Free Forged by Bart D. Ehrman Page A

to remain paralyzed, lest she lead others astray. Here again the point is perfectly clear: sex is dangerous and to be avoided at all costs, even if it means being an invalid for life.
    The Acts of Peter is chiefly built around a series of contests between Peter, the representative of the true God, and a heretic named Simon, a magician empowered by the devil. Each of them can do miracles, and each tries to convince the crowds that he, not the other, stands for the truth. One of the miracles involves Peter and a smoked tuna. We are told that Peter has been trying to convince the crowdsand is having little success. But he is standing by a fishmonger’s shop and sees a smoked tuna hanging in the window. He asks the crowds if they will believe if he can make the dead fish come back to life. Yes, they reply, then they will believe. So he removes the tuna from the hook, throws it into a nearby pond, and orders it to come back from the dead. The fish comes to life—not for just a few minutes, but for real. The crowd rejoices and comes to believe.
    Greater miracles are yet in store. Peter and Simon the Magician are called by the local Roman official into the arena to compete in order to see who is the true spokesperson for God. A slave boy is ordered into the arena. Simon is instructed to kill the boy, and Peter to raise him from the dead. Simon speaks a word in the boy’s ear, and he falls down dead (it is the heretic who speaks the word of death). But Peter tells the boy’s master to take his hand and raise him up, and the boy is immediately restored to life (the man of God has the word of life).
    A wealthy woman then comes up to Peter and cries out for him to help her as well. Her son has died, and she desperately wants Peter to raise him back to life. Peter challenges Simon to a duel to see who can raise the man. While the crowd looks on, Simon goes through several shenanigans: standing next to the dead body, he stoops down three times and stands up three times, and lo and behold, the dead man raises up his head. The crowds are convinced that Simon is the true power of God, and Peter must be an impostor. They prepare to burn him at the stake. But Peter shouts them down and points out that the man has not actually been raised from the dead; he has simply moved his head. If Simon is truly from God, he will be able to raise him up and make him talk. When Simon is unable to do so, Peter then has his chance. He speaks a word, raises the man fully from the dead, and has him speak. From that hour on, the people “venerated Peter as a god.”
    The climax of the story comes when the heretic Simon announces to the crowds that he will prove his superior power by flying like a bird over the hills and temples of Rome. When the day of his feat arrives, he is true to his word and takes off, flying like a bird. Peter, notto be outdone, calls out to God and deprives Simon of his power in mid-flight. He crashes to the ground and breaks his leg. The crowds converge on him and stone him to death as an impostor. It is Peter who has the true power of God.
    Stories like this can easily be multiplied. In fact, they were multiplied as Christian storytellers fabricated legendary accounts of the great heroes of the faith in the second and third Christian centuries. So they made up stories about Peter. Did they also make up writings by Peter? There seems to be no doubt about that either. Nor are there many doubts about why they invented such writings. In no small measure it is for the reason we have seen. Different Christians had competing assumptions, outlooks, practices, and theologies, all of which needed apostolic “authority” behind them. A writing in the name of Peter could authorize one set of views in the name of a great “authority,” named as its “author.”
    Noncanonical Writings Forged in the Name of Peter
    T HE G OSPEL OF P ETER
    One of the most significant Gospels to be rediscovered in modern times