Acts of Peter and the Twelve

[8][9] In the text, Peter the Apostle meets a pearl merchant named Lithargoel, who is later revealed to be Jesus.

[16] The publication was part of the work of the Coptic Gnostic Library Project, which began in 1966 at Claremont Graduate University.

[20] Since the narrative voice shifts between first and third person, scholars have debated whether it is the work of multiple authors or simply literary technique.

[21] Citing analyses by New Testament scholar Vernon K. Robbins[22] and Stephen J. Patterson,[23] Molinari notes that in the narration of ancient sea-voyage stories, it was common to shift to first-person plural voice.

[26] Molinari believes that the entirety of the text up to the point that the physician quickly leaves and comes back (1.1–9.1) is from a single source.

[26] The remainder of the text (9.30–12.19), in Molinari's view, is the author's attempt to link the other two sources with his own beliefs about pastoral ministry.

[27] Academic István Czachesz argues that the text is an allegory for monasticism and that it came from a Pachomian monastery in 347–367 AD.

[2][7] Czachesz sees parallels between the written Pachomian rules and Lithargoel's warnings about avoiding the dangers of the road.

[29] Furthermore, the themes expressed by Jesus near the end of the text—providing for the poor, healing them, and condemning the rich—match the Pachomian monastic tradition.

[38] Religious historian Alicia J. Batten explores thematic affinities between the text and the Epistle of James.

[39] She sees the most obvious and significant similarities between the two works as the critique of the rich and the directive to care for the poor.