Epistula Apostolorum

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Epistula Apostolorum (abbreviated EpApostol , letter of the apostles ) is a New Testament apocryphal script , which outwardly has the form of a letter, but according to the literary genre belongs to the dialogue gospels . The work, which was originally written in Greek , has not survived in its original wording and is only preserved in its entirety in an Ethiopian version and partly in a Coptic version.

Lore

Carl Schmidt found parts of the Coptic version in 1895 in the then French archaeological museum in Cairo , with great support from the French Egyptologist and philologist Pierre Lacau (November 25, 1873 - March 26, 1963), who was busy cataloging the manuscripts at the time. A sheet with a Latin translation can be found as a palimpsest in Codex Palt. Vindobonensis 16th in Vienna. A manuscript with the Ethiopian text had been known for a long time, but it was not until 1809 that specialist circles gradually recognized the importance of it. The Ethiopian text was first published in print by L. Guerrier in 1913, but he used the manuscript L = Or. 739 of the British Museum as a basis, which often has a poorer text compared to the other Ethiopian manuscripts. The Ethiopian text was previously used by the isolated Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church . The first edition of the Coptic text together with a German translation by Isaak Wajnberg was published by Carl Schmidt, and Wajnberg considered a total of five Ethiopian manuscripts. In 1925 Hugo Duensing published a German text that took into account the entire tradition and all other findings since Schmidt's edition and which was also printed in his New Testament Apocrypha from Schneemelcher's 3rd edition . The Ethiopian and the Coptic versions are in two columns next to each other if there are two different versions. The Coptic version is missing some chapters, so that there are two parallel chapter numbers. A uniform representation of both versions - in the German translation - is made possible by Berger / Nord, since "all important, really translation-relevant deviations of one or the other witness [..] were (were) noted in the footnotes. [...] In our translation, we have also further subdivided the previous chapters by means of verse sections in order to make citation easier in the future. "

14 Ethiopian manuscripts of this script are now known, none of which is older than the 15th century. It turned out that these do not offer a uniform tradition either, but are themselves divided into at least two main groups. Research cannot make any definite statements about the way in which the Greek text was translated into Ethiopian, but comparable writings were first translated into Arabic and only from there into Ethiopian, but a direct translation is not excluded. The Ethiopian version no longer allows any conclusions to be drawn about the original Greek text. The writing enjoyed a high reputation in Ethiopia and has been quoted several times by Zara Yaqob .

The Ethiopian version of the text is younger than the Coptic version, as it not only corrects the older version objectively (e.g. names of the women involved) or tries to correct it, but also supplements text passages functionally, i.e. that is, endeavors to make facts easier to understand for the reader. As a result, content changes are also made to a small extent, generally in the context of accentuation. The Coptic version is more incomplete than the Ethiopian one. As version differences, Berger / Nord mention "also different tendencies. The Ethiopian version is often church-harmonizing, the Coptic version is preferable where it is noticeably more oriented towards Jewish ideas. "

Place and time of origin

Tradition does not allow a precise definition of the place of origin. Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt are mentioned. Caspar Detlef Gustav Müller names Egypt in circles of Hellenized Jewish Christianity as the circles in which it originated. The antgnostic and anti-docetic tendencies point to Egypt, he sees various individual observations that suggest other places as a recording and processing of traditions that converged in Alexandria. Scripture knows hermetic and Essenian influences, the Gospel of John and his Logos Christology and names Paul.

Scripture gives a date for the parousia in chapter 17 (28) when the 150th year is completed. This points to the middle of the second century.

meaning

The writing is “an example of the teaching of the disciples between Easter and Ascension” and offers “insights into the early Christian missionary history . [... It] is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of Christianity in the 2nd century ”and contains a time indicated by Jesus for his return (Chapter 17: 1). According to Berger / Nord, p. 989: “when the 150th year is completed. That probably means: 150 years after the time of the dialogue between Jesus and his disciples, the parousia is reckoned with , ie for 180 AD ”(Ethiopian version; the Coptic version is interpolated accordingly, note 70, p. 998).

“That could assume an origin around 150 AD. No further calculation of the end is known from the older church. "

literature

Text output

Investigations

  • Manfred Hornschuh: Studies on the Epistula Apostolorum. de Gruyter, Berlin 1965.
  • Julian Hills: Tradition and composition in the Epistula apostolorum. Fortress Press, Minneapolis 1990, ISBN 0-8006-7078-7 .

Web links

  • English text and information on Epistula Apostolorums after Montague Rhodes James: The Apocryphal New Testament. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1924, pp. 485-503. Retrieved March 7, 2014.
  • JK Elliott: The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation

Cover, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005. Epistula Apostolorumhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D9vNTo0m08nkC%26lpg~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3DPA555~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D%27%27Epistula%20Apostolorum%27%27~ PUR% 3D pp. 555-590.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Duensing, p. 4.
  2. ↑ Conversations between Jesus and his disciples after the resurrection . In: Carl Schmidt (Hrsg.): Texts and investigations . tape 43 , 1919, pp. 1–4 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  3. ↑ Markschies also still brings this text, p. 1065.
  4. ^ A b c Klaus Berger / Christiane Nord: The New Testament and early Christian writings. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 1999, pp. 987ff.
  5. ↑ Markschies p. 1063
  6. ↑ a b Markschies p. 1064f.