Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library

Anchor Bible Report 17: James the Less

February 23, 2023 by Tony

It is Reading Week here in Canada, which means a break from teaching and a chance to get back to some (albeit very little) writing. I managed to finish off a section of my Anchor Bible project on apocrypha related to James the Less.

Besides the well-known apostle James, son of Zebedee (often called James the Great or Elder), three other men by the name of James appear in the New Testament Gospels: 1. James, son of Alphaeus, who is listed as one of the Twelve in all three Synoptics, 2. James the Less or Younger, who is said to be the son of Mary (not the Virgin, but identified, via John 19:25, as Mary, wife of Clopas and cousin to the Virgin Mary) and brother to Joseph/Joses (Matt 27:56; Mark 15:40), and 3. James the Righteous/Just, brother of Jesus. Often these three figures are conflated, so James Alphaeus’s place among the apostles is frequently supplanted by Jesus’ brother, despite the apparent lack of interest in Jesus’ ministry shown by him and his brothers in the canonical Gospels. Outside of the Gospels, James the Just appears also in Acts, Galatians (in both described as the “brother of the Lord”), and as the author of an epistle (calling himself “a servant of God and of Jesus Christ”). Because of the confusion of the Jameses, there are very few apocryphal texts and traditions about the son of Alphaeus. James the Just fares better, but much of what is said about him derives …

Anchor Bible Report 16: The Acts of Philip

December 14, 2022 by Tony

I have spent the past three weeks or so compiling information on the various traditions about the apostle Philip. The main one of course is the Acts of Philip, but there are also texts in Coptic (and from this Arabic and Ethiopic), Latin, and Irish. They will lead off my chapter on “other” apocryphal acts—that is, not the five “great” acts (Andrew, John, Peter, Paul, and Thomas) and related texts. This decision is based mostly on issues of space: the chapter on the big five is already really too long. But placing Philip in this “other” chapter is really a disservice to Acts Phil.

The text has been championed by only a few previous scholars—chiefly François Bovon and Christopher Matthews. M. R. James (1924: 438–39) early on declared that Acts Phil. belongs to the “secondary” stage of development of the apocryphal acts because it borrows material from the earlier texts, including part of the hymn material from the Acts of John and the Peter’s speech from the cross from the Acts of Peter. But Acts Phil. is still pretty early, likely composed not long after the others (fourth century but drawing upon material from the third). The diminishing of its importance has resulted in its virtual exclusion from Christian apocrypha collections, or at least the English compendia, which only present portions or summaries. But don’t despair, English readers can find it in the affordable translation by Bovon and Matthews (2012). And it’s worth seeking out, because this text …

Anchor Bible Report 15: The Apocryphal Lives of the Companions of Paul

November 14, 2022 by Tony

As my readers on Twitter are aware, I have been posting reports on my latest project: an introduction to Christian apocrypha for the Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. I am back to the project after taking a month to complete the indices to More New Testament Apocrypha vol. 3, but I feel . . . disenchanted with Twitter lately and thought I would switch the forum for these reports to my neglected blog. There are no megalomaniacs or racists here, and no one to tell me how many characters I can use.

This past week I turned my attention away from the five “great” apocryphal acts and worked on some later acts focusing on the companions of Paul: Barnabas, Timothy, and Titus. I figured these texts would make a gentle re-entry into the project. All three main texts appear in MNTA 1 and have companion e-Clavis entries, so the scholarship should be up-to-date. Well, it’s been more difficult than I thought.

Joseph Barnabas appears in Acts as an “apostle” (14:14) and early recruit of the church in Jerusalem. He is introduced as a Jew from Cyprus who gave all of his money to the church (Acts 4:36–37). When Paul makes his first visit to the Jerusalem church, Barnabas comes to his defense (9:26–27) and then travels with Paul and John Mark until the group is divided (15:36–40)—Paul refuses to travel with John Mark because he had abandoned them in Pamphylia (13:13). Barnabas and John Mark sail away to Cyprus and …

Apocryphal Acts in Syriac Manuscripts

May 7, 2021 by Tony

I would like to thank Jacob Lollar, J. Edward Walters, and Slavomir Céplö for looking over a draft of this post and making suggestions for improvement.

In my last post, back in December, I provided an overview of sources for the “Egyptian” collection of the apocryphal acts of the apostles—manuscripts in Coptic, Arabic, and Ge‘ez. A follow-up was promised, and I will get to that soon, but for now I am taking a detour with a discussion of apocryphal acts in Syriac. Both posts derive from ongoing work on my next major project: an introduction to Christian apocrypha for the Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library.

The number of texts and manuscripts for the Syriac apocryphal acts is significantly smaller than for the Egyptian corpus. The path of transmission is somewhat simpler also: the Egyptian collection began in Coptic and after the decline of Coptic in Upper Egypt, the texts were translated into Arabic, then Ethiopic. Syriac apocrypha follows a simpler path, with Syriac remaining the liturgical language (and for a small group, the spoken language) of the East and West Syriac churches, and some translation occurring into Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, and Tamil. Apocryphal texts have been transmitted in Syriac throughout the history of Syriac Christianity and appear in manuscripts created as recently as the twentieth century.

But the apocryphal acts appear with less frequency than some other apocrypha, such as texts about the Virgin Mary. Of the Five Great Apocryphal Acts, only the Acts of Thomas is represented in …

The “Egyptian” Collection of Apocryphal Acts, Part 1: Coptic, Arabic, and Ge‘ez Sources

October 18, 2023 by Tony

This is the first of two posts based on work in preparation for my forthcoming volume on Christian apocrypha for the Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. I would like to thank Ivan Miroshnikov and Jacob Lollar for looking over the draft and making suggestions for improvement.

Readers interested in the apocryphal exploits of the apostles gravitate first, naturally, to the earliest examples of the genre, the so-called Five Great Apocryphal Acts: Peter, Paul, John, Andrew, and Thomas. The pull of these texts is so great that they leave neglected an assortment of “later” acts that, arguably, had a far deeper impact on Christian piety, not only because the plentiful manuscript evidence testifies to their popularity, but also because a large number of them circulated as a collection intended for liturgical use in Coptic and Ethiopic churches. The collection includes a core of 28 texts (with some additions, omissions, and substitutions), arranged largely in pairs: the preaching of the apostle and then his martyrdom. All twelve of the apostles are represented (with Matthias replacing Judas) along with Paul, James the Righteous, Mark, and Luke. Stories from the texts also appear in the Arabo-Coptic and Ethiopic Synaxaria, testifying, again, to their importance in northeastern African Christianity. The lack of attention paid to these apocryphal acts is due, in part if not in whole, to their remoteness linguistically, geographically, and temporally from the Greek and Latin centres that are the focus of most biblical scholars’ work (and training). But lately they have attracted …