Heresy Hunting in SBL Forum
The paper I presented at 2008 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, "Heresy Hunting in the New Millennium", appears in an edited, popularized form in the current volume of the SBL Forum. It can be accessed HERE.
Thanks Tony,
Very interesting stuff. I have a question about the manuscript transmission which shows that Christians have combined both accepted and censured texts – what are you thinking of here?(you said: “the fact remains that throughout history Christians have combined both accepted and censured texts in a variety of ways, including art and iconography, popular literature, and manuscript transmission.”)
The best examples are Codex Siniaticus and Codex Alexandrinus (though the extra texts in these Mss may not have been considered “censured” in their time and place). Also, consider the biblical manuscripts that contain the Letter of Lentulus. And there are numerous examples of Mss which combine apocryphal texts, excerpts from biblical texts, and other materials. It is also possible that are early fragmentary texts are from Mss that contain both what are later called “canonical” and “non-canonical” (there’s no way to know, of course, but we should also not assume that it was not possible).
You will have to help me on ‘the biblical manuscripts that contain the Letter of Lentulus’. Which ones are these?
Sorry Peter, I accidentally wrote Lentulus instead of the Laodiceans, which is found in some Biblical Mss including (from Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament): Fuldensis, Cavensis, and Ardmachanus.
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