My Favorite Fragment of a Lost Gospel. Is It the Gospel of Peter?

[00:00:01] My favorite fragment of a lost gospel. Is it the Gospel of Peter? [00:00:06] By Bart D. Ehrman, read by John Paul Middlesworth? [00:00:11] One of the most captivating tiny fragments of a lost gospel discovered in modern times came from a trash heap excavated from the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, one of many thousands of manuscript fragments found there, some of them christian, but most of them non christian, most of which were non literary texts, that is, personal letters, land deeds, divorce certificates, bills of sale, etcetera. Did this fragment come from the Gospel of Peter? I've taken two posts to explain what the Gospel of Peter is in order to set up this particular post. If you haven't read the earlier posts, that's fine. You'll still get this one if you have read them even finer. As I pointed out in the earlier post, the Gospel of Peter that we have today, which was discovered in 1886, is unfortunately only a portion, the only surviving portion of what was once a complete gospel. But was it a complete gospel, or was it a passion gospel, like the later Gospel of Nicodemus that gave us an account only of the trial, death and resurrection of Jesus that has long been debated? [00:01:20] Here's what I said about this smaller fragment in a post I published many years ago. [00:01:25] The weird saying of Jesus I'm talking about in this post is not found in that fragment of the gospel of Peter, but it may help decide whether Peter was a complete gospel or not. In recent years, a german scholar named Dieter Luhrmann has argued that other portions of the Gospel of Peter have shown up in very small fragments of papyrus discovered in Egypt. It is a controversial claim. The most interesting possibility for me is a papyrus fragment that Luhrmann published called Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 4009. It is the 4009th papyrus published from the huge find of papyri in the trash heap of ancient Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. [00:02:06] To understand why this might be a fragment of the gospel of Peter requires a bit of tricky background. I hope it's not too hard to follow, but look, it ain't quantum physics, so stay with me here. [00:02:18] The papyrus is tiny. See below. This is the entire thing. As you can see, it is something like four inches by one inch, written on both sides. It probably was written in the second century. It contains a conversation with someone unnamed who is narrating the conversation in the first person. The conversation is not like anything else found in the NT, but it is very much like a very bizarre and intriguing conversation that Jesus is recorded as having precisely with Peter in a later second century book called second Clement it is one of the apostolic fathers. And so for the background, here is the conversation as recorded in second Clement. Obviously, this conversation is not in the New Testament and can be found nowhere else among the words of Jesus in any gospel. [00:03:10] Second Clement five two through four. For the Lord said, you will be like the sheep in the midst of wolves. [00:03:18] But Peter replied to him, what if the wolves rip apart the sheep? Jesus said to Peter, after they are dead, the sheep should fear the wolves no longer. So too, you do not fear those who kill you and then can do nothing more to you but fear the one who, after you die, has the power to cast your body and soul into the hell of fire. [00:03:43] What a terrific back and forth. It's long been intriguing to scholars, and then Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 4009 turned up to make things still more interesting. [00:03:54] At this point in the post online, you can see a picture of the entire fragment. [00:04:00] You'll notice it's in Greek. I can tell you it's ancient again, probably second century, and most of it is missing. When Lerman reconstructed the text from the papyrus by filling in the lacunae, the missing bits at the end and the beginning of each line, he came up with the the reconstruction appears to be the harvest. Dot, dot, dot. But be as innocent as doves and wise as serpents. Be like the sheep among the wolves. [00:04:31] I said to him, what if we are torn apart? He replied and said to me, when the wolves tear apart the sheep, they can no longer do it any harm. Therefore, I say to you, do not fear those who kill you, and after killing, can no longer do anything. [00:04:49] And so what second Clement recalls as a conversation with Peter? This fragment of a gospel, presumably it is from a gospel, recounts as a conversation with someone speaking in the first person. The most sensible understanding in Luhrmann's view is that this comes from a gospel in which Peter is speaking in the first person, that is, the gospel of Peter. If he's right, this fragment comes from an earlier portion of the gospel, a teaching of Jesus prior to his arrest. And that would mean that the gospel of Peter was not just an account of Jesus death and resurrection, but more likely a complete gospel, including the words and deeds of Jesus prior to the passion. I'm inclined to think he's right, but it's hotly debated among scholars in any case, whether he's right or wrong. This is one intriguing textual mystery. No one thinks this is something Jesus could be reliably thought to have said. Well, no one I know anyway, but it's great to have these old christian papyri show up on occasion. For one thing they give us information we did not have before in this case probably not about the historical Jesus but about a saying attributed to him later raising the questions why did someone come up with this conversation in the first place? In what context would it have made sense? Almost certainly a context of persecution, but what else could we say about it but also because it can help us solve other questions. For example, was the gospel of Peter an account only of Jesus passion or of his ministry as well? [00:06:24] And I'll note one alternative that is also interesting. What if this fragment does go back to the gospel of Peter? But what if it is referring to a conversation that Jesus and Peter had after the resurrection? In that case the fragment would not tell us one way or the other if the Gospel of Peter had an account of Jesus public ministry or not. Ain't historical scholarship fun.