The Acts of Peter, Gospel Literature, and the Ancient Novel

Like the other Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles - stories of the exploits of the key figures of early Christianity - The Acts of Peter provides a window into the processes of oral and written composition that shaped early Christian narrative. The text most probably did not achieve the form of an extended written narrative until the mid-second century, undergoing repeated oral and written reformulation. In this book Thomas looks at the sources and subsequent versions of the Acts and argues that 'transmissional fluidity' - the existence of the work in several versions or multiforms - is a characteristic the Acts share with many related works, from the Jewish novels of Esther and Daniel to the Greek romance about Alexander the Great and the Christian Gospels of Jesus. The fluidity of these narratives, says Thomas, allowed them to accommodate the changing historical circumstances of their audiences.