Review of Paul Foster, The Gospel of Peter: Introduction, Critical Edition and Commentary (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2010) Part One

I have been reading Paul Foster’s edition of The Gospel of Peter, and am grateful to E. J. Brill for sending me a free copy to review. Having reached the end of the introduction, which spans approximately the first third of the volume, it seemed best to stop and blog about this part of the book before proceeding.

Foster’s book is a welcome addition to the relatively meager scholarly literature in English on this subject. The manuscript of P. Cair 10759 has gone missing, and so we are fortunate to have digital images as well as a volume like this one, offering a printed, legible rendering of the Greek text and an English translation. The volume also provides typed Greek and English renderings of P.Oxy 2949 and 4009, which are sometimes identified as part of the Gospel of Peter.

Foster’s book introduces the text and provides all of the discussions one would hope for in a scholarly commentary. The story of the discovery of the manuscript, the history of scholarship, literary relationship to other texts, provenance and date are all discussed at length. A strong case is made for the work not having a docetic character.

The introductory section not only introduces major aspects of the Gospel of Peter, but also discusses key methodological issues which are relevant not only to the study and interpretation of this work, but also to a wider array of scholarly concerns. One is the matter of how literary dependence is to be identified. It may be relatively easy in a case of extensive verbatim agreement to be confident that one author copied from the other. But most of our cases are not of this sort, and scholars regularly either seem to have no clear criteria, or apply them inconsistently, arguing that a single word indicates literary dependence and yet arguing for a non-literary connection when there are numerous words in common (pp.30, 35-37, 115-117). Foster suggests that a few distinctive words may give clearer indication of literary dependence than a longer verbatim agreement in a phrase that it is entirely possible for two people to come up with independently. A range of possible relationships, including secondary orality, having read a work at some earlier point but not recently, having read a work on multiple occasions but not having it open when composing one’s own work, are added to the unhelpful but all too common dichotomy of literary dependence vs. independence.
Those working on the interrelationship of the canonical Gospels would benefit from reading Foster’s discussion of this topic, even if their research does not touch on the Gospel of Peter. And even if one disagrees with some of Foster’s conclusions, it must be said that he introduces caution in a field where speculation has often predominated.

I was particularly excited by Foster’s discussion of Kirsopp Lake’s suggestion of a possible connection between the ending of the Gospel of Peter and an original ending of Mark (p.121). I am looking forward to reading Foster’s commentary on that part of the Gospel of Peter. I am, however, a bit disappointed that Foster seems to treat the relationship between the material in the Gospel of Peter and in John 21 as an alternative explanation to Lake’s suggestion that there is a connection with a lost ending of Mark. It is unclear to me why the ending of Mark itself could not have once continued with a story similar to that in John 21 and the lost ending of the Gospel of Peter (see further my article on this subject in The Bible and Interpretation).

I will blog about the commentary section on a later occasion. But I can already recommend this book as an essential resource to anyone working on the Gospel of Peter. Foster provides something not currently available, and if in the future we understand the Gospel of Peter even better, it will be as a result of interacting with and building upon the foundation he lays in this useful volume.