The Gospel of Peter (Akhmim fragment)
Unknown — falsely attributed to Peter
More about Unknown authors writing under borrowed names →
A passion account with Docetic roots and a giant talking cross. Never accepted as genuine.
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
One damaged, late fragment from Akhmim is all we have of the Gospel of Peter — and scholars still debate whether it is even the same book the ancients condemned. That much uncertainty means weak Defend.
(This book was inspired by a video from Testify on YouTube; its quotations are checked against Armitage Robinson’s translation in ANF 9.)
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "My Power, My Power" | Lie | Argument | 50 | 100% | 20 |
| 1 | Contradiction | Lie | Argument | 50 | 100% | 20 |
| 5 | Question the Premise | Rationality | Type shift | — | — | 10 |
| 6 | Talking Cross | Lie | Argument | 60 | 90% | 15 |
| 9 | Scribal Craft | History | Argument | 55 | 100% | 20 |
| 15 | Knowing How Lies Are Made | Rationality | Argument | 55 | 100% | 15 |
How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.
Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.
“And the Lord cried out, saying, My power, my power, thou hast forsaken me. And when he had said it he was taken up.”
Gospel of Peter 5 (trans. Armitage Robinson, ANF 9, public domain). Not “My God, my God” — and “taken up” at the moment of death. Docetism in a single misquoted psalm.public domain
In the gameThe Psalm’s cry, swapped for a phantom’s farewell.
“He who pleads his cause first seems right; until another comes and questions him.”
Proverbs 18:17 (WEB).
In the gameChallenge the foundation of an argument before it can be pressed. Lowers the foe’s Contend.
“And they heard a voice from the heavens, saying, Thou hast preached to them that sleep. And a response was heard from the cross, Yea.”
Gospel of Peter 10 (trans. Armitage Robinson, ANF 9, public domain) — the cross walks out of the tomb behind them, and answers. Eusebius records the book was never accepted as genuine.public domain
In the gameIts resurrection scene outgrows the witnesses.
“But of the Jews none washed his hands, neither Herod nor any one of his judges.”
Gospel of Peter 1 (trans. Armitage Robinson, ANF 9, public domain) — the fragment’s own opening line. Matthew has Pilate alone wash his hands; this text spreads the refusal to everyone else in the room.public domain
In the gameStudy a text long enough and you stop asking only what it says, and start asking what it is doing — every one of these gospels eventually shows its hand.
The specific move or chapter of Scripture that cuts through this one, and why. The number is how much harder it hits than usual — ×4 is four times the normal force.
The apostle was answering people he could name. Teachers were already going through the churches of Asia saying the Christ had only appeared to be a man, and John answers by making the confession of real flesh the line between the Spirit of God and every other spirit. Not a fine point of doctrine — a boundary. A generation later Ignatius is still applying the same test, writing it from the road to Rome to die.
See 1 John 4:1–3; 2 John 7; Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 2–4.
A bishop once allowed this book, then read it — and took it back.
Ephesus was commended for one habit: it checked. Men arrived claiming to be apostles, the church asked, and the claim did not survive being asked. Around A.D. 200 Serapion of Antioch found the church at Rhossus reading a Gospel of Peter. He allowed it — then read it himself, and withdrew it: “For we, brethren, receive both Peter and the other apostles as Christ; but we reject intelligently the writings falsely ascribed to them.”
Revelation 2:2; Serapion of Antioch, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.12 (trans. McGiffert, NPNF² 1, public domain).
The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Koine Greek.
“And they clothed him with purple, and set him on the seat of judgment, saying, Judge righteously, O king of Israel. And one of them brought a crown of thorns and put it on the head of the Lord… and some scourged him, saying, With this honour let us honour the Son of God.”
Gospel of Peter 3 (trans. Armitage Robinson, ANF 9, public domain).
“And they brought two malefactors, and they crucified the Lord between them. But he held his peace, as though having no pain.”
Gospel of Peter 4 (trans. Armitage Robinson, ANF 9, public domain).
“And the Lord cried out, saying, My power, my power, thou hast forsaken me. And when he had said it he was taken up.”
Gospel of Peter 5 (trans. Armitage Robinson, ANF 9, public domain).
“Again they see three men come forth from the tomb, and two of them supporting one, and a cross following them: and of the two the head reached unto the heaven, but the head of him that was led by them overpassed the heavens.”
Gospel of Peter 10 (trans. Armitage Robinson, ANF 9, public domain).
“And they heard a voice from the heavens, saying, Thou hast preached to them that sleep. And a response was heard from the cross, Yea.”
Gospel of Peter 10 (trans. Armitage Robinson, ANF 9, public domain).
“Pilate answered and said, I am pure from the blood of the Son of God: but it was ye who determined this.”
Gospel of Peter 11 (trans. Armitage Robinson, ANF 9, public domain).
Go back to chapter 4 and read the last six words again: "as though having no pain." Everything wrong with this book is in that clause. A crucifixion is happening and the writer wants you to know it did not really reach him.
Then the cry. Matthew and Mark both keep the Aramaic — Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani — quoting Psalm 22: "My God, my God, WHY have you forsaken me." This book quietly swaps God for "power," drops the "why," and adds "he was taken up." Not a death. A departure.
That is docetism doing its work in a single misquoted psalm — the exact error Ignatius spent a whole letter on, and which you may be carrying the answer to right now.
Chapter 10 shows the other failure mode: not subtlety but excess. Two figures whose heads reach the sky, a third higher still, and a cross walking out of the tomb behind them and answering a voice. The canonical resurrection accounts are, by comparison, almost embarrassed — women, confusion, and nobody who saw the moment itself.
Watch Pilate too. Herod condemns Jesus here and Pilate washes his hands of the Son of God. The blame slides steadily off Rome and onto the Jews — a trajectory that gets worse the later the text.
And this book has the best-documented rejection of any apocryphon. Serapion, bishop of Antioch around A.D. 190–203, allowed a congregation to use it, read it properly afterwards, and withdrew permission for containing Docetic corruptions. A bishop changing his mind in public, in writing, and Eusebius kept the letter.
One honest caution: the surviving Akhmim fragment was dug from a monk’s grave in 1886, and the manuscript itself is eighth-century or later. Whether it is even the same book Serapion read is genuinely argued. That is why this book’s Defend is so weak.