Who Bears Witness? Narrative Agency and Recognition in the Gospel of Peter
(2026) Annual Conference European Association of Biblical Studies — Location: Leuven (20.July.2026)
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- (en) The Gospel of Peter presents a Passion narrative whose distribution of testimony and recognition differs markedly from that of the canonical Gospels. While the canonical accounts tend to locate the memory of Jesus primarily among disciples and female followers, the Gospel of Peter assigns decisive witnessing and validation to hostile actors—soldiers, officials, and authorities—whereas the believing community appears only after the event, in fear and mourning. Scholarship on the Gospel of Peter has largely focused on its relationship to the canonical Gospels, its Christological profile, and its distinctive narrative presentation of the Passion and Resurrection, sometimes described as a deliberate reworking—or, by some, as a “re-enactment” (Tobias Nicklas)—of the early Christian tradition. “Socio-narrative models” in turn, have emphasized the importance of narrative structures for early Christian memory management (e.g. Coleman Baker). Building on these perspectives, this paper examines how a redistribution of narrative agency reshapes the dynamics of witnessing, recognition, and silence within the Gospel of Peter. Rather than functioning as a simple variant of canonical Passion narratives, the text stages the Passion and Resurrection as a narrative event in which authority over what is seen, acknowledged, and suppressed is selectively distributed. Through an analysis of key scenes of recognition and validation, the study argues that the Gospel of Peter constructs a Christian “we” defined less by direct eyewitness presence than by the capacity, within the narrative itself, to receive and transmit a memory validated by others. In this way, the text emerges as a distinctive attempt to negotiate identity and legitimacy through narrative means, reconfiguring the memory of Jesus in relation to, and in contrast with, other Gospel traditions.
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Draguet, F. (2026). Who Bears Witness? Narrative Agency and Recognition in the Gospel of Peter. Annual Conference European Association of Biblical Studies, Leuven. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/279212