Apocryphicity

Part of the mandate of the Symposium series, from its start, is to respond to the widespread interest in the Christian Apocrypha and reach out to the wider public. Indeed, that’s why also we publish the proceedings with Cascade, so that we can keep the price of the volumes relatively low. And that’s why we began the series in 2011 with the Secret Gospel of Mark, a text somewhat well-known outside of scholarly publications. Our efforts to bring in non-scholars included scheduling an evening session featuring a panel of four Secret Mark scholars (Scott Brown, Craig Evans, Peter Jeffery, and Marvin Meyer) for an informal Q and A session. The session was promoted off-campus with flyers to local libraries and a media package sent to local radio and newspapers. Anticipating a strong response, we booked a large lecture hall; we were disheartened to see that perhaps only a handful of people attended the event (above and beyond those who were present also throughout the day). The low turnout can be attributed, to some extent, to York’s location—the campus is situated north of the city and can be intimidating to navigate for outsiders. Schedule an event downtown and the situation would be very different.

In 2013 we changed tactics somewhat and asked Annette Yoshiko Reed to deliver a keynote address. The tone of the 2013 Symposium was more scholarly (it was a “state-of-the-art” for CA research in North America), so we did not try to promote the event off-campus. But …

Day two of the Symposium began with a brief introduction in which Brent Landau and I discussed the history of the Symposium and the theme of this year’s gathering. Then our first session on the writing of early apocrypha kicked off with a paper by Stanley Porter (McMaster Divinity College) on “Lessons from the Papyri: What Apocryphal Gospel Fragments Reveal about the Textual Development of Early Christianity.” Porter’s expertise in NT text criticism generally and the editing of early fragments is widely acknowledged. Notable also is his recent work with Brent on a new introduction and translation of P.Oxy II 210 for the first volume of the More New Testament Apocrypha series. Porter mentioned that it is difficult to identify the precise nature of these “gospel fragments”—are they pieces of lengthy “gospel” texts? homilies? canonical gospel harmonies? or are they the remains of apotropaic texts (i.e., magical amulets)?

The answer may come closer to within our reach when the fragments are treated to complete critical editions based on new, in-person evaluation of the manuscripts, which Porter thinks is long overdue. Also still undetermined, Porter said, is how the texts were used by early Christian communities; “if these fragmentary Gospels were used in a liturgical fashion,” he writes in his paper, “they do not appear to have been used in the same way as scriptural readings of texts.” They were perhaps supplementary episodes, read for edification and further elaboration, but not as the scriptural text itself or as a substitute for …

It has become tradition to offer some postmortem comments about the York Christian Apocrypha Symposium here on Apocryphicity. It helps me gather my thoughts about the event while everything is still fresh. I present these comments in three separate posts.

The first day of the 2015 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium was the culmination of a year of planning that began with Brent Landau and I thinking up a theme for the event. Bart Ehrman’s Forgery and Counterforgery volume had recently been published and there was still plenty of buzz happening about the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. We thought these could act as pillars for a theme of composing Christian Apocrypha through the ages. I came up with the title “Fakes, Fictions, Forgeries,” cribbing it from a sentence in my book Secret Scriptures Revealed; Brent thought it a little negative toward the texts but we figured it would suffice through the planning stages and, as these things happen, it stuck. I feared that the ever-busy Ehrman would decline our invitation to give the symposium’s keynote address but, to our surprise, he accepted, even waiving his usual appearance fee (a considerable sum at $5000, which he donates to charity).

The course of debate about the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife at the time was leaning toward modern composition, though with a year to go before the symposium, anything could happen. It seemed safer to steer clear of questions of authenticity and look instead at how the text was being discussed in …

This is the final post previewing the upcoming 2015 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium to be held September 25-26 at York University in Toronto. How only a week away! Remember, if you register for the symposium, you will receive drafts of the papers in advance (and many of them are available now), thus enabling you to participate more fully in the discussions that follow. For registration information, visit the YCAS 2015 web site (HERE).

When Brent Landau and I began planning for the 2015 Symposium, we considered immediately a panel on the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife as a way to capitalize on the widespread interest in the text. One of the goals of the Symposium, after all, is to draw non-scholars into the discussion of the literature. The session is intended not as an assessment of the evidence for or against forgery but as an examination of the reception of the text. Caroline Schroeder examines the gender divide apparent in the online discussions of the gospel, with male scholars often employing misogynistic language in their spirited dismissals of the text and female scholars for the most part proceeding more cautiously, waiting for the results of scientific testing and expressing their concerns about the tenor of the responses of their male counterparts. James McGrath and Mark Goodacre, themselves popular biblio-bloggers, provide further analyses of the reception of the text on blogs, and consider that the speed and collaboration that blogging offers may sacrifice the precision and accuracy that is …

This is the twelfth 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. Just over a week away! Remember, if you register for the symposium, you will receive drafts of the papers in advance (and many of them are available now), thus enabling you to participate more fully in the discussions that follow. For registration information, visit the YCAS 2015 web site (HERE).

The publisher of the 2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium proceedings (Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha From North American Perspectives) has made available an excerpt from the book. The excerpt covers roughly the first 50 pages and includes the foreword by Christophe Markschies and my introduction. Remember that copies of the book will be available at this year’s symposium at a significant discount (40% off the cover price). The excerpt can be downloaded using THIS LINK.

The final schedule for the 2015 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium has been posted to the YCAS web site (HERE) and is reproduced below. The symposium is just a few weeks away, but it is not too late to register: either send an inquiry to Tony Burke (tburke@yorku.ca) or register at the door on either day of the event.

Thursday, September 24:
Evening reception for presenters

Friday, September 25:
9:00-9:15 Introductions: Tony Burke (York University) and Brent Landau (University of Texas in Austin)

9:15-12:00 – Session 1: Composing Apocrypha in Antiquity
Chair: Tony Burke (York University)

• Stanley E. Porter (McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario), “Lessons from the Papyri: What Apocryphal Gospel Fragments Reveal about the Textual Development of Early Christianity.”
• Ross Ponder (University of Texas in Austin), “Reconsidering P. Oxy. 5072: Creation and Reception, Visual and Physical Features”

10:15-10:45 Break

• Brent Landau (University of Texas in Austin), “Under the Influence (of the Magi): Did Hallucinogens Play a Role in the Inspired Composition of the Pseudepigraphic Revelation of the Magi?”
• Pierluigi Piovanelli (University of Ottawa), “What Has Pseudepigraphy To Do with Forgery? Reflections on the Cases of the Acts of Paul, the Visio Pauli, and the Zohar.”

11:45-1:00 Lunch

1:00-2:00 – Session 2: Reusing and Recycling Christian Apocrypha
Chair: Janet Spittler (University of Virginia)

• Brandon W. Hawk (University of Tennessee), “‘Cherries at command’: Preaching the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew in Anglo-Saxon England”
• Tim Pettipiece (University of Ottawa), “Manichaean Redaction of the Secret Book of John”

2:00-2:30 …

This is the eleventh 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. Only a few weeks away! Remember, if you register for the symposium, you will receive drafts of the papers in advance (and many of them are available now), thus enabling you to participate more fully in the discussions that follow. For registration information, visit the YCAS 2015 web site (HERE).

Eric Vanden Eykel received his Ph.D. in Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity from Marquette University in 2014. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Religion at Ferrum College in Virginia, where he teaches biblical studies and world religions.Eric’s research centers on the reception history of canonical and apocryphal narratives, especially infancy narratives, as well as postmodern literary criticism and its application to biblical studies. His doctoral dissertation is an intertextual analysis of the Protevangelium of James that, in terms of method, draws from the semiotic theory of Umberto Eco. A revised version of this study has been accepted for publication in a new Bloomsbury T&T Clark monograph series, The Reception of the Jesus Tradition in the First Three Centuries (eds., Chris Keith, Helen Bond, and Jens Schröter).

Eric is currently at work on a project that will trace the development of the Matthean Magi tradition in literature and art from its appearance in the first century until the present day.

Abstract

“Expanding the Apocryphal Corpus: Some ‘Novel’

This is the tenth 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. Only a few weeks away! Remember, if you register for the symposium, you will receive drafts of the papers in advance (and many of them are available now), thus enabling you to participate more fully in the discussions that follow. For registration information, visit the YCAS 2015 web site (HERE).

Scott Brown is a recent addition to the program. Annette Yoshiko Reed had to pull out of the symposium and Scott graciously accepted out invitation to take her place. Scott studied both psychology and religion at the University of Toronto, where he focused on early Christian gospels and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Secret Gospel of Mark. He has since published a book (Mark’s Other Gospel) and sixteen papers on this subject, as well as the student resource A Guide to Writing Academic Essays in Religious Studies (London: Continuum, 2008). His areas of research include the literary interrelationships among the gospels, Bethany beyond the Jordan, ritual impurity, narrative criticism, Markan literary techniques, Philo of Alexandria, early Christian mysticism, and questioned document examination. At this 2015 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium he will present the sequel to the paper that he presented during the inaugural 2011 symposium dedicated to the debate on Secret Mark.

Abstract
“Behind the Seven Veils, II: Assessing Clement of …

This is the ninth 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. Only a few weeks away! 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).

Bradley Rice is the third of our doctoral students presenting at this year’s Symposium. He is a doctoral candidate in New Testament/Early Christianity at McGill University in Montréal. After working for nearly 10 years as associate editor of the Contexticon of New Testament Language (Oxford University Press), he has now shifted his primary research focus to Christian Apocrypha, and has recently contributed a translation of the Dialogue of the Paralytic with Christ for the first volume of New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures (Eerdmans).Rice became interested in Notovitch’s Life of Saint Issa after discovering that the Dialogue of the Paralytic—an early medieval apocryphon extant only in Georgian and Armenian—contains what may well be the earliest mention of Jesus’ travels to India. “These few lines were tantalizing in the extreme,” he says, “and led me to explore the mass of esoteric nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature that locates Jesus in India prior to his public ministry and/or after his crucifixion.” He further remarks that “historically speaking, it is highly unlikely that Jesus ever left Palestine.

This is the eighth 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).

This is the seventh 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).

Pamela Mullins Reaves is Assistant Professor of Religion at Colorado College, where she teaches courses in biblical studies, early Judaism, and early Christianity. She recently completed her Ph.D. in Ancient Mediterranean Religions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2013). Reaves’ research focuses on late second-century Christian traditions, primarily those that reveal diverse perspectives and related rifts among early Christians, especially regarding martyrdom.

Her study of the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter (NHC VII,3) has encouraged her to examine competing claims of apostolic authority more closely. In this text, suffering on the physical level lacks value, exhibited through its revelatory report of the crucifixion. “I understand the association of this view with Petrine authorship as significant, reflecting a challenge to the emerging proto-orthodox traditions of Peter as a key martyr,” notes Reaves. Considering another Petrine apocryphal writing from Nag Hammadi, the Letter of Peter to Philip (NHC VIII,2; Cod. Tch.), alongside the Apocalypse of Peter, Reaves similarly understands its perspective on suffering as complicated, perhaps a counter to enthusiasm for martyrdom in the early Church.

Reaves’ interest …