Apocalypse–A complicated word. A word with varied meanings. It is a word associated with ultimate, violent, catastrophic destruction. It is also a word hidden deep in our collective psyches, placed there by two-thousand years of exposure. It is the name of the last book of the Christian Bible. One of the oldest and most revered Bibles is the Latin Vulgate “Biblia Sacra Vulgata.” The final text in this Bible is Apocalypsis Iohannis–The Apocalypsis of John–The Revelation of John–The book we call “Revelation.

In this context, the word “Apocalypse”, translated as “Revelation”, means something extraordinary was revealed to John. The first few lines of the book tells us this was the Revelation of Jesus, which God gave to John.

It may surprise you to know there were many apocalypses written. At least one, The Apocalypse of Peter, almost made it into our Bible, and is actually cited in one list of books in the Bible.

The Apocalypse of Peter is listed in the canon of the Muratorian fragment, a 2nd-century list of approved books in Christianity and one of the earliest surviving proto-canons. While the Apocalypse of Peter influenced other Christian works in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries, it eventually became considered inauthentic and declined in use. It was replaced by the Apocalypse of Paul, a popular 4th-century work heavily influenced by the Apocalypse of Peter that provides its own updated vision of heaven and hell.

The Apocalypse of Peter is an early example of the same genre of the famous Divine Comedy of Dante, wherein someone takes a tour of the realms of the afterlife and is shown heaven and hell, and the conditions of the people inhabiting these realms.

In this work, we have attempted to gather the most interesting and influential Apocalypses in the hope these books may reveal to the listener something hitherto unknown.