THE APOCALYPSE OF PETER (1st - mid-2nd century) Questions.

[rakovsky]

Scholars commonly estimate the date for the Apocalypse of Peter to be from 90-150 AD and its place of writing to be Egypt. The Muratorian canon includes it, and it's accepted by Clement Alexandrine. Methodius of Olympus appears to refer to it as "Scriptures inspired by God".(Incommunion » pro-life) It survives in an incomplete Greek version and a full Ethiopian version, which is written later and differs somewhat. The Ethiopian version presents itself as written by Clement of Rome as an account by Peter to Clement of a vision.
I take it that the Greek version also presents itself as Clement's recording of Peter's account of his vision like the Ethiopian version does. But unfortunately we don't have the full Greek version and what we have doesn't mention Clement, so I can't prove that the text presents itself as written by Clement.

Roberts' and Donaldson's translation of the Greek "Akhmim" Fragment:
The Apocalypse of Peter (translation by Roberts-Donaldson)

M.R. James' Greek version with citations from Church fathers, the Ethiopic version with some of James' paraphrasing, and Book II of Christian Sybillines, which James thinks came from Apo.Peter:
The Apocalypse of Peter (translation by M. R. James)
The Apocrypal New Testament

Bart Ehrman's translation of Chapters 1-10,14-17 of the Ethiopic text:
Lost Scriptures

J.K. Elliot's edition (Following James, it abridges the ending after Chapter 17)
The Apocryphal New Testament
The Apocryphal New Testament


(Question 1) Scholars estimate that it was written at the earliest in about 90 AD because they find it closely similar to part of 4 Esdras. Due to the similarity, they propose that the Apocalypse of Peter used 4 Esdras and thus count the APocalypse of Peter as later than 4 Esdras. But couldn't the situation be the other way around and 4 Esdras incoporated the Apocalypse of Peter?
C. Muller writes that 4 Esdras

was probably used in the Apocalypse of Peter (cf. 4 Esdras 5.33 with c. 3), and 2 Peter...
The Apocalypse presumably came into being in Egypt (cf. Clement of Alexandria); the reference to the Egyptian worship of animals also points in this direction, in so far as this passage belongs to the original content. In this connection however we must refer above al to the ancient Egyptian Peter tradition (cf. esp. Berger, 275).
Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim)

One reason that 4 Esdras could be the earlier document is because much of 4 Esdras is considered to be a Jewish nonChristian writing that was later interpolated by a Christian editor. For example, 4 Esdras 7:29 is often considered to have been written by a non-Christian because it doesn't appear to account for the Messiah's crucifixion when 4 Esdras 7 goes:

Everyone who has been delivered from the evils that I have foretold shall see my wonders. 28. For my son the Messiah[d] shall be revealed with those who are with him, and those who remain shall rejoice four hundred years. 29. After those years my son the Messiah shall die, and all who draw human breath.[e] 30. Then the world shall be turned back to primeval silence for seven days, as it was at the first beginnings, so that no one shall be left.

FOOTNOTES D and E:
D: Syriac Arabic 1: Ethiopian my Messiah; Arabic 2 the Messiah; Armenian the Messiah of God; Latin: my son Jesus
E: Armenian version: "all who have continued in faith and in patience"

(Question 2) What do you think about the passage in the Apocalypse of Peter that implies that all sinners will be eventually be saved? Does this imply that their suffering in the afterlife would be something like the Catholic concept of purgatory?
The passage cites Jesus' words:

"My Father will give unto them all the life, the glory, and the kingdom that passeth not away, ... It is because of them that have believed in me that I am come. It is also because of them that have believed in me, that, at their word, I shall have pity on men... "

Wikipedia gives the following comment and cites God's words from the Apocalypse of Peter:

Thus, sinners will finally be saved by the prayers of those in heaven. Peter then orders his son Clement not to speak of this revelation since God had told Peter to keep it secret:

[and God said]"... thou must not tell that which thou hearest unto the sinners lest they transgress the more, and sin."
Apocalypse of Peter - Wikipedia

Do God's words in the passage imply that Christians in Peter's lifetime hadn't heard about the passage's teaching of universal salvation?
If so, is does this passage attempt to give an explanation of why the text has a late date (in the late 1st - mid 2nd century) of publication and isn't in the Bible?

M.R. James quotes the passage as follows with his own comments in brackets:

'The Father hath committed all judgement unto the Son.'
[The destiny of sinners -their eternal doom- is more than Peter can endure: he appeals to Christ to have pity on them.]
And my Lord answered me and said to me: 'Hast thou understood that which I said unto thee before? It is permitted unto thee to know that concerning which thou askest: but thou must not tell that which thou hearest unto the sinners lest they transgress the more, and sin.'

[Peter weeps many hours, and is at last consoled by an answer which, though exceedingly diffuse and vague does seem to promise ultimate pardon for all:]

'My Father will give unto them all the life, the glory, and the kingdom that passeth not away,' . . . 'It is because of them that have believed in me that I am come. It is also because of them that have believed in me, that, at their word, I shall have pity on men.'
From: "The Apocryphal New Testament", M.R. James-Translation and Notes, 1924

He also comments: "The doctrine that sinners will be saved at last by the prayers of the righteous is, rather obscurely, enunciated in the Second Book of the Sibylline Oracles (a paraphrase, in this part, of the Apocalypse), and in the (Coptic) Apocalypse of Elias."

(Question 3) How do you explain Jesus' rebuke to Peter about making tents?
Having the complete Greek version might make things clearer. Put together, it sounds like Peter's vision is shown to him by Jesus before Jesus' Ascension. Peter sees two prophets shining in white near Jesus and he offers to make tents for them, but Jesus rebukes Peter, saying Satan made Peter suggest this. I found this confusing. It sounds to me that Jesus' explanation of the rebuke is that people sholdn't make an artificial physical temple made by hands for Jesus to live in. Instead of Peter making the tents, it looks like God or the angels then made three tents.
Here is the text from the Ethiopic version:

I said unto him: O my Lord, wilt thou that I make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias? And he said unto me in wrath: Satan maketh war against thee, and hath veiled thine understanding; and the good things of this world prevail against thee. Thine eyes therefore must be opened and thine ears unstopped that a tabernacle, not made with men's hands, which my heavenly Father hath made for me and for the elect. And we beheld it and were full of gladness.

Peter's desire to make tents for the people does not seem bad. But the text seems to reject this as effectively being church buildings dedicated to them where they would physically live, and Jesus seems to be saying that they don't physically live in physical temples. Does this mean they only believed in having "house churches" for worship? I think instead he is just talking about heaven being a replacement for the houses where people lived on earth.

(Question 4) How do you explain that Peter in his vision sees angels and people with flesh in heaven?
One part where the Ethiopian text is complete though is at the end where apparently the Ascension occurs and right then looking into heaven he sees angels and people in flesh in heaven. This is confusing, because the General resurrection hadn't happened yet, so practically almost everyone's flesh should be still on earth then, except Eg. Enoch's and Jesus' and Elijah's, right?
Here is the relevant Ethiopic text:

And behold, suddenly there came a voice from heaven, saying: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: my commandments. And then came a great and exceeding white cloud over our heads and bare away our Lord and Moses and Elias. And I trembled and was afraid: and we looked up and the heaven opened and we beheld men in the flesh, and they came and greeted our Lord and Moses and Elias and went into another heaven. And the word of the scripture was fulfilled: This is the generation that seeketh him and seeketh the face of the God of Jacob. And great fear and commotion was there in heaven and the angels pressed one upon another that the word of the scripture might be fulfilled which saith: Open the gates, ye princes.

Thereafter was the heaven shut, that had been open.

 

[Cis.jd]

do you or anyone have a good source as to why certain books where excluded from the canon? Like what factors did the church see that eliminated these books as being inspired word?

 

[disciple Clint]

do you or anyone have a good source as to why certain books where excluded from the canon? Like what factors did the church see that eliminated these books as being inspired word?

How the Canon Was Formed - Westar Institute

 

[rakovsky]

For Question 1, Muller is referring to 4 Esdras 5:33, in which Esdras says:

Then I said, “Speak, my lord.” And he said to me, “Are you greatly disturbed in mind over Israel? Or do you love him more than his Maker does?”

He finds this similar to Chapter 3 of the Apocalypse of Peter, in which Peter has this conversation with Christ:

And I asked him and said, 'Lord, allow me to speak thy word concerning these sinners: 'It were better for them that they had not been created'."
And the Saviour answered and said "O Peter, why speakest thou thus, "that not to have been created were better for them"? Thou resistest God. Thou wouldest not have more compassion than he for his image, for he has created them and has brought them forth when they were not (probably an error for: and has brought them forth from not-being into being). And since thou has seen the lamentation which sinners shall encounter in the last days, therefore thy heart is saddened; but I will show thee their works in which they have sinned against the Most High.

Muller must see the passages as related: In the first, Esdras is concerned over Israel's penal afflictions and Uriel suggests in his reply that loves Israel even more than Uriel. In the passage in the Apocalypse of Peter, Peter is concerned over sinners' penal afflictions in Hell and Christ has a similar reaction. I see the passages as similar enough to be related.

Although I researched the topic, I couldn't find an explanation of why the passage in 4 Esdras would be the earlier one. My guess is that Muller takes this view because scholars commonly consider 4 Esdras to be a non-Christian Jewish text, and that therefore it wouldn't use a Christian text like this one. But in my mind, it hasn't been proven that 4 Esdras is necessarily non-Christian, since scholars believe that 4 Esdras has some Christian sections (its beginning and end chapters in particular).

 

[rakovsky]

As for Question 2 (What do you think of the passage on saving the sinners from Hell? Does this passage attempt to give an explanation of why the text has a late date of publication?)

P. Van Minnen writes in the anthology The Apocalypse of Peter:

Section 14.1-3 of the Ethiopic text is garbled, but a Greek fragment (see the appendix) preserves what seems a more correct version of this part of the text. In it the claim is made that believers can ask for the release of sinners out of punishment. This is a startling statement in full contradiction with the rest of the ApPt as it is known from the Ethiopic. ... In the Ethiopic text there is no room for last-minute transfers of sinners at the request of the righteous as there seems to be in the Greek fragment."

Minnen theorizes that the Greek fragment is a rewriting of the Ethiopic one "adding that believers would receive 'whomsoever they asked for' out of punishment' and that this rewriting "gave rise to the idea that the requests of believers would save some sinners out of punishment at the end of time (and not now, eg. through the conversion of the sinner prayed for)." Van Minnen takes the view that in the rewriting about the salvation of the sinners, the sinners are saved out of the suffering that they are already experiencing. She notes a similarity in the Sibylline Oracles, writing: "In Sibylline Oracles 2 the release of sinners from punishments they are already experiencing is spoken of (note the use of esauthis, 'later', in line 334)."

However, I think that Van Minnen is mistaken in thinking that the original text did not refer to the rescue of the condemned sinners or say that the believers would get "whomever" they asked for. This is because even if "whomever" is an addition and the text was just referring to the fulfillment of prayer requests by believers (since Van Minnen writes: "The first thing said about the future bliss of believers is that they will receive what they have asked for"), then we are still left with prayers like Peter's asking for the salvation of the sinners.

M.R. James summarizes an additional part of the Ethiopic text by saying:

[There is a great deal more of the Ethiopic text, but it is very evidently of later date; the next words are:] 'Peter opened his mouth and said to me: Hearken, my son Clement, God created all things for his glory,' ...
Next: ' The Father hath committed all judgement unto the Son.' [The destiny of sinners -their eternal doom- is more than Peter can endure: he appeals to Christ to have pity on them.]

And my Lord answered me and said to me: 'Hast thou understood that which I said unto thee before? It is permitted unto thee to know that concerning which thou askest: but thou must not tell that which thou hearest unto the sinners lest they transgress the more, and sin.' [Peter weeps many hours, and is at last consoled by an answer which, though exceedingly diffuse and vague does seem to promise ultimate pardon for all:] 'My Father will give unto them all the life, the glory, and the kingdom that passeth not away,' . . . 'It is because of them that have believed in me that I am come. It is also because of them that have believed in me, that, at their word, I shall have pity on men.'
...
[Ultimately Peter orders Clement to hide the revelation in a box, that foolish men may not see it.]

Other editions of the Ethiopic text do not include this part quoted above about Universal Salvation that James says is in the Ethiopic text, because it is apparently a later addition. Van Minnen doesn't discuss this later edition, saying instead that rescuing the sinners from Hell is out of keeping with the Ethiopic version. So it looks like what is happening is that the scholars are discounting this part of the Ethiopic text with Universal Salvation as a later addition and not part of the real original text. Nonetheless the concept of the salvation of the sinners as a result of the prayers of the righteous that shows up in this later addition would go along with the part of the Greek Rainier fragment in Chapter 14 in which the righteous succeed in praying for the salvation of sinners.
Bart Ehrman, in his book Forgery and Counterforgery, notes that the punishments in the Apocalypse of Peter

are retributive, not reformatory (too late for all that!); and they are eternal- a fact stressed eleven times in the older form of the Ethiopic, though edited out in the Greek, possibly because the editor had an alternative understanding of echatological realities. This final point is worth stressing. In the Ethiopic version the punishments describe what will be; in the Greek they are what is occuring in the present.

Per the Greek version, the sinners would be saved out of their current state of undergoing punishments, due to the prayers of the righteous.

Jason Pratt notes that the 3rd century Rainier fragment talks about the righteous successfully praying for the condemned sinners:

The Rainer Greek fragment from the 3rd century is more explicit, corresponding to chapter 14 of the Ethiopian text – the Akhmîm fragment completely lacks this section: “I shall grant to my summoned and elect all those whom they ask me to remove from punishment {parêsomai hon ean aitêsontai me ek tês kolaseôs}. And I shall grant them a beautiful baptism in salvation {en sôtêria} in the Acherusian Lake which is said to be in the Elysian valley, a sharing of justification {meros dikaiosunês} with my saints. And I and my elect will go and rejoice together with the Patriarch in my eternal kingdom, and with them I shall keep my promises, made by me and by my Father who is in heaven.”
Does "Apocalypse of Peter" show UR in the Early Church?

Pratt makes an interesting note that in Chapter 14 it talks about baptising the "peoples" in the Elysian Fields, because the Elysian Fields were a pagan concept. Since the peoples were undergoing baptism, it seems that the reference is to the salvation of non-Christian peoples, because Christians would already have been baptised.

In The Fate of the Dead: Studies on the Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, R. B. Bauckham prefers the Greek text of the Rainer fragment, which runs:

Then I will grant to my called and elect ones whomsoever they request from me, out of the punishment. And I will give them [i.e. those for whom the elect pray] a fine baptism in salvation from the Acherousian lake (which is, they say, in the Elysian field), a portion of righteousness with my holy ones.

Bauckman explains:

The justice of the punishment of the persecutors is a justice owed primarily to the persecuted. But in that case it is a punishment that can be remitted if the martyrs themselves desire mercy for their persecutors. ... So if it is for his people's sake that God must punish their oppressors, then for his people's sake (as SibOr 2:355, interpreting ApPet 14, states) he can save those for whom they desire mercy... One obstacle to universal salvation - that of which the apocalyptic tradition, because of its origins in situations of injustice and persecution, was most aware - is effectively removed by the compassion and forgiveness of the saints. Other obstacles are not considered, and it is not, of course, actually stated that salvation will be universal, but as extensive as the compassion of the elect.

Some part in the origin of this idea must have been played by Plato, Phaedo 114A-B, according to which a certain class of sinners, who have committed serious crimes but are curable, can escape from torment into the purifying waters of the Acherusian lake only by seeking and obtaining forgiveness from those they have injured... But it is tempting to guess that the idea found a home in a Christian apocalypse because of its coherence with the Christian tradition of forgiveness for enemies and especially of the martyrs' forgiveness for their persecutiors. If the martyrs, instead of predicting their persecutors' punishment in hell, prayed for their forgiveness, then surely (it would have been thought) they will do so all the more when their erstwhile persecutors beg their forgiveness and itnercession on the Day of Judgment.

In a footnote, Bauckman explains that the section that James quoted about Clement hiding the Apocalypse of Peter in a box is a later addition. He writes that in the Ethiopic manuscripts, the Apocalypse of Peter forms the first part of the work called "The Second Coming of Christ and the Resurrection of the Dead." He writes that the Apocalypse of Peter

is readily distinguishable from the secondary continuation which has been attached to it and which begins: 'Peter opened his mouth and said to me, 'Listen, my son Clement.'" [Its] relevance... is that [it refers] to the secret mysterym revealed by Christ to Peter, of the divine mercy to sinners secured by Christ's intercession for them at the Last Judgment. In particular this is the central theme of the... work, 'The second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead,' and was presumably inspired by the passage about the salvation of the damned in ApPet 14... The other prominent feature of the teaching is the emphatic insistence on the need to keep the eschatological mercy of God for sinners hidden from sinners in this life, since this would rob the threat of damnation of its essential deterrent function in their lives. [It] is closely linked with exegesis of Psalm 30:20, and fulfils the apologetic function of explaining why universal salvation is not clearly taught in Scripture.)

 

[rakovsky]

For Question 3 (Why does Jesus rebuke Peter for suggesting making tents for Him, Moses, and Elijah?) I would answer: The account, in which Jesus rebukes Peter and opens Peter's eyes to see His tabernacle not made with hands, is based at least partly on the Gospels' story of the Transfiguration. There, Moses and Elijah talk to Jesus, and in Luke 9:33 records: "Then it happened, as they were parting from Him, that Peter said to Jesus, 'Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah'—not knowing what he said." In the Gospel story, Jesus does not respond to Peter's offer to make booths or tabernacles.
The idea that God does not have a house made with human hands shows up in New Testament passages like Acts 7:48-50, which runs:

However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands. As the prophet [Isaiah] says: ‘Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. What kind of house will you build for Me, says the Lord, or where will My place of repose be? Has not My hand made all these things?’

A related passage is 2 Cor. 5:1, which runs: "Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is dismantled, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands."
In the Ethiopic text of the Apocalypse of Peter, the disciples go up with Jesus to the Holy Mountain and see two shining men there, Moses and Elijah. The disciples ask about the other righteous fathers. Peter recounts:

And he showed us a great garden, open, full of fair trees and blessed fruits, and of the odour of perfumes. The fragrance thereof was pleasant and came even unto us. And thereof (al. of that tree) . . . saw I much fruit. And my Lord and God Jesus Christ said unto me: " Hast thou seen the companies of the fathers? As is their rest, such also is the honour and the glory of them that are persecuted for my righteousness' sake."

And I rejoiced and believed [and believed] and understood that which is written in the book of my Lord Jesus Christ. And I said unto him: "O my Lord, wilt thou that I make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias?"

And he said unto me in wrath: "Satan maketh war against thee, and hath veiled thine understanding; and the good things of this world prevail against thee. Thine eyes therefore must be opened and thine ears unstopped that a tabernacle, not made with men's hands, which my heavenly Father hath made for me and for the elect." And we beheld it and were full of gladness. And behold, suddenly there came a voice from heaven, saying: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased:"

The sense is that whereas Peter wanted to build tabernacles for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, Peter's understanding had been shut by Satan, since the tabernacle or house of God (Christ being God), is not made by hands.

In his 1994 essay on the Apocalypse of Peter, Bauckman explains that the account is not actually of the Biblical Transfiguration, but rather a post-resurrection meeting with Moses and Elijah that is based on the Transfiguration story. Bauckman notes that following Peter's statement about the tabernacles, Jesus opens Peter's eyes and Peter sees the tabernacle not made by hands. Bauckman writes: "By this double revelation - of the tend not made with hands and of Jesus as God's son - the veil Satan has cast over Peter's mind is removed and he is shown the truth."
Further, the voice from heaven opens Peter's ears by revealing that Jesus is God's Son. Hence, He is a divine being whose house is not an earthly tabernacle.
Bauckham notes that both in the Apocalypse of Peter and in 2 Peter, Peter says that He saw the Transfiguration on the Holy Mountain. Bauckham theorizes that the "Holy Mountain" where they saw the vision was actually the Temple Mount, since its location, "Mount Zion", is the only place in the Old Testament called the "Holy Mountain". Bauckham interprets this as an instruction against building a physical, literal tabernacle for God on the Temple Mount after the destruction of the Second Temple.

 

[rakovsky]

Regarding Question 4 (How do you explain that Peter in his vision sees angels and people with flesh in heaven?), to understand this part of the apocalypse, R.B. Bauckman looks to Psalm 24, which is the "scripture" cited in the passage. The passage runs:

And a very large, very white cloud, came over our heads and took away our Lord, Moses and Elijah. I trembled and was terrified. We looked up [and saw] that the heaven opened, and we saw people in the flesh. They came to meet our Lord, Moses and Elijah, and they went into the second heaven. And the words of scripture were fulfilled: "This generation seeks him; it seeks the face of the God of Jacob". [Ps 23:6 LXX] There was great fear and great terror in heaven, and the angels flocked together, so that the words of scripture might be fulfilled, which says: "Open the doors, O princes!" [Ps 23:7, 9 LXX] Then that heaven which had been opened was closed.

Bauckhman comments:

Jesus, Moses and Elijah are joined, in the first heaven, by «people in the flesh », and proceed, accompanied by them, into the second heaven. These «people in the flesh» are then identified as the people to whom Psalm 23:6 (LXX) refers. The importance of this reference lies in the fact that in the psalm the reference is to the people who are able to enter God's presence in the temple (v. 3). The author of the Apocalypse of Peter has taken this to be the heavenly sanctuary, in which God dwells in the highest heaven.

[Jesus enters the heavenly sanctuary,] of course, along with the people in the flesh. Whereas Justin and Irenaeus, who quote only v. 7-10 of the psalm, speak only of the angelic doorkeepers of heaven admitting Jesus the king of glory into heaven, the author of the Apocalypse of Peter, by referring also to verse 6 of the psalm, finds in it a depiction of Jesus' taking with him those who are permitted to ascend to God's heavenly sanctuary. In this way his portrayal of the ascension is able to bring together all three themes of the earlier revelations on mount Zion [in the Apocalypse of Peter]: the true people of God who will be glorified with the patriarchs (15:2-16:6), the true temple in heaven which the Father has made for Jesus and his elect (16:7-9), and the true Messiah Jesus (17:1). In his ascension, the Messiah takes his people with him into the heavenly temple.

But who are the «people in the flesh» who meet Jesus in the first heaven? They must be righteous people of the past whom Jesus in his descent to Hades and his resurrection delivered from death. Other second-century texts attest the view that many ofthe righteous dead left Hades with Christ at his resurrection(OdesSol 42:11) and ascended to heaven with him at his ascension (Asclsa 9:17; cf. Origen, Comm. in Rom. 5:10). According to a saying which occurs quite widely in patristic literature, he descended alone but ascended with a great multitude (Acts of Thaddeus, ap. Eusebius, Hist. Ecc!. 1.13.20; Melito, New frag. 2.17; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 14.18; Ps.-Ignatius, Trail. 9; Armenian Acts of Callistratus 9). Moreover, there is good evidence that originally the conception was of an actual resurrection of dead people with Christ. Language normally reserved for bodily resurrection is used (Ignatius, Magn. 9.2; Melito, Peri Pascha 101; New frag. 2.12, 15; Origen, Comm. in Rom. 5:10; Irenaeus, frag. 26, which connects this resurrection of the saints with Matt 27:52). So the Apocalypse of Peter's reference to «people in the flesh» is entirely in line with this tradition. Presumably they are envisaged as having risen from the dead with Christ at his resurrection, and then, during the period of his resurrection appearances to the disciples, waiting in the first heaven until they can ascend with him through the heavens.

SOURCE: R.B. Bauckman, The Apocalypse of Peter, 1994, https://preteristarchive.com/Books/...se-of-peter-a-jewish-christian-apocalypse.pdf

Bauckman is citing Matthew 27:52, which says: "And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose". Among other patristic writers, Bauckman cites St. Ignatius' Epistle to the Magnesians, in which Ignatius asks rhetorically, "how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, having come, raised them from the dead." Bauckman also cites Irenaeus' Fragment 26, wherein Irenaeus quotes the story of Elisha rescuing an iron axe out of water: "And the man of God [Elisha] said, Where did it fall? And he showed him the place. And he cut down a tree, and cast it in there, and the iron floated." (2 Kings 6:6) Irenaeus writes:

This was a sign that souls should be borne aloft (ἀναγωγῆς ψυχῶν) through the instrumentality of wood, upon which He suffered who can lead those souls aloft that follow His ascension. This event was also an indication of the fact, that when the holy soul of Christ descended [to Hades], many souls ascended and were seen in their bodies. Matthew 27:52 For just as the wood, which is the lighter body, was submerged in the water; but the iron, the heavier one, floated: so, when the Word of God became one with flesh, by a physical and hypostatic union, the heavy and terrestrial [part], having been rendered immortal, was borne up into heaven, by the divine nature, after the resurrection.

 

[rakovsky]

I don't think that I am going to find a better answer to Question 1 than what I already found, ie. that the scholars are assuming that 4 Esdras 5 is non-Christian and therefore wouldn't have based its passage on the Apocalypse of Peter.

 

[Joy]

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