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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
The Ethiopic text of the second-century Apocalypse of Peter may be divided into two parts. The first section (chaps. 1–6) begins with aprediction by Jesus while on the Mount of Olives about the coming of false Christs and is evidently based on Matthew 24. Next, Jesus shows his disciples the future in the palm of his right hand, revealing events typical of Jewish eschatology: resurrection, judgment, and eschatological woes.
1 One must distinguish this Apoc. Pet. from the Coptic Apoc. Pet. found at Nag Hammadi. For the date of the Ethiopic Apoc. Pet., see Mauer, C. in Hennecke, E., Schneemelcher, W., and Wilson, R. McL., eds., New Testament Apocrypha (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964) 2. 664.Google Scholar The chapter divisions used here are those in Hennecke. The Apoc. Pet. is extant in Ethiopic (printed in Grebaut, M., “Littérature éthiopienne pseudo-Clémentine,” Revue de L'Orient Chrétien n.s. 5 [1910] 198–213, 307–23)Google Scholar and in part in the Greek Akhmim text (printed in A. Lods, “L'Evangile et l'apocalypse de Pierre,” Memoires [M. U. Bouriant, ed.] 9. 224–28) and in Greek fragments (printed in James, M. R., “A New Text of the Apocalypse of Peter II,” JTS 12 [1910/1911] 367–68Google Scholar; and in Prümm, K., “De genuino Apocalypsis Petri textu,” Bib 10 [1929] 18).Google Scholar
2 Nekyia (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1969; originally published in 1893).Google Scholar
3 Ibid., 224. Dieterich had only the Greek Akhmim text, the whole of which roughly corresponds to the Ethiopic chaps. 7–17.
4 Orpheus and Greek Religion (London: Methuen, 1952) 216–20.Google Scholar See also Michaelis, W., Die Apokryphen Schriften zum Neuen Testament (Bremen: Schunemann, 1956) 475.Google Scholar
5 Cf. Apoc. Pet. 8 and 10 with Plato Phaedo 111 D-E and Pindar Odes 2. 56–130. One of the problems in studying Orphism is that, because no Orphic books ure extant, one depends on excerpts of Orphic teaching in Plato, Pindar, Empedocles, Virgil, the tragedians, Christian writers, and others. For a collection of such excerpts, see Kern, O., Orphicorum Fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmanns, 1922).Google Scholar
6 Afterlife in Roman Paganism (New Haven: Yale University, 1922) 173–74.Google Scholar
7 Translation of the Ethiopic text by H. Duensing in Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha, 2. 673.
8 Translation in APOT, 2. 19.
9 RSV translation.
10 RSV translation. See Käsemann, E., “Sentences of Holy Law in the New Testament,” New Testament Questions of Today (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969) 66–81.Google Scholar
11 A. Marmorstein and M. Gaster suggested a Jewish milieu for chaps. 7–12 many years ago, but for a different reason: they found similarities to Apoc. Pet. in late Jewish mystical texts. The difficulty with their suggestion is that one could just as easily argue that Apoc. Pet. had influenced the mystical texts. See Marmorstein, A., “Jüdische Parallelen zur Petrusapokalypse,” ZNW 10 (1909) 297–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Gaster, M., “Hebrew Visions of Hell and Paradise,” Studies and Texts (London: Maggs, 1925–1928) 1. 124–64.Google Scholar
