Philip Jenkins on Christian Apocrypha in Medieval Britain

April 22, 2013 by Tony

Philip Jenkins, author of (among other things) Hidden Gospels:How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way (Oxford 2001), has contributed a post to the patheos blog entitled "The First English Bible." The title is somewhat misleading; Jenkins discusses the apocryphal texts circulating in Anglo-Saxon England and Ireland in medieval times, but it is a stretch to consider these texts part of the "English Bible." Certainly canonical and non-canonical texts were both valued and used but not in a single collection and not without a sense that some texts are more valued, more authoritative than others.

An Abridged Martyrium of Cornelius the Centurion

April 19, 2013 by Tony

While working today on my translation of the Greek manuscripts of the Martyrium of Cornelius the Centurion, I happened upon an online abridged version of the text in English. The text appears, often without acknowledgement of the source, on several sites dedicated to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. It seems to have originated from a translation by Stephen Janos of volume three of the series Reference Book for Clergy-Servers [Nastol’naya Kniga Svyaschennosluzhitelya] published by the Moscow Patriarchate, Moscow 1978 & 1979. I am curious about the original source for the tale since it does not match any of the Greek Mss in my possession (though it may simply be an abridgement made from the manuscript published by J.-P. Migne). Here is the text:

The Martyrium of Cornelius, the Centurion

Soon after the Lord Jesus Christ's Ascension into Heaven, a centurion by the name of Cornelius settled at Caesarea in Palestine, who had lived previously in Thracian Italy. Although he was a pagan, he distinguished himself by deep piety and good deeds, as the holy Evangelist Luke records in Acts 10:1. The Lord did not disdain his virtuous life and led him to the knowledge of truth through the enlightening light of faith in Christ.

Once, Cornelius was at prayer in his home. An angel of God appeared to him and said that his prayer had been heard and accepted by God. The angel commanded him to send people to Joppa to Simon, called Peter. Cornelius immediately fulfilled the command. While those …

New Blog Activity on Ps.-Cyril’s On the Passion

March 22, 2013 by Tony

Michael Heiser of PaleoBabble has posted a short entry criticizing the "sensational" coverage of the recently published apocryphon on the Passion of Christ attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem (discussed in this previous post). Frankly, I thought the article was relatively tame in its coverage and allowed the author/editor of the text, Roelof van den Broek, an excellent opportunity to promote his work (and Jim Davila at Paleojudaica appears to agree with me).

Van den Broek has also contributed a guest post to Alin Suciu's blog outlining the contents of the edition and providing a photograph of one of the manuscripts he used to reconstruct the text.

Christian Apocrypha at the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies

April 3, 2013 by Tony

The 2013 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies will take place in Victora, BC June 1-4. For the first time, the society is including a session on the Christian Apocrypha. We hope that there will be sufficient interest in the session to continue it into future years. This will depend, of course, on the willingness of society members to contribute papers on the texts. One of my professional goals is to encourage and support scholarship on the Christian Apocrypha in North America (with a soft spot for Canada in particular). So, I would like to see this initiative succeed. Here are the papers for this year's session:

Sunday, June 2 / Dimanche, 2 Juin
8:30-11:45 (B211)
CHRISTIAN APOCRYPHA / CHRÉTIEN APOCRYPHES
Chair / Président: C. Callon (Toronto)

8:30-9:00 John Horman

“A literary relationship between Thomas and Q”

A literary relationship between Thomas and Q is plausible because of close verbal parallels. There are, however, also difficulties. First, the passages where a relationship could be defended are short, and could have been transmitted orally. Second, most of the text of Q, including some dominant themes in Matthew and Luke’s version of Q, is unrepresented in Thomas. Third, the Q sayings found in Thomas do not at first glance seem to suit any current literary stratification of Q. When, however, we take Thomas’ literary method into account, it is clear that Thomas has used a form of Q.

9:00-9:30 Tony Burke (York University)

“Expansions on the Acts …

Newly-Published Coptic Passion Apocryphon Features a Shape-Shifting Jesus

March 13, 2013 by Tony

The online magazine Live-Science features an article on Roelof van den Broek's new book Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem on the Life and the Passion of Christ (Brill, 2013). The text, based on two Coptic manuscripts, contains a number of interesting variations on the story of Jesus' arrest, trial, and crucifixion–including the placement of Jesus' arrest on Tuesday (rather than Thursday), the need for Judas to kiss Jesus because Jesus often changed his form, and mention of Jesus and Pilate sharing a meal on the night of his trial. The narrator claims to have found these details in a text "found written in the house of Mary." Read the complete article HERE (with thanks to Brent Landau for passing along the information).

A Review of Mark Goodacre’s “Thomas and the Gospels”

March 12, 2013 by Tony

Mark Goodacre, well-known in biblio-blogging circles as the voice behind the NTBlog and in Synoptic Problem circles as a vocal advocate of the Farrer-Goulder Hypothesis, forwarded to me a copy of his latest book Thomas and the Gospels: The Case for Thomas’s Familiarity with the Synoptics (Eerdmans/SPCK, 2012). Much like Goodacre’s The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze (2010), Thomas and the Gospels addresses a complex topic in an economy of space (only 226 pages) and with highly readable and lively prose. No-one but Mark Goodacre could get away with slipping a Doctor Who reference into a scholarly work (see p. 122; note also his amusing mention of the Beatles on p. 194); his appeal to pseudonymous blogger N. T. Wrong is testament also to Goodacre’s lack of pretention (p. 140). I hope readers will forgive me for the length of this review, but Goodacre's arguments demand substantial discussion (and even this review is somewhat cursory in places). To learn more about the book from Goodacre himself, watch this video trailer at NTBlog.

Goodacre brings a different perspective to the question of Thomas’s dependence on (he prefers “familiarity with”) the Synoptics. For one, as a critic of the Two/Four Source Hypothesis, he does not believe in the existence of Q; without this other sayings gospel, Goodacre’s arguments about the genre, dating, and sources of Thomas are bound to be different. And second, though he joins North American apologetic scholars in arguing that Thomas is secondary to the Synoptics, …

Secret Scriptures Revealed: Thoughts on Writing for Non-Specialists, Part 4

March 4, 2013 by Tony

The final chapter of SSR is titled “Myths, Misconceptions, and Misinformation about the Christian Apocrypha.” It is a distillation of my previous work on the conflict between liberal scholarship on the Christian Apocrypha and its apologetic critics, a conflict occasioned by the publication of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and news of several subsequent discoveries of apocryphal texts (the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, and the recent surge of interest in Secret Mark). But liberal scholars have propagated their own “myths, misconceptions, and misinformation,” and I spend time responding to these also. The discussion is arranged as responses to ten statements:

1. The Christian Apocrypha were all written after the texts of the New Testament, or

2. The Christian Apocrypha were all written before the texts of the New Testament.

3. The Christian Apocrypha are “forgeries,” written in the name of apostles.

4. The Christian Apocrypha were written by Gnostics.

5. The Christian Apocrypha claim that Jesus was not divine.

6. The Christian Apocrypha are bizarre and fanciful compared to the canonical gospels.

7. The Christian Apocrypha were written to undermine or replace the canonical texts.

8. The Christian Apocrypha were enormously popular before their suppression by a powerful minority in the Church.

9. The Christian Apocrypha are being used to rewrite Christian history.

10. Reading the Christian Apocrypha is harmful to one’s faith.

Many of these statements have been addressed in previous blog posts (begin HERE) from the time I was …

Cracked.com Lists “Miracles Too Awesome for the Bible”

February 26, 2013 by Tony

Satirical web site Cracked.com recently posted an article on "Five Miracles Deleted From the Bible for Being Too Awesome" (HERE). Included in the list are the story of the bed bugs from the Acts of John, the talking cross from the Gospel of Peter, and, surprisingly, Jesus as a talking star from the Revelation of the Magi.

“Secret Scriptures Revealed” Coming in June

February 15, 2013 by Tony

SSR Catalog

My popular-audience introduction to the Christian Apocrypha is listed in the new SPCK catalog (see above) for release in June. For more on the project see the series of posts HERE (1) HERE (2) and HERE (3).

Secret Mark Symposium Papers on Amazon

February 13, 2013 by Tony

Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery? The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate is now available on Amazon in the US and Canada. Canadians should be cautioned that ordering the book directly from the publisher (Cascade) will incur high postage charges. Amazon or other Canadian distributors are recommended.

Timo Paananen, “From Stalemate to Deadlock” on Secret Mark

January 25, 2013 by Tony

Timo Paananen, administrator of the Salainen evankelista blog, has provided an overview of research on Secret Mark for the journal Currents in Biblical Research (see HERE for an abstract of the article). It is an excellent overview of recent research on the text (with a little on early currents also). What Paananen does best here is bring attention to the deplorable way that scholars of Secret Mark have engaged with one another over the text. However, he seems unable to resist poking a little fun at proponents of the forgery hypotheses by associating them with fringe scholarship. He says,

Scholars are, to my mind, all too willing to accept the notion that Clement’s Letter to Theodore is full of obscure ‘hidden clues’, illuminating the path to the solution of an ingenious textual puzzle. The old philosophical adage, ‘no difference without distinction’, is not firmly held here. It is perfectly understandable if biblical scholars are largely unaware of the
Shadow Academia, a category under which all sorts of pseudoscientific, pseudohistorical and fringe scholarship in the (paranoid) style of conspiracy theorizing is produced. Proponents of the hoax hypothesis should aim to argue why the particular clues Carlson and Watson have unearthedshould be taken any more seriously than similar clues by fringe scholars,
disclosing true identities of this and that author. Specifically, this would mean differentiating the hoax hypothesis from Barbara Thiering’s Jesus the Man (1992), Joseph Atwill’s satirical reading of the Gospels, Lena Einhorn’s theories that Jesus was also Paul, the various

…

Secret Mark Symposium Papers Now Available

January 23, 2013 by Tony

My copies of Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery? The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate arrived in the mail yesterday. These are the papers presented at the first York Christian Apocrypha Symposium in 2011. The book can be ordered from Wipf & Stock customer service now, from Wipf & Stock online in 2 weeks, and Amazon in 6-8 weeks. The price is $42. The catalog entry can be found HERE.

The book has received some glowing endorsements. John Kloppenborg says of it, "Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery? brings together most of the key supporters and detractors of the authenticity of the Secret Gospel of Mark in a balanced, probing, and illuminating book…Although this book, carefully crafted by Burke, cannot be said to have brought closure on the issue, it has laid to rest many of the specious and illogical claims that have littered the discussion until now. We can only hope that the ground has now been cleared for a more balanced and scientific discussion of the Mar Saba manuscript." And Bart Ehrman says, "The debate over the Secret Gospel of Mark rages on. Did Morton Smith discover this text, or did he forge it? This terrific collection of essays presents leading voices from both sides of the controversy, stating their views, marshaling the evidence, and allowing readers to pass their own verdicts."

This is a good opportunity, too, to remind everyone of the second York Christian Apocrypha Symposium that will take place (if funding comes through) May …

International Colloquium on The Life of Adam and Eve

January 18, 2013 by Tony

The Association pour l’étude de la littérature apocryphe chrétienne and the Institut romand des sciences bibliques at Université de Lausanne are partnering for an international colloquium on "The Life of Adam and Eve and Adamic Traditions." The colloquium will take place January 7-10, 2014. To participate, see HERE for the official call for papers.

Secret Scriptures Revealed! Thoughts on Writing for Non-Specialists, part 3

January 18, 2013 by Tony

This is the third in a series of reflections on the writing of my latest project, Secret Scriptures Revealed: A New Introduction to the Christian Apocrypha. The book, to be published later this year by SPCK, is intended for a popular readership. To read the two previous posts see HERE and HERE.

Chapters three to five of Secret Scriptures Revealed contain summaries of a wide variety of texts from the Christian Apocrypha. I intentionally wanted to broaden the scope of texts from what are typically found in surveys of the literature. These surveys normally focus on gospels, and primarily gospels dated to the first three centuries. My views of the field have been influenced by recent attempts at redefining “Christian Apocrypha” that call for abandoning the terminology “New Testament Apocrypha,” terminology which narrows the scope of inquiry to texts composed before the formation of the western canon and that are similar in form to New Testament texts. My survey, then, aims to include as broad a range of texts as possible, in particular to bring some attention to texts that have received little attention in the past.

This is easier said than done. Restricted to 55,000 words, I have little space for that kind of breadth. I need to keep my discussion to three chapters of 10,000 words each. But how do I divide the literature? By genre—gospels, acts/letters, and apocalypses? By theology—orthodox, Jewish-Christian, and gnostic? The first option again follows New Testament categories, and the second is …

The Christian Apocrypha for Mormons

December 10, 2012 by Tony

Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture features an article by John Gee on "The Apocryphal Acts of Jesus." The abstract reads,

Numerous noncanonical accounts of Jesus’s deeds exist. While some Latter-day Saints would like to find plain and precious things in the apocryphal accounts, few are to be found. Three types of accounts deal with Jesus as a child, his mortal ministry, or after his resurrection. The Jesus of the infancy gospels does not act like the Jesus of the real gospels. The apocryphal accounts of Jesus’s ministry usually push a particular theological agenda. The accounts of Jesus’s post-resurrection teaching often contain intriguing but bizarre information. On the whole, apocryphal accounts of Jesus’s ministry probably contain less useful information for Latter-day Saints than they might expect.

Be warned: this is a theological/polemical discussion of the texts. And, no surprise, the texts are not treated with proper scholarly rigor. From the conclusion: "Like cream-puffs, most apocryphal accounts of Jesus, though they look enticing, have little nourishment and are usually are not as good nor even as sweet as they look, being dusty pastry filled with imitation cream."