New Testament Apocrypha More Noncanonical Scriptures Volume one Edited by Tony Burke and Brent Landau William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, Michigan Burke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, third corrections June 20, 2016 9:11 AM © 2016 Tony Burke and Brent Landau All rights reserved Published 2016 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 www.eerdmans.com 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 Data ISBN 978–0–8028–7289–0 Biblical citations in this volume follow the New Revised Standard Version unless otherwise noted. Burke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, third corrections June 20, 2016 9:11 AM Burke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, third corrections June 20, 2016 9:11 AM Contents Foreword xi J. K. Elliott Preface xviii Introduction xx Tony Burke and Brent Landau Abbreviations xlvii I. GOSPELS AND RELATED TRADITIONS OF NEW TESTAMENT FIGURES The Legend of Aphroditianus 3 Katharina Heyden The Revelation of the Magi 19 Brent Landau The Hospitality of Dysmas 39 Mark Glen Bilby The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Syriac) 52 Tony Burke On the Priesthood of Jesus 69 William Adler Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 210 109 Brent Landau and Stanley E. Porter Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 5072 125 Ross P. Ponder vii BBuurrkkee && LLoonngg,, eeddss..,, NNeeww TTeessttaammeenntt AAppooccrryypphhaa,, tthhiirrdd ccoorrrreeccttiioonnss JJuunnee 2200,, 22001166 99::1111 AAMM Contents The Dialogue of the Paralytic with Christ 140 Bradley N. Rice The Toledot Yeshu (Aramaic Fragment) 158 F. Stanley Jones The Berlin- Strasbourg Apocryphon 165 Alin Suciu The Discourse of the Savior and the Dance of the Savior 184 Paul C. Dilley An Encomium on Mary Magdalene 197 Christine Luckritz Marquis An Encomium on John the Baptist 217 Philip L. Tite The Life and Martyrdom of John the Baptist 247 Andrew Bernhard The Life of John the Baptist by Serapion 268 Slavomír Čéplö The Legend of the Thirty Pieces of Silver 293 Tony Burke and Slavomír Čéplö The Death of Judas according to Papias 309 Geoffrey S. Smith II. APOCRYPHAL ACTS AND RELATED TRADITIONS The Acts of Barnabas 317 Glenn E. Snyder The Acts of Cornelius the Centurion 337 Tony Burke and Witold Witakowski John and the Robber 362 Rick Brannan The History of Simon Cephas, the Chief of the Apostles 371 F. Stanley Jones viii Burke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, third corrections June 20, 2016 9:11 AM Burke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, third corrections June 20, 2016 9:11 AM Contents The Acts of Timothy 395 Cavan W. Concannon The Acts of Titus 406 Richard I. Pervo The Life and Conduct of the Holy Women Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca 416 David L. Eastman III. EPISTLES The Epistle of Christ from Heaven 455 Calogero A. Miceli The Epistle of Pseudo- Dionysius the Areopagite to Timothy concerning the Deaths of the Apostles Peter and Paul 464 David L. Eastman IV. APOCALYPSES The (Latin) Revelation of John about Antichrist 483 Charles D. Wright The Apocalypse of the Virgin 492 Stephen J. Shoemaker The Tiburtine Sibyl 510 Stephen J. Shoemaker The Investiture of Abbaton, the Angel of Death 526 Alin Suciu and Ibrahim Saweros Index of Modern Authors 555 Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Texts 562 ix Burke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, third corrections June 20, 2016 9:11 AM Preface Collections of Christian apocrypha hold particular allure for those of us who work in the field. Our romance with this fascinating literature began by seeking out one of these in- dispensable tomes in search of insight about a particular text; one text led to another and before long we had fallen in love, seduced by their promise of revealing forbidden secrets. Certainly apocrypha collections are not the only resource for reading and researching these texts, but having them gathered together into one book lent them a magical qual- ity—a canon of literature like the Bible, but not the Bible at all. As we delved further into the literature it soon became clear that one collection alone is not enough. Because no anthology contains all the apocryphal texts known to us, and not every entry represents the best and most recent work. So, more collections are needed, in more languages, both ancient and modern. And before long our personal libraries con- tained a collection of collections, each one capturing the state of the art in its time and location. As with other apocrypha collections, New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanoni- cal Scriptures reflects the trends in scholarship current in its time and place. Its primary goal is to present to English readers a broad assortment of texts, much as Italian, French, and German anthologies have done before it. And its editors and most of its contributors reside in North America, and are thus influenced by approaches that are particular to American and Canadian scholarship. Multi- author apocrypha collections have appeared in English before but this is the first such initiative to come from North America. We hope that, like previous anthologies, it too will capture the hearts and minds of its readers. Together the editors would like to thank all of our contributors for their work and for their patience in bringing this project to realization. We have learned much from reading their texts. In particular, we thank Alin Suciu, David Eastman, and Slavomír Čéplö for going above and beyond the call by reading over other contributions in the volume and offering their insights. It is an honor to have J. Keith Elliott contribute a foreword and we thank him for his willingness to be “supplemented.” Keith is one among many giants in our field who have inspired us in our work; we acknowledge particularly Walter Bauer†, Fran- çois Bovon†, Bart Ehrman, Jean- Daniel Kaestli, Helmut Koester†, Christoph Markschies, Marvin Meyer†, James Robinson†, and Pierluigi Piovanelli. This project would not have been possible without the inspiration and support of Jim Davila, co- editor of our sister publication Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanon- ical Scriptures. A special thank you goes to the staff at Eerdmans including Allen Myers, Andrew Knapp, David Cottingham, Jim Chiampas, David Bratt, and Vicky Fanning. And we each thank our co- editor for putting up with us through the long process of seeing this book through to publication; any errors that remain are his fault. Now, on to volume two! xviii Burke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, third corrections June 20, 2016 9:11 AM BBuurrkkee && LLoonngg,, eeddss..,, NNeeww TTeessttaammeenntt AAppooccrryypphhaa,, tthhiirrdd ccoorrrreeccttiioonnss JJuunnee 2200,, 22001166 99::1111 AAMM Preface Individually, Tony acknowledges the personal and professional support of his teachers Harold Remus, Michel Desjardins, Robert Sinkewicz, Peter Richardson, and John Klop- penborg. And he has benefitted much from collaboration with members of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, the Canadian Society of Patristic Studies, the Society of Bibli- cal Literature Christian Apocrypha Section, the North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature, and participants in the 2011–2015 York University Chris- tian Apocrypha Symposium Series. Most importantly, Tony wishes to thank his wife Laura Cudworth for her unfaltering support and encouragement. Brent is especially grateful to the late François Bovon, his Doktorvater and guide into all things apocryphal. He is also very grateful to the following teachers, colleagues, and friends: George W. E. Nickelsburg, Ralph Keen, Ellen Aitken†, Helmut Koester†, Karen King, Charles Kimball, Tom and Barbara Boyd, Geoff Smith, Steve Friesen, and L. Mi- chael White. Financial support for the research necessary to complete this project was provided by Harvard Divinity School, the Religious Studies Program of the University of Oklahoma, the Department of Religious Studies of the University of Texas at Austin, and the Institution for the Study of Antiquity & Christian Origins at the University of Texas at Austin. He is most thankful to his wife, Elizabeth, and his two children, Zack and Charlie, for their love, patience, and generally for putting up with a daddy who was sometimes grumpy as this project neared completion. xix BBuurrkkee && LLoonngg,, eeddss..,, NNeeww TTeessttaammeenntt AAppooccrryypphhaa,, tthhiirrdd ccoorrrreeccttiioonnss JJuunnee 2200,, 22001166 99::1111 AAMM Introduction by Tony Burke and Brent Landau In 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; 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 Scriptures. When it comes to giving a name to the types of writings described above, specialists in this literature immediately are confronted with vexing terminological difficulties. 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? 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 writings. In fact, based upon the best current scholarly understandings of the canoniza- tion process, a great many writings in the present volume came into being long after a canonical New Testament had solidified (roughly in the fourth century). It also presumes, potentially erroneously, that those responsible for the creation of such writings uniformly desired 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 Testa- ment (hereafter NT, for short). Instead of “noncanonical,” an even more popular descriptor for this literature is “apoc- xx Burke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, third corrections June 20, 2016 9:11 AM BBuurrkkee && LLoonngg,, eeddss..,, NNeeww TTeessttaammeenntt AAppooccrryypphhaa,, tthhiirrdd ccoorrrreeccttiioonnss JJuunnee 2200,, 22001166 99::1111 AAMM Introduction ryphal”—the precise valences of which we will say more about later. The term appears in The Apocryphal New Testament, the most venerable anthology of such writings in English. Published in 1924 by M. R. James and overhauled more than twenty years ago by J. K. Elliott,1 who has generously written the foreword for this volume, The Apocryphal New Testament is one of the chief predecessors of the present work. Yet Elliott and even James himself were ambivalent about such a title, since it implies that these writings were con- sidered for inclusion within the NT and rejected. Worse yet, it suggests that such texts con- stituted a sort of sinister anti–N ew Testament, a heretical mockery designed by enemies of Christianity. But no such conspiracy was indeed present in the production of nearly all the writings included here (save for the Jewish parody of the life of Jesus, the Toledot Yeshu). Not only was there no conspiracy, but there is also not a fixed number of writings that would constitute such an “apocryphal New Testament.” The existence of the present volume demonstrates that previous “apocryphal New Testaments” have not managed to exhaust the storehouse of this literature. Indeed, even if the two volumes in this series continue into three or even more, it would still be impossible to include everything pro- duced by ancient, medieval, and modern Christians that should be regarded as apocryphal literature—a scenario anticipated by John 21:25 (“But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written”). The term “New Testament apocrypha,” which has been adopted as the title of the pres- ent volume, at least has the advantage over “apocryphal New Testament” of less strongly implying a numerically fixed canon of writings. It also stands in continuity with the vener- able Hennecke-S chneemelcher anthology, translated into English as New Testament Apoc- rypha—though the new incarnation of this anthology, spearheaded by Christoph Mark- schies, has opted instead for the title Antike christliche Apokryphen (“ancient Christian apocrypha”).2 Moreover, although the title still compares this category of writings with the canonical NT, one benefit of this comparison is that it reveals that these writings are largely the same genres found in the NT: gospels, acts, epistles, and apocalypses. Yet it is dangerous to insist too strictly on a continuity of genre between the NT and these writ- ings, since one encounters in the present collection an array of genres much broader than those found in the canon. The designation for this literature most preferred among scholars at present is not, in fact, “New Testament apocrypha,” but “Christian apocrypha.”3 One reason for this current scholarly preference is that it is thought to be more free from an unfair and potentially anachronistic comparison to the NT writings, and it allows for broader chronological parameters and flexibility of genres. Yet even many of its proponents will admit that it is still inadequate, since it employs as part of its title a word that in common parlance is synonymous with “false” or “fictitious.” There are, however, some reasons to retain the term “apocrypha” in spite of its baggage, as we will soon see. But it is still preferable, at least as concerns the title of an anthology, to use the descriptor “New Testament” instead 1. Montague Rhodes James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1924; 2nd ed. 1953); J. Keith Elliott, ed. and trans., The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Litera- ture in an English Translation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993; updated paperback ed. 2005). 2. For a history of the Hennecke-S chneemelcher- Markschies anthology tradition see “Collecting Chris- tian Apocrypha” below. 3. The program unit within the Society of Biblical Literature devoted to the study of this literature is called “Christian Apocrypha,” a designator that has been in place for more than fifteen years. xxi BBuurrkkee && LLoonngg,, eeddss..,, NNeeww TTeessttaammeenntt AAppooccrryypphhaa,, tthhiirrdd ccoorrrreeccttiioonnss JJuunnee 2200,, 22001166 99::1111 AAMM Introduction of “Christian” for these writings, both because of the former’s established usage in early collections and because it is still very unclear how much of an improvement the latter is, given its retention of the highly problematic word “apocrypha.” Terminology Two interrelated terms and concepts must be addressed in order to properly contextualize the writings contained in this anthology. The first of these is “apocrypha,” and the second is “canon.”4 We will take them in order. Apocrypha The term “apocrypha” has become the standard way of referring to early Christian texts that were not included in the NT of the Christian Bible. But what is the origin of this term? The Greek adjective apokryphos means, first and foremost, “secret” or “hidden.” This can have a positive sense, such as an authoritative teaching that has been restricted for sophisticates, or a revelation that was lost but has now been found. At least two CA texts do intend this meaning in their titles: the Apocryphon of James and the Apocryphon of John, both found among the texts of the Nag Hammadi library (though the Apocryphon of John is also extant in the Berlin Gnostic Codex).5 Furthermore, although not extant in the original Greek, the prologue of the Gospel of Thomas likely used the term apokryphoi to describe the “secret sayings” of Jesus.6 But these uses of apokryphos are not confined to texts outside of the canon, since the adjective and its cognate verb are used seven times in NT writings, all with positive con- notations.7 Consider, for example, the use of apokryphos and apokryptō in Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, regarded by a significant majority of scholars as pseudepigraphic. In Col 1:26, Paul refers to the “word of God” (ton logon tou theou) as “the mystery hidden (apokekrymmenon) from the ages and the generations.” The theme of secret teachings or hidden wisdom is continued in Col 2:3, where Christ is said to be the one “in whom are hidden (apokryphoi) all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Given the valorization of esoteric understandings of Christ in this discussion, it should not be surprising that there were Christian groups in the second century that positively described their com- munities’ sacred texts as apokrypha. Despite the positive associations for this term among some Christian groups, over time apokryphos took on a more negative connotation. The second- century heresiologist Ire- naeus of Lyons mocks the sect of the Marcosians for using a number of “apocryphal and spurious writings” (apokryphōn kai nothōn graphōn), among them a story about the child Jesus learning the alphabet found also in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Haer. 1.20.1). Simi- larly, Tertullian uses the Latin terms apocrypha and falsa interchangeably in Pud. 10.12 to 4. For both of these terms, the “General Introduction” by Wilhelm Schneemelcher (in Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament Apocrypha [trans. from the corrected 6th ed. of Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung by Robert McLachlan Wilson; 2 vols.; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1991– 1992]), 1:9–75) remains helpful. 5. See the introductions to and translations of these texts in Marvin Meyer, ed., The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The International Edition (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007), 19–30 and 103–32. 6. See the reconstruction by Harold W. Attridge, “The Gospel According to Thomas. Appendix: The Greek Fragments,” in Nag Hammadi Codex II,2–7 (ed. Bentley Layton; 2 vols.; NHS 20; Leiden: Brill, 1989), 1:95–128 at 113. 7. Mark 4:22; Luke 8:17; 10:21; 1 Cor 2:7; Eph 3:9; Col 1:26; 2:3. xxii Burke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, third corrections June 20, 2016 9:11 AM Burke & Long, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, third corrections June 20, 2016 9:11 AM