Category: York Christian Apocrypha

This is the fifth in a series of profiles of the presenters at the upcoming 2015 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium to be held September 25-26 at York University in Toronto. Remember, if you register for the symposium, you will receive drafts of the papers in advance, thus enabling you to participate more fully in the discussions that follow. For registration information, visit the YCAS 2015 web site (HERE).

Brandon W. Hawk is Assistant Professor of English at Rhode Island College. He is currently working on his first book, Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England, which challenges normative assumptions about versions of parabiblical gospels, acts, and apocalypses in Old English sermons, suggesting that these apocrypha are a significant part of the apparatus of tradition inherited by Anglo-Saxons.

While earning his MA (2007) and PhD (2014) in the Medieval Studies Program at the University of Connecticut, Hawk learned the value of interdisciplinary scholarship. With this perspective, most of his interests in research and teaching encompass what might be called transmission studies: the afterlives of texts and ideas, including circulation, translations, adaptations, and representations in various cultures and media. About his research, he says, “Scholars have focused to a large extent on early Christian Apocrypha, but many apocrypha have yet to be studied from the medieval period—either created then, or transformed into new iterations.” One of these texts is the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, an expansive Latin adaptation of the earlier Protevangelium of James, which circulated widely in the …

This is the fourth in a series of profiles of the presenters at the upcoming 2015 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium to be held September 25-26 at York University in Toronto. Remember, if you register for the symposium, you will receive drafts of the papers in advance, thus enabling you to participate more fully in the discussions that follow. For registration information, visit the YCAS 2015 web site (HERE).

Ross Ponder is one of three student presenters at this year’s Symposium. Noting the high level of graduate student involvement in the previous symposia, we believed it would be beneficial to invite students to also present papers. Ponder is currently an advanced Ph.D. student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in in the cultural history and artifacts of early Judaism and Christianity. He holds a M.A. in Religious Studies from UT-Austin, a M.Div. in early Christian studies from Boston University, and a B.A. in Classics from UT-Austin.

Ponder’s research usually revolves around the textual and material evidence of ancient Christianity. His interests include papyrology, apocryphal narratives, and understanding ancient cultures with the help of modern social theory. Ponder continues work on several projects: an analysis of the rhetoric of divine benefaction and patronage in Paul’s letter to Philemon; an examination of the competing cultural memories for the martyr Vibia Perpetua in late antiquity; a queer reading of the reproduction process in the parable of the sower (Mark 4:1-20); and a reexamination …

This is the third in a series of profiles of the presenters at the upcoming 2015 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium to be held September 25-26 at York University in Toronto. Remember, if you register for the symposium, you will receive drafts of the papers in advance, thus enabling you to participate more fully in the discussions that follow. For registration information, visit the YCAS 2015 web site (HERE).

The Symposium begins Friday morning with  a presentation by Stanley E. Porter. Porter is Professor of New Testament, as well as President and Dean, and holder of the Roy A. Hope Chair in Christian Worldview, at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario. McMaster Divinity College is a free-standing theological seminary and graduate school located on the same campus as its sister university. Porter is the author of over twenty-five volumes, as well as editing well over ninety volumes of different types. His published scholarly works span the range of New Testament and related studies, from the Gospels to John to Acts to the Pauline letters and the rest. He is especially interested in Greek language and linguistics. Porter recently published a biography, Constantine Tischendorf: The Life and Work of a 19th Century Bible Hunter (Bloomsbury, 2015), and Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament: Studies in Tools, Methods, and Practice (Baker, 2015), and he has a forthcoming commentary, The Letter to the Romans: A Linguistic and Literary Commentary (Sheffield Phoenix, 2015) and a forthcoming volume entitled When Paul Met …

The 2015 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium is just six weeks away. As the event approaches, I will be posting information about the presenters along with abstracts of their papers. Remember, if you register for the symposium, you will receive drafts of the papers in advance, thus enabling you to participate more fully in the discussions that follow. For registration information, visit the YCAS 2015 web site (HERE).

We begin with Bart Ehrman, who has graciously accepted our invitation to deliver the symposium’s keynote address, which takes place the evening of September 25. Professor Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he has taught since 1988. Professor Ehrman has written or edited thirty books, including monographs, editions and translations, and textbooks. Five of his trade books have been New York Times Bestsellers: Misquoting Jesus; God’s Problem; Jesus Interrupted; How Jesus Became God, and Forged: Why the Bible’s Authors are Not Who We Think They Are. His books have been translated into twenty-seven languages.

One of Ehrman’s primary research foci over the past seven years has been forgery in the early Christian tradition. In addition to the trade book, he has published a major scholarly study of the phenomenon, Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (New York: Oxford, 2013). Ehrman introduces his wide-ranging study with these words: “Arguably the most distinctive feature of the early …

The proceedings from the 2013 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium—Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha from North American Perspectives—is now available for order from Wipf and Stock Publishers. The book can be purchased from other retailers (Amazon and even on Kindle) in a few months. Copies will be available also at the 2015 Symposium in September. My thanks go out to all the contributors for their work in getting the papers to press. The table of contents is as follows:

Foreword–Christoph Markschies
Introduction—Tony Burke
North American Approaches to the Study of the Christian Apocrypha on the World Stage—Jean-Michel Roessli
The “Harvard School” of the Christian Apocrypha—Brent Landau
Excavating Museums: From Bible Thumping to Fishing in the Stream of Western Civilization—Charles Hedrick
Scriptural Trajectories Through Early Christianity, Late Antiquity, and Beyond: Christian Memorial Traditions and the longue durée—Pierluigi Piovanelli
Jesus at School among Christians, Jews, and Muslims—Cornelia Horn
Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, Apocrypha: Bridging Disciplinary Divides—Nicola Denzey Lewis
Canon Formation: Why and Where Scholars Disagree—Lee Martin McDonald
Apocryphal Gospels and Historical Jesus Research: A Reassessment—Stephen J. Patterson
Apocryphal Gospels and the Historical Jesus: A Response to Stephen Patterson—John Kloppenborg
Apocryphal Gospels and the Historical Jesus: A Response to Stephen Patterson—Mark Goodacre
The Distinctive Sayings of Jesus Shared by Justin and the Pseudo-Clementines—F. Stanley Jones
The Tiburtine Sibyl, the Last Emperor, and the Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition—Stephen J. Shoemaker
Confused Traditions? Peter and Paul in the Apocryphal Acts—David Eastman
Digital Humanities and the Textual Critic: Resources, Prospects and Problems—Kristian …

The 2015 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium—“Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions: Writing Ancient and Modern Christian Apocrypha”—has a spiffy new web site (an update of the 2011 web site designed by Sarah Veale, accessible at http://tonyburke.ca/conference/) featuring the preliminary schedule, registration information, etc. The careful reader may notice that there are two changes to the line-up of presenters. Paul Dilley and Caitlin Purcell had to withdraw from the conference, but in their places we welcome Brent Landau (now doing double-duty as conference co-organizer and presenter), who joins the panel on writing apocrypha in antiquity with his paper  “Under the Influence (of the Magi): Did Hallucinogens Play a Role in the Inspired Composition of the Pseudepigraphic Revelation of the Magi?”, and Eric Vanden Eykel, who joins the modern apocrypha panel with “Expanding the Apocryphal Corpus: Some ‘Novel’ Suggestions.” Abstracts for both papers are available on the web site.

The proceedings from the 2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium are now in the production stage of publication and should be available for purchase at the 2015 symposium at the end of September. Here is the cover artwork (click to see full size):

The latest issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature features an article by Annette Yoshiko Reed entitled “Afterlives of New Testament Apocrypha” (JBL 134.2 [2015]:401-25). Readers of Apocryphicity may remember that Annette presented this paper as the keynote address of the 2013 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium. Annette decided shortly after the event not to include the paper in the proceedings, in part because we would not be able to include all of the papers in the volume and also because it was not intended to be a formal paper. The publication of the proceedings have been somewhat delayed, so much that Annette has found the time in the interim to work up the keynote into publishable form. I’m glad to see that the paper will find a wider audience after all. As for the proceedings, they should be available by the time of the 2015 Symposium in September. Here is the abstract of Annette’s paper:

This essay explores the place of parabiblical literature in biblical studies through a focus on New Testament apocrypha. Countering the assumption that the significance of this literature pivots on its value for understanding the origins of Christianity, this essay calls for fresh attention to the afterlives of these writings. The first section traces the genealogy of the notion of the NT apocrypha as countercanon, as well as the history of the debate over whether “apocrypha” preserve secret or suppressed truths about Jesus and his earliest followers. It points to the influence of post-Reformation …

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS

York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series 2015

“Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions” Writing Ancient and Modern Christian Apocrypha

September 24-26, 2015

We are pleased to announce the third of a series of symposia on the Christian Apocrypha hosted by the Department of the Humanities at York University in Toronto, Canada and taking place September 24 to 26, 2015.

The 2015 symposium will examine the possible motivations behind the production of Christian apocrypha from antiquity until the present day. Have authors of the Christian apocrypha intended to deceive others about the true origins of their writings? Have they done so in a way that is distinctly different from NT scriptural writings? What would phrases like “intended to deceive” or “true origins” even mean in various historical and cultural contexts? This symposium has been inspired by the recent publication and analysis of the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, and it will, among other topics, examine what the reactions to this particular text—primarily in popular media, including biblioblogs— can tell us about the creation, transmission, and reception of apocryphal Christian literature.

We encourage scholars from across North America to join us and share their research on topics that include but are not limited to: pseudepigraphy, modern apocrypha, authorship as canon criterion, possible motives for composition of “apocryphal” texts, the reception of Christian apocrypha in scholarship and/or popular media, and the recycling of non-Christian texts into Christian apocrypha. The program will include a panel focusing on the reception of …

Day two of the symposium was intended as a look to the future. The first session featured several of the participants in the More Christian Apocrypha Project (MCAP), which is producing collections of apocryphal texts in English translation (some for the first time), primarily by North American scholars. These papers examined some little-known or under-appreciated texts and traditions. In the first presentation, F. Stanley Jones (California State University) examined “The Distinctive Sayings of Jesus Shared by Justin and the Pseudo-Clementines.” Jones is contributing two pieces for the first More Christian Apocrypha volume: the Syriac epitome of the Acts of Peter, and the Aramaic fragments of the Toledot Yeshu (which have not yet appeared in English translation). We have talked also of including some or all of the Ps.-Clementine corpus in a future volume, since the material has not appeared in English translation for almost 150 years. Jones noted in his talk that he has constructed a synopsis of the witnesses to the text but has not found a publisher for it; this is unfortunate because it would be an important resource for studying the text. As for Jones’s paper, it presents an argument against the view that the shared sayings derive from a gospel harmony; instead Ps. Clem. seems to have pulled them from Justin’s lost work Syntagma, which Justin wrote to refute Marcion. The sayings thus have a distinct Marcionite or anti-Marcionite flavour.

Jones was followed by Stephen Shoemaker (University of Oregon), presenting on “The Tiburtine Sibyl, …

In the first afternoon session, “New Frontiers in Christian Apocrypha Studies,” we looked to bridging gaps between CA and related disciplines. In “Jesus at School among Christians, Jews, and Muslims,” Cornelia Horn (Catholic University of America) built on her previous work on Christian and Muslim use of Jesus and Mary infancy traditions. This time her discussion featured the story of Jesus in school from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and looked at its transformations in the Armenian Infancy Gospel, the Toledot Yeshu, and the story of Imam al-Baquir in Umm al-kitab (an eighth-century Shi’ite text). In her conclusion, Horn asked us to consider the status of texts like Umm al-kitab—does its connection to apocryphal Jesus stories make it a Christian apocryphal text, or an Islamic apocryphal text, or something else?

Nicola Denzey Lewis (Brown University) followed with dynamic presentation, “Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, Apocrypha: Bridging Disciplinary Divides.” The paper points out how scholars have divided Gnostic texts from other apocrypha—“high” vs. “low” literature, the CA are folkloric but Gnostic texts are “the ugly, wicked stepsisters in the fairytale of NT studies.” The divide is most apparent at conferences like the SBL Annual Meeting, which separates Nag Hammadi or Gnostic Studies from Christian Apocrypha, despite the fact that some Nag Hammadi texts are not Gnostic (e.g., the Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles) and some Gnostic texts are not from Nag Hammadi (e.g., the Pistis Sophia, the Gospel of Mary); one text in particular, the …

This year’s York Christian Apocrypha Symposium is now fading into memory. I have stopped waking at night thinking that David Eastman is stranded in an airport, or Jean-Michel Roessli is endlessly circling Toronto Island on a boat. Other bloggers (Sarah Veale and Mark Bilby) have offered their thoughts on the event. So, I think it’s time I presented by own post mortem analysis. 

(Front row, left to right: Lily Vuong, Stephen Shoemaker, Charles Hedrick, Mary Dzon, Stanley Jones, Mark Bilby. Second row: Pierluigi Piovanelli, Lee Martin McDonald, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Jean-Michel Roessli, Cornelia Horn, Stephen Patterson, Tony Burke, David Eastman. Back: Kristian Heal, Mark Goodacre, Glenn Snyder, Lorenzo DiTommaso, Brent Landau, Nicola Denzey Lewis, John Kloppenborg)

The York Christian Apocrypha Symposium series began in 2011 with a one-day event focusing on a single text: the Secret Gospel of Mark. We gathered together eight North American scholars and one editor of Biblical Archeology Review to discuss the text in front of an audience of about 60 people. The papers were published in early 2013 as Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery? The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate. The budget for this first Symposium was small but it was a seminal event, a beginning to the forming of an association (if informal) of North American scholars of the Christian Apocrypha.

The success of the first Symposium enabled us to aim higher for the second. This time we gathered 19 scholars for presentations taking place over two days. Everything …

My net-savvy student assistant, Sarah Veale, has posted some comments on the 2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium on her blog Invocatio. Sarah was of great help during the planning and the execution of the event. She humbly minimizes her contributions in her blog post.