Editing Apocalypse of Peter (section)

==Manuscript history==
{{New Testament Apocrypha}}

From the medieval era to 1886, the Apocalypse of Peter was known only through quotations and mentions in [[early Christian]] writings.<ref>{{harvnb|Beck|2019|p=2}}.</ref>  A fragmented [[Koine Greek]] [[manuscript]] was discovered during excavations initiated by [[Gaston Maspéro]] during the 1886–87 season in a desert [[necropolis]] at [[Akhmim]] in [[Upper Egypt]]. The fragment consisted of [[parchment]] leaves supposedly deposited in the grave of a Christian monk.<ref name="Greek printings">{{ublcb|The Greek Akhmim text was printed originally in:
|{{cite book |last1=Bouriant |first1=Urbain |author-link=Urbain Bouriant |date=1892 |title=Mémoires publiés par les membres de la mission archéologique au Caire  |chapter=Fragments du texte grec du livre d'Enoch et de quelques écrits attribués à Saint Pierre |chapter-url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/103027436 |series=IX.1 |pages=142–147 |language=fr |ref=None }}
|Photographs are published in:
|{{cite book |last1=Lods |first1=Adolphe |editor-last=Leroux |editor-first=Ernest |date=1893 |title=Mémoires publiés par les membres de la mission archéologique au Caire  |chapter=L'Evangile et l'Apocalypse de Pierre |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/MMAF9.3/ |series=IX.3 |pages=224–228; plates VII&ndash;X |publisher=Ernest Leroux, Paris |language=fr |ref=None }}
|{{cite book |last=Gebhardt |first=Oscar von |author-link=Oscar von Gebhardt |date=1893 |title=Das Evangelium und die Apokalypse des Petrus  |url=https://archive.org/details/dasevangeliumund0000gebh/mode/2up |location=Leipzig |publisher=J. C. Hinrichs |pages=Plates XIV&ndash;XX |language=de |ref=None }} }}</ref>{{NoteTag|The story of the Akhmim codex being found held in the hands of a dead monk is considered possible, yet unconfirmed by later scholars; archaeological practice in 1886 was far less rigorous than the contemporary era.  Maspéro did not closely monitor his hired Egyptian staff and was unclear on where precisely the codex came from other than a [[necropolis]] in the region, of which there were several.  Uriel Bouriant, who produced the initial journal article on the discovery, wrote that it must have been from the grave of a monk.  Tobias Nicklas and Thomas Kraus wrote in 2004 that they are skeptical this third-hand account of Bouriant is particularly trustworthy.<ref>{{harvnb|Kraus|Nicklas|2004|pp=25–27}}.</ref><ref name="VanMinnen2003" />}} There are a wide range of estimates for when the manuscript was written. [[Palaeography|Paleographer]] [[Guglielmo Cavallo]] and [[Papyrology|papyrologist]] [[Herwig Maehler]] estimate that the late 6th century is the most likely.<ref name="VanMinnen2003">{{cite book |chapter=The Greek Apocalypse of Peter |last=Van Minnen |first=Peter |editor1-first=Jan N. |editor1-last=Bremmer |editor1-link=Jan N. Bremmer |editor2-first=István |editor2-last=Czachesz |title=The Apocalypse of Peter |date=2003 |publisher=Peeters |isbn=90-429-1375-4 |pages=17–28}}</ref> The Greek manuscript is now kept in the [[Coptic Museum]] in [[Old Cairo]].<ref name="VanMinnen2003" />

The French explorer [[Antoine Thomson d'Abbadie|Antoine d'Abbadie]] acquired a large number of manuscripts in Ethiopia in the 19th century, but many sat unanalyzed and untranslated for decades.<ref name="nta2" />  A large set of [[Clementine literature]] in [[Ge'ez language|Ethiopic]] from d'Abbadie's collection was published along with translations into French in 1907&ndash;1910.<ref>{{ublcb|The Ethiopic text, with a French translation, was published in:
|{{cite journal |last1=Grébaut |first1=Sylvain |date=1910 |title=Littérature éthiopienne pseudo-Clémentine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7_M1AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA198 |journal=Revue de l'Orient Chrétien |volume=15 |issue= |pages=198–214, 307–323, 425–439  |language=fr |ref=None }}
|Photographs can be found at Gallica, [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b100878602/f133.item Ethiopien d'Abbadie 51], p. 131r–137r; p. 131r–146v for the full "The Second Coming of Christ and the Resurrection of the Dead".}}</ref>  After reading the French translations, the English scholar [[M. R. James]] realized in 1910 that there was a strong correspondence with the Akhmim Greek Apocalypse of Peter, and that an Ethiopic version of the same work was within this cache.<ref name="bauckham162">{{harvnb|Bauckham|1998|pp=162&ndash;163}}.</ref><ref name="james1911">{{ublcb|{{cite journal |last1=James |first1=M. R. |author-link=M. R. James |date=1910 |title=A New Text of the Apocalypse of Peter |url= |journal=[[The Journal of Theological Studies]] |volume=12 |issue=45 |jstor=23948865 |pages=36–54 |doi= 10.1093/jts/os-XII.1.36 |ref=None}}
|{{cite journal |last1=James |first1=M. R. |author-link=M. R. James |date=1911 |title=A New Text of the Apocalypse of Peter II |url= |journal=[[The Journal of Theological Studies]] |volume=12 |issue=47 |jstor=23948915 |pages=362–383 |doi= 10.1093/jts/os-XII.3.362 |ref=None}} (this is the article with the initial comparative translation, as well as the Bodleian fragment)
|{{cite journal |last1=James |first1=M. R. |author-link=M. R. James |date=1911 |title=A New Text of the Apocalypse of Peter III |url= |journal=[[The Journal of Theological Studies]] |volume=12 |issue=48 |jstor=23948939 |pages=573–583 |doi= 10.1093/jts/os-XII.4.573 |ref=None}}}}</ref>  Another independent Ethiopic manuscript was discovered on the [[Kebrān Gabre'ēl Monastery|island of Kebrān]] in [[Lake Tana]] in 1968.<ref>{{ublcb|{{harvnb|Buchholz|1988|pp=129–134}}; {{harvnb|Beck|2019|p=3}}.
|For original publication, see:
|{{cite book |last=Hammerschmidt |first=Ernst |author-link=Ernst Hammerschmidt |date=1973 |title=Äthiopische Handschriften vom Ṭānāsee 1: Reisebericht und Beschreibung der Handschriften in dem Kloster des Heiligen Gabriel auf der Insel Kebrān |series=VOHD 20 |url= |publisher=Franz Steiner |language=de }}
|For photographs, see University of Hamburg: Beta maṣāḥǝft, [https://betamasaheft.eu/manuscripts/Tanasee35/viewer Ṭānā, Kǝbrān Gabrǝʾel, Ṭānāsee 35]. }}</ref>  Scholars speculate that these Ethiopic versions were translated from a lost [[Arabic]] version, which itself was translated from the lost Greek original.<ref name="bauckham162" /><ref name="mueller2003" />  The d'Abbadie manuscript is estimated by [[Carlo Conti Rossini]] to have been created in the 15th or 16th century, while the Lake Tana manuscript is estimated by [[Ernst Hammerschmidt]] to be from perhaps the 18th century.<ref>{{harvnb|Buchholz|1988|pp=129, 134}}.  Buchholz is citing {{harvnb|Hammerschmidt|1973|pp=163–167}} and Carlo Conti Rossini's {{lang|fr|Notice sur les manuscrits éthiopiens de la collection d'Abbadie}}, published in parts in 1912, 1913, and 1915 in {{lang|fr|Journal asiatique}}.</ref>

Two other short Greek fragments of the work have been discovered, both originally found in Egypt: a 5th-century fragment held by the [[Bodleian library]] in Oxford that had been discovered in 1895; and the Rainer fragment held by the [[Rainer collection]] in Vienna, discovered in the 1880s but only recognized as relevant to the Apocalypse of Peter in 1929.<ref>{{harvnb|Buchholz|1988|pp=145, 153&ndash;154}}.</ref>  The Rainer fragment was dated to the 3rd or 4th century by M. R. James in 1931.<ref name="james1931" /><ref name="nta2" /> A 2003 analysis suggests it is from the same manuscript as the Bodleian fragment and thus also from the 5th century.<ref name="VanMinnen2003" /><ref>{{harvnb|Kraus|Nicklas|2004|pp=121–122}}.</ref> These fragments offer significant variations from the other versions.  In the Ethiopic manuscripts, the Apocalypse of Peter is only one section of a combined work called "The Second Coming of Christ and the Resurrection of the Dead", followed in both manuscripts by a work called "The Mystery of the Judgment of Sinners".<ref>{{harvnb|Bauckham|1998|pp=147, 162}}; {{harvnb|Buchholz|1988|p=137}}.</ref>  In total, five manuscripts are extant today: the two Ethiopic manuscripts and the three Greek fragments.<ref>{{harvnb|Beck|2019|p=4}}</ref><ref name="kraus2024">{{cite book |chapter=Manuscripts of the Apocalypse of Peter: Some Crucial Questions |last=Kraus |first=Thomas J. |title=The Apocalypse of Peter in Context |date=2024 |series=Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha 21 |editor-first=Daniel C. |editor-last=Maier |editor2-first=Jörg |editor2-last=Frey |editor3-first=Thomas J. |editor3-last=Kraus |url=https://www.peeters-leuven.be/pdf/9789042952096.pdf |publisher=Peeters |isbn=978-90-429-5208-9 |pages=34–52 |doi=10.2143/9789042952096 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Most scholars believe that the Ethiopic versions are closer to the original text, while the Greek manuscript discovered at Akhmim is a later and edited version.<ref>{{harvnb|Buchholz|1988|pp=429–430}}.</ref>  This is for a number of reasons: the Akhmim version is shorter, while the Ethiopic matches the claimed line count from the [[Stichometry of Nicephorus]]; [[Church Fathers|patristic]] references and quotes seem to match the Ethiopic version better; the Ethiopic matches better with the Rainer and Bodleian Greek fragments; and the Akhmim version seems to be attempting to integrate the Apocalypse with the [[Gospel of Peter]] (also in the Akhmim manuscript), which would naturally result in revisions.<ref name="elliott" /><ref name="bauckham162" /><ref>{{harvnb|Ehrman|2022|pp=144&ndash;154}}.</ref><ref name="nta2">{{cite book |last=Maurer |first=Christian |editor-last=Schneemelcher |editor-first=Wilhelm |editor-link=Wilhelm Schneemelcher |translator-last1=Wilson |translator-first1=Robert McLachlan |translator-link1=R. McL. Wilson |date=1965 |orig-date=1964 |chapter=Apocalypse of Peter |title=New Testament Apocrypha: Volume Two: Writings Relating to the Apostles; Apocalypses and Related Subjects |location=Philadelphia |publisher=Westminster Press |pages=663&ndash;668 }}  Translation from Ethiopic to German was by [[Hugo Duensing]], with David Hill and R. McL. Wilson translating the German to English.</ref>  The Rainer and Bodleian fragments can be compared to the others in only a few passages, but are considered to be the most reliable guide to the original text.<ref>{{harvnb|Beck|2019|pp=3–4}}</ref>