Gospel of Peter or the book of James. This may imply that the Gospel of Peter was much more extensive and included a narrative of Jesus’s birth. However, Origen’s statement may not be helpful in determining the original extent of the document since he seems uncertain about the contents of the Gospel of Peter and since the reference appeared in the alternative source mentioned by Origen, the protevangelium of James. At the very least, the original Gospel would have contained an account of Jesus’s trial, crucifixion, resurrection, and at least two postresurrection appearances to his disciples.

In its present form, the so-called Gospel of Peter begins as the trial of Jesus ends. After Pilate washes his hands in display of his innocence in Jesus’s unjust trial, Joseph of Arimathea asks permission to bury Jesus’s body In this gospel, the Jews fill the role assigned to the Roman soldiers in the New Testament Gospels by mocking, spitting on, striking, and scourging Jesus. The author of the gospel also claims that the Jews were directly responsible for nailing Jesus to the cross, inscribing the titulus that adorned the cross and dividing Jesus’s garments. The Jews refuse to break Jesus’s legs and hasten his death in hopes of prolonging his agony and intensifying his tortures. The account emphasizes the guilt of the Jews by saying, “They fulfilled all things and completed the measure of their sins on their head” (17), and, “Then the Jews and the elders and the priests recognized what great evil they had done to themselves and began to grieve and to say ‘Woe on our sins, the judgment and end of Jerusalem is near’” (25).

Several miracles occur around the time of Jesus’s death and these drive many of the Jews to repent of their role in Jesus’s crucifixion. At the moment of Jesus’s death, the veil in the temple is torn in two. Later, when Jesus’s corpse is removed from the cross and touches the ground, an earthquake occurs. Repentant Jews frighten the scribes, Pharisees, and elders by declaring that Jesus was innocent. The Jewish leaders ask Pilate to authorize a Roman guard to ensure that Jesus’s disciples do not steal the body and stage Jesus’s resurrection. Pilate sends a Roman custodia to guard the tomb. The guard is accompanied by scribes and elders. The group rolls a stone over the tomb, seals it with seven seals, sets up camp at the tomb entrance, and begins to keep watch. Early in the morning on the Lord’s Day, the heavens open and two men surrounded by a bright light descend to the tomb. The stone sealing the entrance rolls aside all by itself. The men step in to escort Jesus out of the tomb. When they exit the tomb, the men from heaven are so tall that their heads bump the sky, but the resurrected Jesus is so tall that his head reaches the heavens. A cross floats out of the tomb behind them. A voice from heaven asks, “Did you preach to those who sleep?” The cross replies, “Yes.”

The soldiers report the events to Pilate, but at the request of the Jewish leaders, he commands the soldiers to say nothing about the events to anyone. Early in the morning Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb and sees a young man in a shining robe sitting in the tomb, who announces that Jesus has risen. In the next pericope Peter, Andrew, and Levi leave the other grieving members of the Twelve to go to the sea and fish. Unfortunately, the text breaks off no sooner than the story is introduced.

John Dominic Crossan, cofounder of the Jesus Seminar, which is an organization residing on the theological left, has claimed that the Gospel of Peter was the product of a complex evolution. The earliest layer of the gospel was a hypothetical source called the “Cross Gospel.” Crossan argues that this early layer served as the only written source for the narrative of Jesus’s death and resurrection in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. After the production of the New Testament Gospels, a later editor inserted material from the four Gospels into the Cross Gospel. An even later editor noticed tensions between the original and newer material in this patchwork gospel and polished up the document.

Although Crossan’s theory has convinced few in the scholarly community, one scholar recently claimed, “One can expect that all future research on Gos. Pet. will need to begin with a serious consideration of Crossan’s work.”3 If true, Crossan’s theory would have a devastating effect on confidence in the historical reliability of the accounts of Jesus’s death and resurrection in the four Gospels. According to Crossan’s theory, the sole source for the accounts of Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection in the four Gospels was a document that was already so laced with legend as to be wholly unreliable even before it reached the hands of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The four Gospels would be unreliable adaptations of an unreliable tradition replete with a talking floating cross and a super-sized Jesus whose head bumps the heavens when he walks out of the tomb!

Despite Crossan’s daring claim, the evidence for his theory is very slim. An impressive number of clues suggest that this gospel postdates even the latest New Testament book and belongs to the mid-second century. First, a close analysis of verbal parallels shared by the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Matthew suggests that the Gospel of Peter postdates Matthew and utilized that Gospel as a source. An example of these parallels is the account of the guard assigned to Jesus’s tomb. Of the four canonical Gospels, only Matthew shares with the Gospel of Peter an account of this event. Both the account in Matthew and the Gospel of Peter refer to the Pharisees’ gathering before Pilate to express concern about a staged resurrection on the third day. Both accounts refer to the guarding and sealing of the tomb. Both describe the Jews as “the people.” One sustained verbal parallel clearly indicates a definite literary dependence of one document on the other. Both Matthew 27:64 and Gospel of Peter 8:30 contain the precise words “lest his disciples come and steal him.” Crossan argues that the parallel demonstrates Matthew’s dependence on an early form of the Gospel of Peter (the Cross Gospel). However, an examination of the vocabulary, grammar, and style of the two documents strongly favors the dependence of the Gospel of Peter on Matthew. Robert Gundry, one of the most respected experts on issues related to Matthew’s style, calls the phrase a “series of Mattheanisms.”4 Similarly, John Meier notes, “When it comes to who is dependent on whom, all the signs point to Matthew’s priority. . . . The clause is a tissue of Matthean vocabulary and style, a vocabulary and style almost totally absent from the rest of the Gospel of Peter.”5 This is consistent with a number of other Matthean features that appear in the Gospel of Peter, which all point to the dependence of the Gospel of Peter on Matthew.

Second, other features of the Gospel of Peter suggest that the gospel not only postdates Matthew but even postdates the latest book of the New Testament canon, the book of Revelation. For example, although Matthew indicates that the Roman guard seals the tomb of Jesus, Gospel of Peter 8:33 adds that it is sealed with seven seals. The reference to the seven seals conflicts with the immediate context. Gospel of Peter 8:32-33 states that all the witnesses present seal the tomb. However, a minimum of nine witnesses are present, leading readers to expect at least nine seals. The best explanation for the awkward reference to the seven seals is that the detail was drawn from Revelation 5:1. This allusion to Revelation fits well with the Gospel of Peter 9:35 and 12:50 reference to the day of Jesus’s resurrection as the “Lord’s Day” since this terminology only appears in Revelation in the New Testament, and first in Revelation out of all ancient Christian literature. The reference to the “Lord’s Day” in the Gospel of Peter is a shortened form that appears to be a later development from the original form appearing in Revelation.

Still other features of the Gospel of Peter fit best with the historical data if the Gospel of Peter was produced in the mid-second century. The Gospel of Peter assumes the doctrine of Jesus’s descent into Hades to preach to the dead. However, this doctrine first appears in the words of Justin Martyr around AD 150. The talking cross is a feature of other second-century literature. The Epistula Apostolorum 16 states that during the second coming Jesus will be carried on the wings of the clouds with his cross going on before him. Similarly, the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter | describes the returning Christ as coming in a glory seven times as bright as the sun and with his cross going before his face. In a similar fashion, beginning in the late first century, Christian texts describe Christ as possessing gigantic stature. In an allegorical depiction of Jesus’s supremacy and authority over the church, the Shepherd of Hermas 83.1 described Christ as of such lofty stature that he stands taller than a tower. 4 Ezra 2:43, dating to the middle or late third century, refers to the unusual height of the Son of God. These shared compositional strategies and features make the most sense if these documents and the Gospel of Peter were composed in the same milieu.

This evidence confirms the traditional Christian claim that the four New Testament Gospels are the most reliable accounts of Jesus’s trial, death, burial, and resurrection. The accounts of crucifixion and resurrection in the four Gospels are based on eyewitness testimony rather than naive dependence on an unreliable source like the alleged Cross Gospel. The Gospel of Peter (and the so-called Cross Gospel) is clearly later than the New Testament Gospels and is sprinkled throughout with imaginative elements and traces of legend. Although the Gospel of Peter is helpful for understanding the thought of some sectors of the church in the mid-second century, it is of little value for understanding the details of Jesus’s final days on earth.6

Notes

  1. Eusebius of Caesarea Ecclesiastical History 6.12.3-6.
  2. Origen Commentary on Matthew 10.17.
  3. Paul A. Mirecki, “Gospel of Peter,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David N. Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 5:278-81, esp. 280.
  4. Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church Under Persecution, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 584.
  5. John P. Meier, The Roots of the Problem and the Person, vol. 1 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 117.
  6. For a more detailed discussion, see Charles L. Quarles, “The Gospel of Peter: Does It Contain a Pre-canonical Resurrection Narrative?” in The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue, ed. Robert Stewart (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 106-20,