The 5th Passion Account: The Gospel of Peter

[BWSmith]

Have any of you read the crucifixion and resurrection from the Gospel of Peter (c.150 AD)? Check it out and post what you think:

Gospel of Peter: KJV English (http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/gospels/gospete.htm)

Modern English Translation (http://www.livius.org/pen-pg/peter/gospel_of_peter.html)

Some highlights of this "Docetic" gospel include:
- Jesus having no pain on the cross
- The criminal next to Jesus not having his legs broken
- The narrative of Jesus exiting the tomb
- A walking, talking cross

Comments?

[zamar]

waste of time

Z

[Deird]

It comes across to me as totally unreal. When you read the gospels, you can get a sense of the reality of the situation. But this one is just full of dramatic moments and people making speeches, and stuff, and it just comes across as being really fake.

[Mike K]

The apocryphal or gnostic books such as the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, and so forth. were forgeries which were written in the second century after Christ.

[BWSmith]

Comments:
- I agree that Peter has some pretty far-out details. At the same time, SOME group of people in Egypt believed it for about 1,000 years. Why do you think this is? What does this tell us about the balance between faith and skepticism?
- I wouldn't say that Thomas is a forgery. It looks like a set of authentic sayings of Jesus that were left out of the canonicals not because of their theology, but because of their non-narrative format. (Like the Didache.)

[Mike K]

Here's a good link about the unreliability of the Gospel of

Thomas.http://www.answers.org/Bible/GospelOfThomas.html

What I mean by forgery is that it was not written by the apostle Thomas, but by someone using his name.

[BWSmith]

We don't know who wrote the GOT, so we can't say that it wasn't written by Thomas.

I would assert that the account of "doubting Thomas" in John's gospel is a direct reference to this and other gnostic traditions attributed to Thomas as an effort to emphasize that Thomas, despite what is written in his name, believed in a bodily resurrection because he saw it with his own eyes.

2 Peter, 3 John, and the Pastorals are all written in the names of Peter, John, and Paul respectively, but we don't consider them "unreliable". We just have to interpret them with a grain of salt.

[ZoneChaos]

I trust God's judgement thatg is it was meant to be consider inspired scripture, it would be included in the Bible.

Wether you accept these other "books" or not, the Bible paints a complete plan of salvation.

Are they forgeries? Are they authentic? Who cares? They are irrelevant either way.

[Mike K]

Zone,

I understand where you're coming from and I agree, but here's how I see it.

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have (1 Peter 3:15)

I think this includes being able to defend things like canonization, exclusion etc.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God... (2 Corinthians 10:5).

If we can't take and defend critical issues surrounding biblical truths, then how can anyone take us seriously? Critics use things like GoT, Peter, Secret Mark, Q fragments, The Gospel of Mary, etc. to disprove the historicity of the N.T. canon, or at least cause confusion and doubt.

The bible IS all we need. You understand that because you have the Holy Spirit guiding you. Others on the verge, still wavering a bit, would be confused by the gnostic heresies and doctrinal inconsistencies found in them.

mk

[SenseiPiccolo]

Originally posted by zamar
waste of time
Z
:rolleyes:
for some people it will be hopelesss...
your in my prayers...