A Giant Jesus and a Walking-Talking Cross: The Fascinating Gospel of Peter

Episode Outline:
0:00 What is the Gospel of Peter?
0:25 Megan introduces the Gospel of Peter and its giant walking cross
0:48 Bart on teaching smaller undergraduate classes and enjoying the semester
3:53 Basic introduction: date, scope, and why the Gospel of Peter matters
5:36 How it differs from the canonical Gospels right from the opening line
7:28 The giant Jesus and the walking, talking cross
9:39 What that resurrection scene means theologically
12:14 Why preach to “those who are asleep”?
13:57 The fragmentary state of the text and what survives
16:18 The modern discovery of the Gospel of Peter in Egypt
18:29 How scholars already knew a Gospel of Peter once existed
21:28 What Docetism is, and why Serapion worried about this text
23:40 Which passages were read as possibly docetic
26:40 Is this really the same Gospel of Peter mentioned by Serapion?
30:10 Did Peter actually write it?
32:31 Other texts falsely attributed to Peter
35:01 Why claim Peter as the author at all?
37:08 Bart’s plug for The Other Gospels
38:14 Webinar promo: Gospel authorship
39:53 Final conference reminder for New Insights in the New Testament
42:48 Listener Q&A: heresy at street level, textual variants, and pre-Gospel written sources
51:45 Final summary: why the Gospel of Peter is so strange and important

Episode Description
One of the most intriguing non-canonical Gospels to be discovered in modern times is the Gospel of Peter. Unlike the New Testament Gospels, which were written anonymously (only later to be given the titles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), this Gospel actually claims to be written by an apostle, Jesus' own right-hand man, Peter. The account we have is only fragmentary: an alternative version of Jesus' trial, death, and resurrection. And what an account it is, involving an actual record of Jesus emerging from his tomb at his resurrection, as tall as a mountain, followed from the tomb by a walking-talking cross. What is this fascinating account really all about, and why did someone write it, falsely claiming to be the disciple Peter?

Also watch these episodes:
Hidden Wisdom or Heresy? The Enigma of the Gospel of Thomas
Hidden Wisdom or Heresy? The Enigma of the Gospel of Thomas

Did Jesus Predict his Own Death?
Did Jesus Predict his Own Death?

Stories about Jesus Before the Gospels: Oral Traditions in the Early Church
Stories about Jesus Before the Gospels: Oral Traditions in the Early Church

Megan asks Bart:

-What makes this gospel different from the NT gospels?

-Could you talk about the giant Jesus and the walking cross?

-How does that get interpreted theologically?

-Why would it be necessary to preach to those who are already dead?

-Do we have any other fragments that hint at what else might have been in the gospel of Peter?

-How long have we known about it?

-What is docetism, and is the Gospel of Peter actually a docetic text?

-How do we know that this is the same gospel of Peter that Serapion was dealing with?

-Is it plausible that Peter was actually the author? Are there other books claiming to have been written by Peter?

-Why would the writer claim Peter as the author?