Justice And Mercy In The Apocalypse Of Peter

The Apocalypse of Peter, best known for its tour of hell, was a popular text in Early Christianity, but is largely neglected today. Eric J. Beck attempts to bring new life to the study of this text by challenging current assumptions regarding its manuscript tradition and primary purpose. By undertaking the first comparative analysis utilising all available manuscript evidence, the author creates a new translation of the text that at times advocates for the reliability of the oft neglected Akhmim fragment. He then offers the first detailed analysis of the text in order to ascertain the purpose of the document. In so doing, he argues against a monitory interpretation of the text. Instead, Eric J. Beck suggests the text uses an integrated understanding of justice and mercy that is meant to encourage its readers to have compassion on those who receive punishment in the afterlife.

The Apocalypse of Peter is the first modern collection of studies on this intriguing Early Christian book, that has mainly survived in Ethiopic. The volume starts with a short survey of the Forschungsgeschichte and a discussion of the old question regarding its eventual inspiration: Greek or Jewish. It is followed by a new look at the circumstances of its finding, the composition of the codex and its character, and also by a new edition of the Bodleian and Rainer fragments. The major part of the book studies various aspects and passages of the Apocalypse the nature of the Ethiopic pseudo-Clementine work that contained the Apocalypse, false prophets, the Bar Kokhba hypothesis, Paradise, the post-mortem 'baptism' of sinners, the grotesque body, the pattern of justice underlying our work, the Old Testament quotations and the reception of the Apocalypse in ancient Christianity. The book concludes with a study of the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter. As has become customary, the volume is rounded off by a bibliography and a detailed index.

Shively T. J. Smith reconsiders what is most distinct, troubling, and potentially thrilling about the often overlooked and dismissed book of 2 Peter. Using the rhetorical strategies of nineteenth-century African American women, including Ida B. Wells, Jarena Lee, Anna Julia Cooper, and others, Smith redefines the use of biblical citations, the language of justice and righteousness, and even the matter of pseudonymity in 2 Peter. She approaches 2 Peter as an instance of Christian cultural rhetoric that forges a particular kind of community identity and behavior. This pioneering study considers how 2 Peter cultivates the kind of human relations and attitudes that speak to the values of moral people seeking justice in the past as well as today.

Broaden the scope of your New Testament studies with this introduction to early Christian apocryphal literature. To understand the New Testament well, it is important to study the larger world surrounding it, and one of the primary avenues for this exploration is through reading related ancient texts. But this task is daunting for scholars and novices alike given the sheer size of the ancient literary corpora. The Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies series aims to bridge this gap by introducing the key ancient texts that form the cultural, historical, and literary context for the study of the New Testament. Early New Testament Apocrypha offers an entry point into the corpus of early Christian apocryphal literature through twenty-eight texts or groups of texts. While the majority of the texts fall within the first four centuries CE, and therefore are useful for uncovering the earliest interpretations assigned to the New Testament, select later texts serve as reminders of how the meanings of New Testament texts continued to develop in subsequent centuries. Each essay covers introductory matters, a summary of content, interpretive issues, key passages for New Testament studies and their significance, and a select bibliography. Whether you are a scholar looking to familiarize yourself with a new corpus of texts or a novice seeking to undertake a serious contextualized study of the New Testament, this is an ideal reference work for you. Essays and contributors include: Part 1: Apocryphal Gospels Agrapha, Andrew Gregory Fragments of Gospels on Papyrus, Tobias Nicklas Gospel of Barnabas, Philip Jenkins Gospel of Peter, Paul Foster Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Reidar Aasgaard Jewish-Christian Gospels, Petri Luomanen Legend of Aphroditian, Katharina Heyden Pilate Cycle, J. K. Elliott Protevangelium of James, Eric M. Vanden Eykel Toledot Yeshu, Sarit Kattan Gribetz Revelation of the Magi, Catherine Playoust Part 2: Apocryphal Acts Acts of Andrew, Nathan C. Johnson Acts of John, Harold W. Attridge Acts of Paul, Harold W. Attridge Acts of Peter, Robert F. Stoops, Jr. Acts of Philip, Christopher R. Matthews Acts of Thomas, Harold W. Attridge Departure of My Lady Mary from This World (Six Books Dormition Apocryphon), J. Christopher Edwards Pseudo-Clementines, F. Stanley Jones Part 3: Apocryphal Epistles Jesus's Letter to Abgar, William Adler Correspondence of Paul and Seneca, Andrew Gregory Epistle to the Laodiceans, Philip L. Tite Epistula Apostolorum, Florence Gantenbein The Sunday Letter, Jon C. Laansma Part 4: Apocryphal Apocalypses Apocalypse of Paul, Jan N. Bremmer Apocalypse of Peter (Greek), Dan Batovici Apocalypse of Thomas, Mary Julia Jett 1 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John, Robyn J. Whitaker New Testament Apocrypha: Introduction and Critique of a Modern Category, Dale B. Martin SERIES DESCRIPTION: Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies is a 10-volume series that introduces key ancient texts that form the cultural, historical, and literary context for the study of the New Testament. Each volume features introductory essays to the corpus, followed by articles on the relevant texts. Each article will address introductory matters, provenance, summary of content, interpretive issues, key passages for New Testament studies and their significance, and a select bibliography. Neither too technical to be used by students nor too thin on interpretive information to be useful for serious study of the New Testament, this series provides a much-needed resource for understanding the New Testament in its Jewish, Greco-Roman, and early Christian contexts. Produced by an international team of leading experts in each corpus, Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies stands to become the standard resource for both scholars and students.

The present volume is based on a conference held in October 2019 at the Faculty of Theology of Humboldt University Berlin as part of a common project of the Australian Catholic University, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Humboldt University Berlin. The aim is to discuss the relationships of “Jews” and “Christians” in the first two centuries CE against the background of recent debates which have called into question the image of “parting ways” for a description of the relationships of Judaism and Christianity in antiquity. One objection raised against this metaphor is that it accentuates differences at the expense of commonalities. Another critique is that this image looks from a later perspective at historical developments which can hardly be grasped with such a metaphor. It is more likely that distinctions between Jews, Christians, Jewish Christians, Christian Jews etc. are more blurred than the image of “parting ways” allows. In light of these considerations the contributions in this volume discuss the cogency of the “parting of the ways”-model with a look at prominent early Christian writers and places and suggest more appropriate metaphors to describe the relationships of Jews and Christians in the early period.

Utilizing the Nag Hammadi codices and early Christian writings, this book explores the earliest development of Christianity in Alexandria.

This work analyses and evaluates Jurgen Moltmann's model of universal salvation and its relation to his understanding of the redemption, or eschatological fulfilment, of time. For Jurgen Moltmann, Hell is the nemesis of Hope. The 'Annihilation of Hell' thus refers both to Hell's annihilative power in history and to the overcoming of that power as envisioned by Moltmann's distinctive theology of the cross in which God becomes 'all in all' through Christ's descent into Godforsakenness. The negation of Hell and the fulfilment of history are inseparable. Attentive to the overall contours and dynamics of Moltmann's thinking, especially his zimzum doctrine of creation, his eschatologically oriented philosophy of time, and his expanded understanding of the nature-grace relationship, this study asks whether the universal salvation that he proposes can honour human freedom, promise vindication for those who suffer, and do justice to biblical revelation. As well as providing an in-depth exposition of Moltmann's ideas, The Annihilation of Hell also explores how a 'covenantal universalism' might revitalise our web of beliefs in a way that is attuned to the authorising of Scripture and the spirituality of existence. If divine and human freedom are to be reconciled, as Moltmann believes, the confrontation between Hell and hope will entail rethinking issues that are not only at the centre of theology but at the heart of life itself.

These studies focus on personal eschatology in the Jewish and early Christian apocalypses. The apocalyptic tradition from its Jewish origins until the early middle ages is studied as a continuous literary tradition, in which both continuity of motifs and important changes in understanding of life after death can be charted. As well as better known apocalypses, major and often pioneering attention is given to those neglected apocalypses which portray human destiny after death in detail, such as the Apocalypse of Peter, the Apocalypse of the Seven Heavens, the later apocalypses of Ezra, and the four apocalypses of the Virgin Mary. Relationships with Greco-Roman eschatology are explored. Several chapters show how specific New Testament texts are illuminated by close knowledge of this tradition of ideas and images of the hereafter.