Perhaps the most notorious book ever published by a Cumberland Presbyterian is Mahan's Archaeological Writings of the Sanhedrin and the Talmud of the Jews, commonly known as the Archko volume, originally published in 1884.

William Dennes Mahan (July 27, 1824 - October 19, 1906) was an American Cumberland Presbyterian minister in Boonville, Missouri, and author of a book, commonly known as The Archko Volume (1884), purported to be a translation of a Jewish, Roman, and other contemporary documents about the trial and death of Jesus of Nazareth. The volume was initially received by some as true, but soon after its publication its authenticity was questioned. The book has been definitively discredited as a forgery and fraud.

Among the first to call Mahan's work into question was Rev. Dr. James A. Quarles, of Lexington, Missouri. He was soon followed by William E. Curtis, a correspondent for the Chicago Record-Herald. In Rome, Curtis investigated Mahan's claims and declared the manuscript spurious and the alleged translation a forgery.

Mahan denied all the charges against him and asserted the truth of what he had written. He was summoned before church authorities in September 1885 on charges of falsehood and plagiarism, and a church trial was held. The New Lebanon Presbytery, of which he was a member, tried the case at length.

Evidence was introduced to show that Mahan had never been to Rome, but that he had spent the time he was absent from Boonville on a farm in Illinois. The editor of the Boonville Advertiser showed that the letters the paper had printed were postmarked from a small town in Illinois. Mahan rebutted the evidence by saying that they had been sent there to be re-mailed. Additional evidence that Mahan had not traveled to Rome included a letter from Father Ehrie, prefect of the Vatican Library. Ehrie stated that Mahan was entirely unknown there and that no person connected with the library had ever seen or head of the "Acta Pilati" or any such manuscript.

Lew Wallace, author of Ben-Hur and American Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Ottoman Empire, testified that no record of Mahan’s visit to Turkey or to the library of the Hagia Sophia existed, and that the primary sources he cited were unknown.

The verdict of the presbytery was nearly unanimous. He was convicted and suspended from the ministry for one year. Following his suspension, Mahan made no effort to return to the pastorate, living the remainder of his life at the home of his son-in-law, a hotel keeper in Boonville. He declined to make any further statements regarding the part he had taken in the preparation of the book except to say when he was told that the literary world pronounced it a forgery: "Well, I have been a much deceived and a much persecuted man."