Forged: Writing in the Name of God–Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are
The overarching message of this book is quite clear and not altogether subtle: if you want to enjoy the amazing blessings of paradise and avoid the horrific torments of hell, don’t sin! This message conveys a reliable and incontrovertible truth: those who fail to follow God’s will face eternal torture. How do we know? Because someone who has observed the realms of the damned has told us, Jesus’s right-hand man, Peter himself. In order to get his point across, the author writes in the first person—not in his own name, but in the name of the chief disciple. Here again we have a forgery in the name of Peter.
Ehrman, in the same book, mentions that the Apocalypse of Peter almost made it into the NT canon but he doesn’t give any more conclusive detail as to why or why not.
https://ehrmanblog.org/the-aberrant-view-of-the-afterlife-in-the-apocalypse-of-peter/
D. Batovici, “The Apocalypse of Peter (Greek)” in Edwards et al., eds., “Early New Testament Apocrypha” (2022), writes that Bauckham (1994) argued for an early date, during the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-135 CE, but many scholars found this unconvincing. More recently, Bremmer (2017) has proposed a date of around 150 as most likely.
Orphism is not mentioned in the chapter.
In the section on Interpretive Issues, p.454, differing opinions of several scholars are brought forward, including E.J. Beck, who considers the Apocalypse of Peter in the light of other writings from the first three centuries dealing with punishment, including episodes from Plutarch and Lucian, the Testament of Isaac, the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra, the Acts of Thomas, and the Apocalypse of Paul (“Justice and Mercy in the Apocalypse of Peter: A New Translation and Analysis of the Purpose of the Text,” 2017).
The views expressed start with a general one: “The most intuitive one would be the notion that the book is written as a reprimand for bad behavior and transgression, to convince the reader to better his or her ways. In this sense the list of torments could be construed as as intended straighten one’s behavior by pressing the idea that there are consequences (compensation or torment) for one’s actions.”
R. Lanzilotta considers whether the text presupposes justice that is compensatory or vindictive. His two interpretations are: (1) the Apocalypse of Peter “considered punishment and suffering as strictly necessary in order to provide expiation of guilt”; or (2) “Peter’s compassion intended to reject altogether the idea of any man deserves eternal suffering.”
Beck shows that most torment narratives have a cautionary purpose, but some may be used to prove a point. Setting the tour of hell in the Apocalypse of Peter against the background of the book as a whole, he argues that the “primary purpose of the Apocalypse of Peter is to encourage the righteous to show compassion to the wicked.”
E. Norelli (2020) argues, “based on a complex textual analysis, that the intercession of the righteous on behalf of the tormented sinners in section 13 suggests that, despite the extended description of the torments to come, the apocalypse projects the saving activity of Jesus as one that envisages universal salvation after the last judgment.”
Leave a Reply