Early Christian Apocrypha
A Book That Nearly Became Scripture: The Apocalypse of Peter
As I indicated in my previous post, I’m planning to write a book (after the one on charity in early Christianity) explaining how we got the canon of the New Testament. Who choose the books? On what grounds? And when? I continue the thoughts I’m laying out in my prospectus here, in the first of four case studies – a book that almost made it in. ****************************** Four Vignettes to Explain the Issues To illustrate some of the major issues, to show how the process worked, to give a sense of the historical disputes, and to show their inherent interest, I here provide four vignettes, all involving books that explicitly claim to be written by the apostle Peter. Peter is Jesus’ closest disciple and confident in the Gospels. No one could carry more authority for explaining Jesus’ teachings and his plans for his followers after his death. It comes as no surprise, then, to find a number of early Christian books that claim to be written by Peter. Two of them are [...]