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Ezekiel sees a valley of dry bones and is told to prophesy over them so they live again. The Apocalypse of Peter cites this scene as proof of resurrection, quoting “Son of man, prophesy upon the bones” and adding joints and sinews.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Ezekiel 37:4
Hebrew Bible
3 He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said to him, “Sovereign Lord, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and tell them: ‘Dry bones, listen to the Lord’s message. 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: Look, I am about to infuse breath into you and you will live.
Apocalypse of Peter 1:13
Revelation of Peter
Early Christian
12 He will command the wild beasts and the birds to restore all the flesh that they have devoured, because he wills that all people should appear; for nothing perishes before God, and nothing is impossible with him, because all things are his. 13 For all things come to pass on the day of decision, on the day of judgment, at the word of God: and as all things were done when he created the world and commanded all that is in it and it was done — so also will it be in the last days; for all things are possible with God. Therefore he says in the scripture: Son of man, prophesy upon the bones and say to the bones: bone to bone in joints, sinews, nerves, flesh and skin and hair on them, and soul and spirit. 14 And soul and spirit will the great Uriel give them at the commandment of God; for God has set him over the rising again of the dead at the day of judgment.
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Notes and References
... The source of the quotation has been hardly ever discussed, though Buchholz suggests that it may not have been taken directly from Ezekiel but from an apocryphal work based on Ezekiel. Oddly enough, it has not been mentioned among the various sources in early Christian literature which might derive from the Apocryphon of Ezekiel. This is probably because scholars have paid so little attention to the Apocalypse of Peter. But the quotation, despite its obvious relationship to Ezekiel 37:3-14, diverges so much from that passage that the question of an apocryphal source ought to be raised, especially as it is the only formal scriptural quotation in the Apocalypse of Peter and therefore might reasonably be expected to be relatively accurate. The source of the quotation can now be identified as the Ezekiel apocalypse (designated Second Ezekiel or Pseudo-Ezekiel) which is extant in small fragments from Qumran Cave 4 (4Q385-391). ...
Bauckham, Richard
The Fate of the Dead: Studies on the Jewish and Christian Apocalypses
(pp. 262-263) Brill, 1998
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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