Sorry for the month long departure. I try to post at least twice a month however Lent / Pascha season had my attention, but now I am back with another Theotokos Ethiopian short story. This story is another incession story, this time involving a pregnant woman. The English translation is provided by E. A. Wallis …
Continue reading “The Virgin Mary and the Woman who was about to bring forth”
I am digging back into the Ethiopian tradition with this short tale about the Theotokos and her encounter with an Egyptian Priest named John Bakansi (at least that is how it’s translated). It has an odd turn of events, and I’m always up for quirky tales. What I really like about this short story is …
Continue reading “The Virgin Mary and the Egyptian Priest John”
I wrote previously regarding one of the sayings in 2 Clement and it’s correlation to the Gospel of Thomas, but have decided to do a deep dive into all the sayings. There are quite a few quotes from Jesus in this writing that is attributed to Clement of Rome, but that attribution is questionable and …
On February 24 and 25 in the Orthodox tradition there are two feast days about discovering the head of John the Baptist (commemorating two different dates, and there is a third feast day for another finding later in the year; the head kept getting lost!). The head of John the Baptist is quite the fascinating …
This particular Coptic tale is quite interesting. It is an ascension text, but then dives into a question and answer narrative. John the Theologian/Evangelist is taken up into the heavens by Jesus. There, John is handed over to a Cherubim, whom he questions rigorously. There are some interesting dialogue that is presented here. I find …
Continue reading “The Mysteries of Saint John the Apostle and Holy Virgin”
I guess I have Saint John on my mind as I have yet another post on him (and a few more in queue!). My last post was an Ethiopic version of the death of John, this time I have a Coptic tale of this event to share. The manuscript of this story dates to about …
Continue reading “The Repose of Saint John the Evangelist and Apostle”
Returning back to the translations of E. A. Budget with another Ethiopic tale, this time in regards to Saint John the Evangelist/Theologian. This translation appeared in 1898 in “The Contendings of the Apostles Vol 2” and I’ve slightly modified some of it for the modern reader. I am currently unsure where and when this story …
Continue reading “The History of the Death of Saint John the Evangelist”
Another Apocalyptic John text that appears in the New Testament Apocrypha Volume 2 (edited by Tony Burke) is titled “Apocalypse of holy John the Theologian” or “3 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John”. The exact date of this work can not be pinpointed, but it looks like 1300s CE-ish. It survives in Greek and Church Slavic manuscripts. …
With my last post, I mentioned how there are several “Apocalypses of John” texts out there besides the canonical version. In the book New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures Vol 2 (edited by Tony Burke) there are 3 more texts with this title. This post will be going over what the book refers to as …
No, this isn’t about the book in the canonical Bible, but rather an apocrypha text. In case you are unaware, there are a handful of texts that have the name of “Apocalypse of John” / “Revelation of John”, and I plan to highlight a few of them in the near future. This particular text I …
Culmination of Wisdom