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Loading...This is the second of my three posts on the Gospel of Peter. In yesterday’s post I talked about what we knew about the Gospel before its (partial) discovery in 1886, from what Eusebius, the fourth century church historian, told us, in his story about Serapion of Antioch. In this post I discuss the modern discovery. Again, this is taken from my book The Other Gospels, co-authored and edited with my colleague Zlatko Plese.
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What we now call the Gospel of Peter was found in one of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries of Christian texts in the nineteenth century. In the winter season of 1886-87 a French archaeological team headed by M. Grébant was digging in Akhmîm in Upper Egypt, in a portion of a cemetery that contained graves ranging from the eighth to the twelfth centuries CE. They uncovered the grave of a person they took to be a Christian monk, who had been buried with a book. Among other things, the book contained a fragmentary copy of a Gospel written in the name of Peter.
It is a parchment manuscript …
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Fascinating, Dr. E
I guess we know how you feel about Crossan’s thoughts on the GoP. Curious if the proposed dates would also make this the earliest source for JC’s harrowing of hell?
It depends what you do with 1 Peter 3:18-20.
Are there any views in this gospel that could be interpreted by Serapian as docetic?
See today’s post!
Makes me wonder what else is out there, buried, just waiting for the right person to come along. I’m curious as to how the machinery works when there’s an important find. Let’s say a jar stuffed full of manuscripts was discovered. How would that work? Who would get the call? I can only assume the Israeli government would be a lot easier for scholars to deal with than say the Egyptians but really I have no idea. Is there a mechanism in place or is this one of those make it up as we go kind of things? How soon in the process would a scholar such as yourself be able to have a look?
I’ve read your account of how you were brought in on the Gospel of Judas affair but say a major find on the order of Nag Hammadi was announced. How would the process work? Could you post at some point about this aspect of scholarship?
Thanks!
Good idea. I’ll put it on the list of things to post on.
This condemnation of the Jews must have also had a financial gain for those doing the castigating. Excuse my cynicism but generally financial gain trumps theology or the former exploits the latter. Or am I wrong here?
I don’t think there’s any evidence that money was involved in these Christian forgeries.