Praise for The Protoevangelium of James (Annotated): The Non-canonical Infancy Gospel (Annotated with Cross-References) “True to Expectations—This simple and short paperback arrived quickly. It is an academic study with cross references and foot notes. It was certainly worth the purchase.” “Amazing— What a great and accessible story! Everyone should read this! I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of it until this year.” This volume includes both the Non-canonical Infancy Gospel (Annotated with Cross-References) and the Letters of St. Ignatius (Annotated). Here is a critically annotated edition with helpful notes and cross-references to other relevant canonical biblical texts. This important text, one of the most popular and influential among the New Testament apocryphal, has now gotten even better. This famous Infancy Gospel that has the Christ child in a cave, tells us Mary's upbringing and her parents, and discloses Joseph and Mary's betrothal, is now available in a fresh new edition. From the 1917 edition: This Gospel is ascribed to James. The allusions to it in the ancient Fathers are frequent, and their expressions indicate that it had obtained a very general credit in the Christian world. The controversies founded upon it chiefly relate to the age of Joseph at the birth of Christ, and to his being a widower with children, before his marriage with the Virgin. It seems material to remark, that the legends of the latter ages affirm the virginity of Joseph, notwithstanding Epiphanius, Hilary, Chrysostom, Cyril, Euthymius, Thephylact, Occumenius, and indeed all the Latin Fathers till Ambrose, and the Greek Fathers afterwards, maintain the opinions of Joseph's age and family, founded upon their belief in the authenticity of this book. It is supposed to have been originally composed in Hebrew. Postellus brought the MS. of this Gospel from the Levant, translated it into Latin, and sent it to Oporimus, a printer at Basil, where Bibliander, a Protestant Divine, and the Professor of Divinity at Zurich, caused it to be printed in 1552. Postellus asserts that it was publicly read as canonical in the eastern churches, they making no doubt that James was the author of it. It is, nevertheless, considered apocryphal by some of the most learned divines in the Protestant and Catholic churches. "The documents in this book are the work of several accepted Christian apostles, and their theme is close to that of the New Testament, that is that Christ was the Son of God and that he died and rose to purge mankind of its sins. These ecclesiastical writings of early Christian authorities... were omitted from the authorized New Testament. They are published here as a matter of record... and are of great antiquity." Letters of St. Ignatius The original texts of six of the seven original letters are found in the Codex Mediceo Laurentianus, written in Greek in the 11th century (which also contains the pseudepigraphical letters of the Long Recension, except that to the Philippians), while the letter to the Romans is found in the Codex Colbertinus. Ignatius's letters bear signs of being written in great haste, such as run-on sentences and an unsystematic succession of thought. Ignatius modelled them after the biblical epistles of Paul, Peter, and John, quoting or paraphrasing these apostles' works freely. For example, in his letter to the Ephesians he quoted 1 Corinthians 1:18: Let my spirit be counted as nothing for the sake of the cross, which is a stumbling-block to those that do not believe, but to us salvation and life eternal. —Letter to the Ephesians 18, Roberts and Donaldson translation[50] (from wikipedia)