New Testament Apocrypha - Tony Burke

1 Burke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PMNew Testament ApocryphaMore Noncanonical ScripturesVolume oneEdited byTony Burke and Brent LandauWilliam B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, MichiganBurke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PMBurke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PMBurke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PM 2016 Tony Burke and Brent Landau All rights reserved Published 2016 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2 2140 Oak Industrial Drive , Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 Printed in the United States of America 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication DataISBN 978 0 8028 7289 & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PMBurke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PMContentsForeword 000J. K. ElliottIntroduction 000 Tony Burke and Brent LandauAbbreviations 000I.

3 GOSPELS AND RELATED TRADITIONS OF NEW Testament FIGURESThe Legend of Aphroditianus 000 Katharina HeydenThe Revelation of the Magi 000 Brent LandauThe Hospitality of Dysmas 000 Mark Glen BilbyThe Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Syriac) 000To n y B u r k eOn the Priesthood of Jesus 000 William AdlerPapyrus Oxyrhynchus 210 000 Brent Landau and Stanley E. PorterPapyrus Oxyrhynchus 5072 000 Ross P. PonderThe Dialogue of the Paralytic with Christ 000 Bradley N. RiceviContentsBurke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PMBurke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PMThe Toledot Yeshu (Aramaic Fragment) 000F.

4 Stanley JonesThe Berlin- Strasbourg Apocryphon 000 Alin SuciuThe Discourse of the Savior and the Dance of the Savior 000 Paul C. DilleyAn Encomium on Mary Magdalene 000 Christine Luckritz MarquisAn Encomium on John the Baptist 000 Philip L. TiteLife and Martyrdom of John the Baptist 000 Andrew BernhardThe Life of John the Baptist by Serapion 000 Slavom r pl The Legend of the Thirty Pieces of Silver 000 Tony Burke and Slavom r pl The Death of Judas according to Papias 000 Geoffrey S. SmithII. APOCRYPHAL ACTS AND RELATED TRADITIONSThe Acts of Barnabas 000 Glenn E. SnyderThe Acts of Cornelius the Centurion 000 Tony Burke and Witold WitakowskiJohn and the Robber 000 Rick BrannanThe History of Simon Cephas, the Chief of the Apostles 000F.

5 Stanley JonesThe Acts of Timothy 000 Cavan W. ConcannonviiContentsBurke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PMThe Acts of Titus 000 Richard I. PervoThe Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena 000 David L. EastmanIII. EPISTLESThe Epistle of Christ from Heaven 000 Calogero A. MiceliThe Letter of Pseudo- Dionysius the Areopagite to Timothy concerning the Deaths of the Apostles Peter and Paul 000 David L. EastmanIV. APOCALYPSESThe (Latin) Revelation of John about Antichrist 000 Charles D. WrightThe Apocalypse of the Virgin 000 Stephen J. ShoemakerThe Tiburtine Sibyl 000 Stephen J.

6 ShoemakerThe Investiture of Abbaton, the Angel of Death 000 Alin Suciu and Ibrahim SawerosIndex of Modern Authors 000 Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Texts 000 Burke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PMxviBurke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PMBurke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PMIntroductionby Tony Burke and Brent LandauIn the pages that follow, the reader will learn about: a heavenly letter sent by Christ himself promising dire consequences for those who do not attend Sunday services; a luminous Jesus who appears to the Magi in the form of the Star of Bethlehem; a fearsome child Jesus who has no need of repentance, rehabilitation, or education; a Mary Magdalene who is not Jesus love interest, but his great aunt; the nightmarish flying severed head of John the Baptist.

7 A Jesus who harasses incognito a paralyzed man in order to test the man s faith; one of the thieves who was crucified with Jesus meeting Jesus family thirty years prior to his execution and showing them hospitality during their stay in Egypt; the angel Muriel and how he became Abbaton, the Angel of Death; two apocalypses that, in medieval times, were vastly more popular than the canonical Book of Revelation; and a trove of other largely forgotten tales that were written over one thousand years ago to preserve commu-nal memories, to function as religious propaganda, to provide edification and entertain-ment for Christians, and yes, to serve as authoritative and inspired it comes to giving a name to the types of writings described above, specialists in this literature immediately are confronted with vexing terminological difficulties.

8 What should we call such writings? The broadest, and perhaps fairest, approach would be to call them simply early Christian writings. But such a neutral designation immediately demands further clarification. What kind of writings are these, what genre? Narratives, homilies, epistles, treatises? Is the author of each work an identifiable historical figure? Or is their authorship a pious (or possibly duplicitous) fiction, or completely anonymous and unknown? To which generation or timeframe do these writings belong to the very beginnings of Christianity, the first few centuries, or much, much later?

9 So early Christian writings raises many more questions than it answers. May we in-stead define them, as has often been done, by what they are not? That is, as writings not included in the New Testament ? Or similarly, noncanonical writings ? No, because this presupposes that all of these writings existed at the time if such a moment can even be ascertained that the New Testament was being assembled as a set of authoritative writ-ings. In fact, based upon the best current scholarly understandings of the canonization process, a great many writings in the present volume came into being long after a canoni-cal New Testament had solidified (roughly in the fourth century).

10 It also presumes, poten-tially erroneously, that those responsible for the creation of such writings uniformly de-sired them to be on par with the four canonical Gospels, the letters of the Apostle Paul, and the like. Perhaps some authors sought such a status for their text, but it is just as likely that many of these writings were intended as supplements to the canonical New of noncanonical, an even more popular descriptor for this literature is apoc-ryphal the precise valences of which we will say more about later. The term appears in xviiIntroductionBurke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha , first galley proofs February 19, 2016 1:23 PMBurke & Long, eds.