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The so-called Hymn of the Bride is found in Chapters 6–7 in the first Act of the apocryphal Acts of Thomas. The manuscripts containing it show a particular history of the text which does not always coincide with that of the rest of the Act. For instance, family gamma (Γ) often presents a summarized version of the first two Acts, thus heavily shortening the Hymn. A study of the text is essential to establish a new edition with translation, which is the aim of the project in which this study is embedded. However, analysis of the manuscripts omitting or summarizing the Hymn is also relevant for other goals, such as a proper understanding of the interrelationships between the different manuscripts and of the interest in the text, and its use by early Christian communities and by later readers. Consequently, in this paper, I will analyse the particularities of such a textual tradition and offer a few conclusions that will, in turn, contribute to the broader analysis of the Acts of Thomas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a fourth- or fifth-century narrative known as the Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin , Jesus sells the apostle Thomas as a slave to the governor of India. When the governor's wife converts to Christianity, dumps all her earthly riches outside her front door, and turns celibate, the governor has the apostle tortured and his skin flayed off, but Thomas survives, and uses his peeled-off skin to raise the dead. This paper uses Kathryn Tanner's concept of culture to compare the ideals advocated by this story – servitude to Christ, voluntary poverty, sexual abstinence, readiness to suffer, and zeal for evangelization – to ideals expressed in first-century Christian literature. The subculture expressed by the narrative is found to consist entirely of ideals also expressed in the New Testament, which are updated, recontextualized, and radicalized in order to reach an audience of fourth- or fifth-century Christians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NARRO, Ángel - POMER, Juan José. A Post-Byzantine Metaphrasis of the Greek Apocryphal Acts of Thomas entitled Life and Conduct of the Saint Apostle Thomas (BHG s.n.). This article presents the first critical edition, together with its English translation and introduction, of a post-Byzantine metaphrasis of the first two acts of the Greek Apocryphal Acts of Thomas (=ATh). This metaphrasis is based on the version BHG 1831d, which has also been recently published, and is preserved in two 16th - 17th century manuscripts (London, British Library, Add. 34554; Manchester, John Rylands University Library, gr. 24). In the first codex, f. 32 was added in the middle of the text with a fragment from a homily attributed to Patriarch Christopher of Alexandria which mentions a snake that gives a pearl to a man every day. This scene may have reminded the individual who inserted the folium here of the original and primitive ATh, more specifically the section of the Hymn of the Pearl, preserved just in one manuscript. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acts 14.20a contains a peculiar genitive absolute phrase that has been consistently overlooked by scholars and commentators. After Paul is stoned in Lystra and dragged out of the city, Luke notes that the disciples 'encircle' him before he gets up (ἀναστὰς). These disciples seem to appear from nowhere, and the standard interpretive options for their 'encircling' fall short. In this article, I evaluate all the available interpretive options and suggest that this 'encircling' is best understood as a ring-dance, an early Christian practice about which little is known today. I conclude that the ring-dance supplies the best explanation for the sudden appearance of the disciples and has some important implications both for our knowledge concerning the significance of this motif in early Christian literature as well as for Luke's characterization of Paul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay discusses political perspectives in several extrabiblical stories about the apostles: the Acts of Peter, Acts of Thekla, Acts of Paul (Ephesus and Martyrdom episodes), and Acts of John at Rome. It investigates the literary function of references to political figures, observing that their presence both decorates the literary backdrop and serves to advance the plot. The essay also argues that these narratives should not be described as "anti-imperial," drawing on Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana as a reference text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]