Hebrews, Gospel According to the James, Protevangelium of Joseph the Carpenter, History of Marcion, Gospel of Matthias, Gospel of Nazarenes, Gospel of the Peter, Gospel of Philip, Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of There are also some apocryphal Acts, which are purported to be accounts of apostolic achievements not recorded in Scripture. Such "Acts" are the source of much tradition such as Peter's being crucified upside down and Thomas's mission to India. The reliability of the traditions is questionable because the writings contain clearly unorthodox material. Yet small fragments of accurate information may be embedded in this mass of largely fictitious literature. Because of their often heretical character, the church consistently reacted against such books, sometimes even demanding that they be burned (for example, at the Nicene Council of 787). The Acts of John pictured Jesus talking to John on the Mount of Olives during the crucifixion, explaining that it was only a spectacle. In the Acts of Thomas, Jesus appeared in the form of Thomas, exhorting a newly married couple to dedicate themselves to virginity. Sexual abstinence was a dominant theme, reflecting Platonic ideas, which disparaged the physical body. Many scholars date the earliest work, the Acts of John, before a.d. 150. The major Acts (of John, Paul, Peter, Andrew, and Thomas) were probably written during the second and third centuries. These gave rise to other Acts that were primarily miracle stories, written more to entertain than to teach. Works classified in one way or another under the heading of Acts include: Abdias, Apostolic History of Andrew, Acts of Andrew, Story of Andrew and Matthias, Acts of Andrew and Paul, Acts of Barnabas, Acts of Bartholomew, Acts of James, Ascents of John, Acts of John, Acts of, by Prochorus Martyrs, Acts of Matthew, Acts and Martyrdom of Paul, Passion of Paul and Thecla, Acts of
from Syriac, Greek, and Coptic sources in the seventh to the ninth centuries. Arab writers say that John I, a Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch (631-648), translated the Gospels from Syriac into Arabic. Another John, Bishop of Seville in Spain, is said to have produced Arabic Gospels from the Vulgate around 724. The final form of the Arabic New Testament rested most heavily on the Coptic Bohairic. Because of their late date and mixed background, Arabic texts have had little importance in textual studies. Slavonic Version Though the Slavs were one of the great ethnic groups contiguous to the centers of early Christianity, Bible translations into Slavonic cannot be traced earlier than the ninth century. Two brothers, Constantine and Methodius, sons of a Greek nobleman, began by putting church liturgy into Slavonic. With the approval of popes Adrian II and John VIII (as noted above), they translated the Bible. Constantine (who later changed his name to Cyril, 827-869) and Methodius (826-885) worked among the Slavs and Moravians. Constantine invented the alphabet that bears his saint name—Cyrillic—to facilitate the translation. Manuscript portions from the tenth or eleventh centuries survive, but the oldest manuscript of the whole Bible is the Codex Gennadius in Moscow, which is dated 1499 and is too late to be of much value for textual study. Bibliography Ackroyd, P. R. and C. F. Evans, eds. The Cambridge History of the Bible, Volume I, From the Beginnings to Jerome, 1975. Greenslade, S. L, ed. The Cambridge History of the Bible, Volume III, The West from the Reformation to the Present Day, 1975. Lampe, G. W., ed. The Cambridge History of the Bible, Volume II, The West from the Fathers to the Reformation, 1975. Metzger, Bruce. The Text of the New Testament—Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 1968. ————. The Early Versions of the New Testament—Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations, 1977. Price, Ira Maurice. The Ancestry of Our English Bible, 1956. Weiser, Arthur. The Old Testament: Its Formation and Development, 1968.