The Shepherd of Hermas packs a striking number of conundrums, textual, compositional, theological, and reception historical. To begin with, despite the fact that there are more papyri of this book than any of the other Apostolic Fathers, as well as than most New Testament books taken separately, we still do not have the complete text in Greek. As a result, in current critical editions the last chapters are supplied from the Latin (and Ethiopic) translations. It is also the longest AF book, replete of allegorical material, occasionally inconsistent and largely repetitive, which leads modern readers every now and again to describe it as naive, dilettante, and incompetent, or plainly boring. Moreover, the manner in which the book is written in large narrative sections with seemingly poor connection from one to another has occasioned several theories of multiple authorship.