The Gospel of Peter (GP), often claimed to be theologically unsophisticated, offers a theological reflection upon the saving work of the Lord in his resurrection. GP receives the synoptic tradition, which itself has no narration of the resurrection (but only narrations of ‘appearances’), and fills in this lacuna. The narration of the resurrection is patterned upon GP's narration of the crucifixion, thereby suggesting that the resurrection and the crucifixion are two coordinated salvific events. GP's reception of the synoptic tradition is thus not only apologetic or polemical, but also theological.

The second half of the Akhmîm fragment of the Gospel of Peter distinguishes the recalcitrant Jewish leaders, who suppress the truth of Jesus’ resurrection, from the Jewish people, who regret their murder of Jesus the moment he dies – a distinction best explained by the thesis that the document was produced by and for Jewish Christians living in second-century Syria. Other Christian documents related to the Gospel of Peter and written or influenced by second- and third-century Jewish Christians, especially the Didascalia Apostolorum, show a similar combination of philo- and anti-Judaism. The Gospel's reference to the disciples fasting during the interim between Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection may refer to the practice, attested in the Didascalia and elsewhere, of liturgical fasting for the Jews. Apocalypse of Peter 2, which was probably an original part of the Gospel, holds out hope for Israel's restoration. As the Akhmîm scribe excised this hopeful chapter from the Apocalypse, so he probably excised the hopeful ending of the Gospel, in which the risen Jesus commissioned the disciples to continue the work of separating the people from their recalcitrant leaders and thereby converting them to faith in the one they had crucified.

The curious resurrection account in the Gospel of Peter (10.39–42) is not simply the author's creative innovation, but is based on a Christocentric interpretation of LXX Ps 18.1–7. The Gospel of Peter’s unusual description of Jesus’ exit from the tomb, whereupon he expands gigantically so that his head enters heaven (GPet 10.39–40), derives from an early Christian interpretation of LXX Ps 18.5c–7. The following conversation between God and the glorified cosmic cross (GPet 10.41–2) derives from a Christocentric interpretation of LXX Ps 18.2. In addition, the cross's verbal affirmation that it had preached to the dead (GPet 10.42) follows from a literalising yet Christocentric reading of LXX Ps 18.2b.

In 1993, Dieter Lührmann published a reconstruction of the more intelligible side of P.Oxy. 4009. He demonstrated that this side, which he called the recto, consists of passages parallel to Matt 10.16 par., Luke 10.3 and 2 Clem. 5.2–4. He also argued that the passage stems from the Gospel of Peter. However, Lührmann considered it impossible (‘ausgeschlossen’) to reconstruct the other side of the fragment. The aim of the present article is to demonstrate that a full reconstruction of this less intelligible side of P.Oxy. 4009, lines 1–13, is possible and that it enriches our knowledge of the Gospel of Peter with a new pericope which is an interesting parallel of Luke 7.36–50. The reconstruction also demonstrates that the side reconstructed by Lührmann is actually the verso, and that both sides together point towards the well-known anti-Jewish redactional tendencies of the author of the Gospel of Peter.