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Early Christian Apocrypha

Other Manuscripts of the Apocalypse of Peter, And Why It Matters

In my last post about the Apocalypse of Peter I got down in the weeds a bit to talk about the discoveries and character of the two main manuscript sources of evidence we have of the document, a Greek version discovered in 1886-87 (the manuscript was produced in the sixth century or so) and an Ethiopic translation, found in a writing numbered among the so-called Pseudo-Clementines, and published in 1907-10. Expert linguists have shown that this Ethiopic translation was made from an Arabic translation of a Greek original. Our natural inclination, as I pointed out, would be to think that a *translation*, twice removed from an original, could not be as reliable a guide to what a text originally said as an actual copy in the original language. But the differences are so vast between the two, the Greek text and the Ethiopic, that scholars were driven to ask: which one is more like the book as originally written? Recall, the Ethiopic is much longer than the other. It gives descriptions of more sins and [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T00:11:31-04:00January 28th, 2019|Afterlife, Christian Apocrypha|

How Do We Know What Was Originally in the Apocalypse of Peter?

It was a long time ago that I started a thread dealing with the question of why the Apocalypse of Peter did not make it into the New Testament but 2 Peter did. I’ll give a summary here of where we are in the discussion just now, but if you want the full play-by-play, use the search function to look up Apocalypse of Peter; I’ve been blogging on it, on and off, since November 11. And it’s time finally to bring it to a close. I’ve been delaying for a lot of reasons, the two most prominent are that I’m not completely confident in my views and that the matter is complicated and it has seemed like an inordinate amount of work for me to try to make it simple enough to be interesting to someone who isn’t completely obsessed with the manuscript tradition of the early Christian writings. I.e., most people! A brief recap. The Apocalypse of Peter provides an account of a guided tour of heaven and hell, given to Peter himself. He [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T00:11:40-04:00January 25th, 2019|Afterlife, Christian Apocrypha|

Was the Apocalypse of Peter Originally Part of the New Testament?

The Apocalypse of Peter was a reasonably popular book in some Christian churches of the first three or four Christian centuries. It was not as massively influential as the four Gospels or the writings of Paul, but even so, a number of Christian individuals and churches saw it as a Scriptural text, written by Peter. The book is first mentioned in the Muratorian Fragment, a late second century text written from Rome, which discusses the books that, in the anonymous author’s opinion, made up the Christian New Testament. The list, oddly, does not include James, 1 and 2 Peter, or 3 John, but it does include two apocalypses, the apocalypse of John (i.e., the book of Revelation) and the apocalypse of Peter. About the latter it says that some Christians do not think it should be read in church – i.e., that it was not to be accepted as part of the canon. But since he says that was the opinion of “some,” it appears that “most” did indeed accept it, as the author himself [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-09T12:57:45-04:00December 19th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Fourth-Century Christianity|

How Would an Early Christian “Know” Which Books Peter Wrote?

So if there were lots of books in circulation that claimed to be written by the apostle Peter, why did some of them (1 and 2 Peter) come to be accepted both as his and as canonical scripture, and others come to be deemed forgeries and excluded from the canon? The first point to stress is that Christians in the second, third, and fourth centuries had no real way of knowing which, if any, of these books Peter wrote. They were living many decades or even centuries after the books had first been put in circulation. The books were passed around from one church to the other before *anyone* on record claimed that they really were or really were not written by Peter. And how would they know? They almost certainly didn’t have any “insider information.” Where would their information have come from? Simply from other people who said so, one way or the other. And 99.9% of these people accepting, or rejecting, this book or another were not specialists trained in sophisticated modes of [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T00:19:20-04:00December 18th, 2018|Catholic Epistles, Christian Apocrypha|

The Books of Peter

I return now to the thread I had been working on before devoting the last few posts to the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. If you recall, some time ago I indicated that I had become a bit obsessed with a rather interesting if largely unasked question, of why the Apocalypse of Peter did not make it into the New Testament but the book of 2 Peter did. When I started on that thread, I thought it would take three or four posts, but as I got into it I realized that more and more background information was needed – and it turned into a rather longish thread, not only about what the Apocalypse of Peter is about (the first Christian account we have of a guided tour of heaven and hell, given to the apostle Peter himself, where he sees the glories of heaven for the saints and, in far more graphic detail, the torments of hell for the sinners) – but also about how we got the New Testament at all, that [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-18T11:39:09-04:00December 17th, 2018|Catholic Epistles, Christian Apocrypha, Forgery in Antiquity|

An Intriguingly Legendary Account of Jesus’ Death

Here is some more of the intriguing (later) Gospel, allegedly written by none other than Joseph of Arimathea, the figure who, in the New Testament Gospels, buried Jesus. It is entirely apocryphal of course, based on some information from the Gospels, later legends, and an extremely vivid imagination! The point of these posts has been to talk about whether Jesus ever wrote anything. Here he does, kind of. While hanging on the cross. You don’t find stories like *this* every day! This is my own translation, taken from the book The Other Gospels, co-edited/translated with my colleague Zlatko Plese. *********************************************************** Jesus Put on Trial (1) At three o’clock on the next day, the fourth day of the week, they brought him into the courtyard of Caiaphas. Annas and Caiaphas said to him, “Tell us, why did you carry off our law? And why have you preached against the promises of Moses and the prophets?” But Jesus made no answer. Again a second time, when the multitude was also present, they said to him, “Why do [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T00:20:53-04:00December 5th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha|

Did Jesus Write a Letter to Joseph of Arimathea

Did Jesus write a letter to Joseph of Arimathea? In yesterday’s post on the letter forged in Jesus’ name, allegedly to the king of Edessa Abgar, I mentioned another text in which Jesus is alleged to have written a letter. This one is even stranger. Far stranger. It is a letter he writes from the cross to the cherubim in heaven. It’s in a (much) later gospel called the Narrative of Joseph of Arimathea, an account of Jesus’ Passion allegedly written by the obscure figure in the NT Gospels who buried him. Among other things, it gives us “information” on the two robbers who were crucified with him. Here I explain what the text is and then give the opening scenes. Tomorrow I will give the rest of it (it’s a short gospel). All of this comes from the book I co-produced with my colleague Zlatko Plese, The Other Gospels, a book you might be interested in getting! It gives about 40 Gospel texts (many of them only in fragments) from early Christianity. The [...]

BDEhrman2022-06-18T00:35:04-04:00December 4th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha|

Do Any Forgeries Claim to be Written by Jesus?

I have received an interesting question about ancient forgeries. If we have lots of forgeries in the name of Peter -- and lots of others in the names of other apostles: Paul, James, Jude, Thomas, Philip, etc. etc. -- why don't we have any forgeries allegedly written by Jesus himself? As it turns out we do. The most famous was, at one time, well known indeed. Here is the question and my response. QUESTION: If Peter was named as an author of these works, why not name Jesus then of others(that we know of )? Was it understood within the community that, and why, he chose not to write his views down -- or was this too bold of a move even for a shameless forger? Or he was still deemed less accessible than his followers? RESPONSE: Yes indeed, there is a one-time famous correspondence between Jesus and a king who lived in Edessa in Syria named Abgar.. I have translated it anew for the book I published (on all earliest Christian Gospels) with [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-12T12:16:20-04:00December 3rd, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Forgery in Antiquity, Reader’s Questions|

Early Debates about the Gospel of Peter

This is the second of my two posts on the Gospel of Peter, and in some ways it is the more important one. Here I talk about what we knew about the Gospel, before it was discovered, from the writings of the ancient church fathers. One of these discussions in particular will provide us with the information I’m heading for, of why the Gospel was not accepted into the canon of the New Testament. (It shows only a single instance of a debate about it, but the terms of the debate are instructive.) These comments come from the “Introduction” to the Gospel that I wrote for the new translation and edition of the early apocryphal Gospels, that I produced with my colleague Zlatko Plese. ************************************************************** The third-century Origen is the first patristic author to mention a Gospel allegedly written by Jesus’ disciple Simon Peter. Origen indicates that the book may have spoken of Jesus’ “brothers” as sons of Joseph from a previous marriage (Commentary on Matthew 10.17). It is not clear that Origen had actually [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-09T14:11:59-04:00November 18th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Fourth-Century Christianity|

Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library and Some Crucial Missing Parts!

I have been making two-posts-a-day, giving the new “boxes” that I've written for the seventh edition of my textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Today, as it turns out, the two boxes I was going to post are both about the Nag Hammadi Library (the so-called “Gnostic Gospels”). So I’ll simply include both of them in this one post. Happy reading! *********************************************************** Another Glimpse Into the Past 11.6 The Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library The chance discovery of a cache of ancient Christian documents in a remote part of Upper Egypt -- the Nag Hammadi library -- is a story of serendipity, ineptitude, secrecy, ignorance, scholarly brilliance, murder, and blood revenge. Even now, after scholars have spent years trying to piece it all together, details of the find remain sketchy. We do know that it occurred around ... To see the rest of this post you will need to belong to the blog. It doesn't cost much to join, you get tons for your money, and every nickle [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T00:54:02-04:00October 30th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE)|

Talking Dogs and Resurrected Slaves

As I indicated yesterday, for the next few days I have decided to post the new “boxes” that I am including in the seventh edition of my textbook The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Since these are relatively short – most of them 300-400 words – I will be doing two-posts-a-day. (I don’t want to combine two boxes into one post, since they are all on completely different topics from one another; but I want you to get your money’s worth on the blog and so don’t want to have very short posts each day. So, two a day.) ************************************************************** Another Glimpse into the Past Box 5.1 Talking Dogs and Resurrected Slaves When Christians were spreading their oral traditions, trying to convert pagans to the new faith, what did they say or do to convince them? The apostle Paul indicates that his great miracles made all the difference, as he himself did “signs, wonders, and miracles” among his converts (2 Corinthians 12:12). And in fact we have later oral [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T00:55:43-04:00October 24th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha|

A Peculiar Story of Peter’s Martyrdom

Now, in response to the question I started answering a few days ago, I discuss the earliest account we have of the martyrdom of Peter. It is an odd account, and not widely known. Here is what I say about it in my book Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene. ************************************************************************************* Peter as Martyr The death of Peter by execution is already alluded to in the Gospel of John – which evidently, then, had been written after the event occurred. As Jesus tells Peter after the resurrection: When you were younger, you girded yourself and walked wherever your wanted; but when you grow old, you will reach out your hands and another will bind you, and lead you where you do not want to g. (21:18) The author concludes this quotation by noting “He said this to signify the kind of death he would experience to glorify God.” It is clear that Peter is being told that he will be executed (he won’t die of natural causes), and that this will be the death of a [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:01:03-04:00September 19th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Reader’s Questions|

Thomas and His Identical Twin Jesus, in the Acts of Thomas

In my previous post I mentioned the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas, a text that assumes Judas Thomas was actually Jesus’ twin brother. Here I can describe the book itself, where the idea that the two are *identical* twins appears to move along the plot in a rather humorous way.. Here is what I say about the matter in my book Lost Christianities. **************************************************** The Acts of Thomas narrates the adventures of Thomas, Jesus’ brother, in his missionary work on the way to and in India. The plot is fairly basic. The apostles draw lots to decide who will go to which region of earth to spread the gospel. The lot for India falls to Thomas, who tells his companions that it is the last place on earth he wants to go: “Wherever you wish to send me, send me, but elsewhere. For I am not going to the Indians!” (Acts of Thomas, 1). The ascended Jesus, however, has other plans for his mortal twin. An Indian merchant arrives ... To read the rest [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:04:59-04:00September 4th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha|

Did Jesus Have a Twin Brother?

Jesus' twin brother, Thomas....bet you're wondering, did Jesus have a twin brother? I have mentioned in passing that there were some early Christians who thought that one of Jesus’ brothers, Jude (or Judas: both are translations of the same Greek word), was actually a twin. Not just of anyone, but of Jesus himself. Some readers have expressed surprise in the most succinct way possible, by asking: “Huh??” I talk about the matter in a couple of my previous publications, especially when speaking about early Christian apocryphal texts that deal with the missionary exploits of the apostles after Jesus’ death. We have several of these, including an Acts of Thomas. Like the other apocryphal Acts (such as the more famous Acts of Thecla – an account of the adventures of the apostle’s Paul most famous legendary convert, an upper-class woman named, obviously, Thecla), this one celebrates the virtue of celibacy and sexual renunciation, and it actually uses the idea that Jesus’ had an *identical* twin to advance its views. I’ll explain how it does that in the [...]

BDEhrman2023-03-09T15:17:50-05:00September 3rd, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Historical Jesus|

Thomas, the Synoptic Gospels, and Q

A number of readers have asked about Thomas’s relation to the Synoptic Gospels and the famous Q source -- that is, the lost source that both Matthew and Luke used for many of their sayings of Jesus not found in Mark (called Q from the German word Quelle, which means “source”). Here is what I say about those issues in my textbook on the New Testament ***************************************************************** Thomas and the Q Source. The Gospel of Thomas, with its list of the sayings of Jesus (but no narratives) reminds many scholars of the Q source. Some have maintained that Q was also composed entirely of the sayings of Jesus and that the community for whom it was written was not concerned about Jesus’ activities and experiences, including his death on the cross. If they are right, then something like Thomas’s community was already in existence prior to the writing of the New Testament Gospels. Many other scholars, on the other hand, have their doubts. For one thing, it is not true that Q contained no narratives. [...]

BDEhrman2018-08-31T08:42:20-04:00August 31st, 2018|Canonical Gospels, Christian Apocrypha|

Thomas: The Most Important Gospel Outside the New Testament

The Gospel of Thomas is almost certainly the most important Gospel from outside the New Testament. Here I talk about what it's overarching message is, and how it relates to the Gospels that did make it into the Christian Scripture. Again, this is taken from my textbook on the NT. ************************************************************************************** The Overarching Message of the Book. The meanings of many of Thomas's sayings are in no way obvious. If they were, they would not be called secret! Even though the book contains nothing like the Sethian or Valentian myths, some of the sayings do seem to reflect roughly analogous understandings of the world and the human’s place in it (see earlier posts on Gnosticism). Within the hearer is an element of the divine—a soul—that had a heavenly origin (it originated “in the place where the light came into being”). This world we live in is inferior at best, and is more appropriately thought of as a cesspool of suffering, “a corpse.” A person’s inner being (the “light” within) has tragically fallen into this [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:05:16-04:00August 29th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Heresy and Orthodoxy|

The Gospel of Thomas: An Overview

I started this thread with a question about the Gospel of Thomas -- almost certainly the most important Gospel not in the New Testament. Now that I have situated “Thomasine” Christianity in the context of the Nag Hammadi Library the broader Gnostic movement – and questioned whether it is actually a kind of Gnosticism, or simply something similar – I can turn to the Gospel itself. This will take three posts. The one today is a broad introduction to its character. I have taken this from my textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. The Gospel of Thomas is without question the most significant book discovered in the Nag Hammadi library. Unlike the Gospel of Peter, discovered sixty years earlier, this book is completely preserved. It has no narrative at all, no stories about anything that Jesus did, no references to his death and resurrection. The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus. The sayings are not arranged in any recognizable order. Nor are they set [...]

BDEhrman2023-03-09T15:15:02-05:00August 28th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Heresy and Orthodoxy|

Two Rather Bizarre Accounts of How Judas Died

In my experience, most people don’t realize that there are two different accounts of Judas’s death in the New Testament, let alone that these two are very difficult indeed to reconcile with one another. Virtually impossible, I would say. But even more people don’t know that there are accounts of Judas’s death from *outside* the New Testament in other sources. One of these two almost *nobody* knows about, except for a few specialist scholars. The first account comes to us from Papias, a proto-orthodox church author who wrote a five- volume book called An Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord in about 120-130 CE (it is hard to know exactly when) This must have been a very large book indeed (five volumes!) and to our very great regret, it has been lost. We don’t have it. All we have are snippets of quotations from it by later church fathers, starting with Irenaeus (around 180 CE) and especially the church historian Eusebius (early fourth century). We aren’t sure why exactly the book was not copied [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-03T01:18:32-04:00June 8th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Historical Jesus|

The Different Terms for Literary Deception

In the Seminar on Ancient Forgery at Rice University a few days ago, I made a presentation in which I urged (all of us) scholars to decide on which terms we use to describe different kinds of literary phenomena associated in one way or another with literary deceit. My view is that since there are different phenomena (even if these can overlap), we ought to have distinct terms to refer to them – otherwise it just gets confusing. It can be confusing to have so many different terms as well, but if we don’t differentiate the phenomena from one another, it makes matters only worse. And so if we have not only distinct phenomena but also distinct terms for referring to each of them, that should provide clarity to what it is we’re doing (at least in theory). It certainly does not help to call an act of plagiarism also a falsification, if by falsification we mean something other than plagiarism. The following are the terms that I have proposed we use for the various [...]

BDEhrman2021-01-10T00:35:00-05:00April 24th, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), Forgery in Antiquity|

Different Kinds of Literary Deceit

In my presentation to the seminar on forgery at Rice University a few days ago, I dealt with a problem facing scholars who study literary deceit in antiquity. On the most basic level, no one – even experts – seems to agree even on which terms to use to describe this or that kind of ancient deceptive practice. It would be worth devoting a couple of blog posts to the issue. As it turns out, it was also subject of a lecture I gave at a conference at York University in Toronto a few years ago. Here is how I began the lecture. ************************************************************* All of us who labor in the fields of early Christian apocrypha know they are white for harvest. But even as significant advances are made in producing critical editions, new translations, and significant studies, there are still some preliminaries that require our attention. One of them involves devising and agreeing upon a sensible taxonomy of literary deceit, a set of discrete terms to refer to the wide range of [...]

BDEhrman2020-04-11T17:05:19-04:00April 23rd, 2018|Christian Apocrypha, Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), Forgery in Antiquity|

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