The Questions of Bartholomew is not to be confused with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, although either text may be the missing Gospel of Bartholomew (or neither may be), a lost work from the New Testament apocrypha.
The text survives as Greek, Latin, and Old Church Slavonic manuscripts, although each copy varies from the others considerably in the wording chosen. It is of similar style to the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine, although sensational instead of seeking to frighten. It is framed as a dialogue from Jesus to the apostles (it varies significantly as to at which stage in time between the manuscripts), instigated by a series of extremely daring and outrageous questions and requests by Bartholomew.
The text appears to have been quite popular, judging by how well it survived, perhaps due to lavish and carnal depictions of the supernatural. For example, the text implies that The Fall of Man was caused by Eve having sex with Satan.
The text draws heavily on Jewish mysticism (such as the Book of Enoch), seeking to provide an explanation of the more supernatural aspects of Christian thought at the time. However, rather than a more clinical treatment that would be expected for such a treatise, it approaches these topics in a tabloid manner, evidently seeking to be a popular work rather than one for official church teaching.
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“There is the falsely mystical view of art that assumes a kind of supernatural inspiration, a possession by universal forces unrelated to questions of power and privilege or the artist’s relation to bread and blood. In this view, the channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist’s concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“There is the falsely mystical view of art that assumes a kind of supernatural inspiration, a possession by universal forces unrelated to questions of power and privilege or the artist’s relation to bread and blood. In this view, the channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist’s concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)