Top Ten Faulty Arguments in Anti-Apocrypha Apologetics (Part 2)

Several weeks ago I posted the first five of ten concerns I have about the treatment of Christian Apocrypha in recent apologetic books, books principally aimed at combating the popularity of The Da Vinci Code. Happily, that first post led to some discussion here and on April DeConick’s Forbidden Gospels blog. Hopefully, this second post will elicit more discussion. Note that I have added a few citations from the apologetic writers as examples of the phenomena—these are not meant to be exhaustive.

6. All Christian Apocrypha scholars are created equal. The apologists’ main opponents are the so-called “new school” or Harvard school featuring the likes of Elaine Pagels, Helmut Koester, and Bart Ehrman (Bock, Missing Gospels, uses this term to great effect). The tendency, though, is to characterize them as a unit, as if all of them were in agreement on every CA text. Certainly their approach is similar—i.e., they are all sympathetic to the texts and their authors/communities—but not all of them agree on such issues as the dating and origins of the literature (e.g., Ehrman disagrees with other “liberal” scholars on the dating of the Gospel of Peter). In addition, there are numerous other scholars of this literature, rarely cited, who are not as radical as the “new school” in their dating of the texts. To characterize all CA scholarship by its most radical works misrepresents the field.

7. Neglect of the “orthodox apocrypha.” The apologists focus their energy primarily on the gospels that are in the public eye—such as, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Judas. Rarely are the “orthodox apocrypha”—i.e., non-Gnostic apocryphal texts such as the infancy gospels, the Pilate cycle, and Marian apocrypha—discussed, but when they are they are mischaracterized as Gnostic (as if all rejected literature must have been Gnostic; see Komoszewski et al, Reinventing Jesus, p. 154). The problem with this is that all apocryphal literature thus appears to be written by Gnostics who, as noted previously, are trying to supplant canonical texts with their own bizarre takes on Jesus’ role and teachings. However, the orthodox apocrypha are so named because their views of Jesus, his family, and the apostles are not so different from the canonical texts and quite self-consciously attempt to supplement, not replace, the canonical texts. It is a shame to see this literature neglected, particularly since, unlike the Gnostic texts, they have enjoyed a long history of transmission and have influenced both eastern and western culture.

8. Demonizing Gnosticism scholars as modern Gnostics. The apologists sink low when they turn to insulting their opponents by calling them modern Gnostics or Neo-Gnostics (see Bock, Breaking the Da Vinci Code, p. 129; Witherington, What Have They Done, p. 47). Mind you, the CA scholars themselves may not consider this insulting, but the apologists’ audiences would see them as heretics, perhaps even as demonic (see particularly Witherington, Gospel Code, p. 74: “these scholars, though bright and sincere, are not merely wrong; they are misled. They are oblivious to the fact that they are being led down this path by the powers of darkness”). One would have to ask the individual scholars if they are truly Gnostics, but my suspicion is that they are merely sympathetic to some aspects of the Gnostic viewpoint, not believers. Is a person who studies a subject necessarily a believer in it? I study Christianity, does that make me a Christian? (Actually, I’m an atheist, an admission that my students and peers find more disturbing still).

9. Characterization of CA texts as containing “bizarre” embroidering (see Komoszewski et al, Reinventing Jesus, p. 163-166; Jenkins, Hidden Gospels, p. 105). Certainly some parts of the CA are bizarre to modern readers. But the NT texts too are pretty bizarre. The canonical gospels feature a man who is born from a virgin, speaks to voices from heaven, walks on water, multiplies food, heals afflictions, and rises from the grave. How are these things any less “bizarre” than a talking cross (Gospel of Peter) or a cursing Jesus (Infancy Thomas; see the canonical Acts for plenty of examples of cursing holy men)? We all (scholars and non-scholars) know the canonical texts so well that often we give little thought to how strange these texts are. I like to begin my courses on the Bible by encouraging the students to see the biblical texts in all their “bizarre” glory.

10. Scholarly isolationism. My final pet peeve applies to both apologists and their opponents. Both sets of scholars seem unwilling to interact with each others’ work. The apologists tend to cite themselves and their peers for support against the claims of CA scholars, while the CA scholars simply ignore the presence of the apologists and other conservative scholarship. I’ve mentioned here before that both groups can learn from each other: the CA scholars can learn from the apologists to temper their enthusiasm for the literature and resist the urge to unjustifiably (note the emphasis) elevate it above canonical literature (e.g., by dating it too early, or by preferring it as a source for the historical Jesus), whereas the apologists can open themselves up to the possibility that the texts could preserve early traditions and that the authors of the literature and their communities are worth studying for their own sake as expressions of early Christian thought and expression. There is probably some common ground upon both groups could agree. Certainly early Christianity was varied and there was intra-Christian conflict with many of the groups expressing their views in writing. Where the groups divide is on the issue of whether there existed an early orthodoxy that both originated with Jesus and the disciples and that finds its expression in the NT. To me, and many other scholars, this viewpoint goes beyond the evidence. But so too does any declaration that the non-canonical texts somehow preserve the history and viewpoints of the early Jesus movement any better than the NT.