My Regensburg Year Part 5: December 2024

December was heavy with work (three presentations) and somewhat light on travelling (only one trip out of the city). Mind you, that’s all because we were in Regensburg for only a couple of weeks before heading home to Canada for the holidays. We also stopped in Lisbon on the way back to Germany.

First, the travelling. Ever since our doomed trip to Vienna in October (where we were “punched in the face,” as my wife likes to say, by torrential rain), we vowed to return to the city in better weather. On that first trip we had tickets to see the Vienna Boys Choir perform at the Theatre im Park but the concert was cancelled (they wear sailor suits, FFS; can’t they take a little rain?). So we booked new tickets for an indoor venue (the Hofburg Chapel). What could go wrong? Well, if my faculties were not ravaged by age, I would have suspected that a Sunday morning concert in a chapel would have meant we were going to mass. Religious rituals give this atheist the heebie-jeebies. Catholic mass in particular triggers my recovered-Catholic PTSD. But worst of all I felt cheated. I thought we would hear heavenly voices singing the songs of the season: “Carol of the Bells” or “All I Want for Christmas is You” or “Fairy Tale of New York” (imagine: 30 pre-pubescent boys belting out “You scumbag, you maggot…”). Instead we got hymns and antiphons. And we didn’t even see the choir. The chapel was too small, so they were located in an adjacent room. Okay, they sounded great, but still…

While in Vienna we also took in some Christmas markets, which were far superior to the ones we visited in Nuremberg and Regensburg. They were bright and active without being suffocating. But the city centre was incredibly busy. One waiter we spoke to who was run off his feet was surprised at how crowded Vienna had become at Christmas time. We also happened upon a Chagall exhibit at the Albertina Museum. Readers may remember our attempt to visit the Chagall Museum in Nice (it was closed for the day). So seeing Chagall in Vienna was a pleasant surprise and my wife was delighted to see her favorite piece on display. And who discovered the exhibit? Me. Hero.

As for work, I finally felt like I was earning my keep at the Beyond Canon project by participating in the annual GORE project workshop, which featured presentations from participants in Hugo Lundhaug’s Storyworlds in Transition project in Oslo and Garrick Allen’s Paratexts project in Glasgow. Tobias Nicklas asked me to join him and Hugo on a panel discussing developments in defining apocrypha. The other two panellists essentially focused on the aims of their respective projects while I mused on how I have defined apocrypha in several of my own projects over the years (for my book Secret Scriptures Revealed, the More New Testament Apocrypha series, NASSCAL’s e-Clavis, and my forthcoming introduction to Christian apocrypha for the Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library). The paper was received well and led to a lively discussion. You can read it in this previous post. Of course, workshops also feature plenty of social interaction and I was particularly pleased to meet Garrick Allen, whose work really interests me. And to my delight he invited me to Glasgow in March to present a paper.

The second of my three presentations was prepared for Beyond Canon’s weekly Scholars’ Brunch. Fellows of the project are encouraged to present on their ongoing research, so I discussed the latest chapter completed for the Anchor book. This chapter finishes off the apocryphal acts section of the book with texts featuring disciples, evangelists, and other saints (or “all the rest”). Many of these characters (such as Stephen, Titus, Luke, Cornelius, and Ananias) are given short-shrift in apocrypha collections (and the field overall) and I am determined to give them space in my book. Also squeezed into the chapter is an overview of traditions about the Dormition of the Virgin. Dormition expert Stephen Shoemaker (a newcomer to the project) was in the audience and gave me positive feedback and Scott Robertson, who is working on Titus traditions, helped me fix a few blunders. Overall, the attendees were very positive about the scope of the volume and how it expands the parameters of typical introductions.

Finally, the third presentation was for the NASSCAL First Fridays Workshop. Janet Spittler, who organizes the series, planned an entire “season” of presentations focusing on Thecla traditions. She coerced me into filling the final slot, so I used the opportunity to present another portion of the Anchor book, this one on Thecla materials from my chapter on apocryphal acts of Paul. The response this time was more critical, but helpful, which is really what I need. I asked the group some specific questions:

Does the information provided serve you as a scholar? How might it be improved?

Are there any sources missing or misrepresented?

Is it written and organized well? (Too much summary? Too encyclopedic?)

Some material will need to be cut. Where might you reduce the text?

What particularly stuck with me from the comments was Janet’s suggestion that I be more bold about making my own arguments about the material. I think I do this in other places in the book where I feel I have something to contribute, but I do want to be careful about dating the book if new theories or sources arise. I also appreciated the extensive feedback from Jean-Daniel Kaestli, who has contributed much to the study of the Thecla traditions.

We finished off our time in Regensburg with some socializing (dinner with Jan and Christine Bremmer, raclette with our neighbours Roxanne, Sam, and Florian) and then headed to Canada. But not home. Our house is rented to a family from Turkey, so we stayed at my mother’s house from where we travelled to and fro to visit family and friends. We left Canada a little early so that we could spend New Year’s Eve in a new and exciting location. And somewhere warmer. The original plan was to fly into Seville but it ended up being considerably cheaper to fly into Lisbon, so we stayed there for three days. We were quite charmed with Lisbon and enjoyed, in particular, a daytrip to nearby Sintra. The New Year’s Eve event was surprisingly similar to home: a large crowd of inebriated people packed into a city square listening to a long-in-the-tooth performer belt out his decades-old hits. We stuck it out ‘til the end so we could watch the fireworks and then headed back to the hotel. We hoped to catch a bus in the morning to Seville—I say “hoped” because our booking had been canceled twice already by the bus company (I’m talking about you Flixbus). Will we make it? Find out next month.