$52.00

This book offers the first full length treatment of the Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles, a Nag Hammadi text discovered in 1945. It applies source, form and redaction criticism to consider such issues as genre and redactional composition. In addition, the author breaks new ground by postulating a communal setting and provenance, providing a meticulous and specific experiment in dating a Nag Hammadi text. The study proposes a Sitz im Leben for the text, attempts to reconstruct the community that produced it, and postulates a date and location for the final redaction of the text-Alexandria in the years immediately following the infamous Decian persecution of CE 249-51. This work will interest those in the areas of Nag Hammadi, gnosticism and Christian origins. The author addresses scholarly issues in a clear, simple and orderly manner accessible to non-experts as well as specialists.