Apocryphicity

A Blog Devoted to the Study of Christian Apocrypha

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

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 …

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

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 Mark Symposium Papers on Amazon

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

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

…
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Secret Mark Symposium Papers Now Available

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 …

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International Colloquium on The Life of Adam and Eve

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

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 …

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The Christian Apocrypha for Mormons

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."

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New Books on Christian Apocrypha

by Tony

This is the first of two posts reporting on the sessions on the Christian Apocrypha from the 2012 SBL Annual Meeting. Before I get to the papers, however, I just want to mention several books on the CA that I picked up at the conference.

David L. Eastman. Paul the Martyr: The Cult of the Apostle in the Latin West (SBL 2011). David is one of the contributors to the More Christian Apocrypha volumes. I have yet to look at the book closely, but it draws upon apocryphal Pauline texts, including some of the lesser known late "acts" literature (e.g., the Acts of Paul and Peter). 

François Bovon and Christopher R. Matthews. The Acts of Philip: A New Translation (Baylor 2012). This first complete English translation of the Acts of Philip is long overdue. Bovon provides a brief introduction, discussing the new manuscripts used for the edition (published as CCSA 11), and the two contribute the translation. There are few notes and no commentary.

Christoph Markschies and Jens Schröter. Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung (Mohr Siebeck, 2012). I was very happy to be able to pick this up from SBL (rather than ordering it online) and at a pretty decent price ($102 US for the two-part first

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Christian Apocrypha at the 2012 SBL

by Tony

The 2012 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature is only days away; so, it is about time that I got around to posting the schedule for the Christian Apocrypha sessions. I will be attending all of the sessions and will post a summary when I return.

Saturday Nov. 17

(S17-108) 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM

Room: N138 – McCormick Place

Theme: New Manuscripts, Texts, and Translations

Brent Landau, University of Oklahoma, Presiding

Richard I. Pervo, St. Paul, MN : “Thecla Wove This Web Or Some Things I Learned from Attempting to Write a Commentary on the Acts of Paul” (20 min) Discussion (10 min)

Susan E. Hylen, Vanderbilt University: "The Orthodox Thecla: Characterization of Thecla in the LIfe and Miracles of Saint Thecla" (20 min) Discussion (10 min)

Antti Marjanen, University of Helsinki: "Two New Coptic Fragments of the Apocalypse of Paul (Visio Pauli)" (20 min) Discussion (10 min)

Gesine Schenke Robinson, Episcopal Theological School at Claremont: "The Coptic Testament of Job and its Reception in the Early Christian Period" (20 min) Discussion (10 min)”

(S17-211) 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM

Room: E261 – McCormick Place

Theme: The infancy roots of Mary's first biographies

Pierluigi Piovanelli, Université d'Ottawa – University of Ottawa, Presiding

M. David Litwa, University of Virginia: "Jesus, Hermes and Dionysus: The Divine Child in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas" (20 min) Discussion (10 min)

James Waddell, University of Toledo: "Recontextualizing the Infancy Gospel of Thomas – A Proposal" (20 min) …

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More Christian Apocrypha

by Tony

The latest issue of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion (41.3) features my article on the More Christian Apocrypha Project. The abstract for the article provides some details about the project:

Scholars interested in the Christian Apocrypha (CA) typically appeal to CA collections when in need of primary sources. But many of these collections limit themselves to material believed to have been written within the first to fourth centuries CE. As a result a large amount of non-canonical Christian texts important for the study of ancient and medieval Christianity have been neglected. The More Christian Apocrypha Project will address this neglect by providing a collection of new editions (some for the first time) of these texts for English readers. The project is inspired by the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project headed by Richard Bauckham and Jim Davila from the University of Edinburgh. Like the MOTP, the MCAP is envisioned as a supplement to an earlier collection of texts—in this case J. K. Elliott’s The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford 1991), the most recent English-language CA collection (but now almost two decades old). The texts to be included are either absent in Elliott or require significant revision. Many of the texts have scarcely been examined in over a century and are in dire need of new examination. One of the goals of the project is to spotlight the abilities and achievements of English (i.e., British and North American) scholars of the CA, so that English readers have access to material that

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The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife

by Tony

I seem to be arriving late to the discussion on the fragmentary Coptic manuscript that has been dubbed the Gospel of Jesus' Wife. Since I am not a Coptologist, I have little to add to what has been said so far (Jim Davila and Mark Goodacre offer useful introductions and roundups of media and blog posts), except to say that I share Jim's skepticism. The manuscript also doesn't look "right"–it is fragmentary yet is carefully cut, the script and penmanship is more crude than anything I have ever seen (though, again, I'm no Coptologist). I am eager to hear what Alin Suciu will say on his blog–he has already stated on facebook that he thinks it is a fake.

New blog: Michael J. Kruger’s “Canon Fodder”

by Tony

The list of biblio-bloggers has a new entry: Canon Fodder by Michael J. Kruger, co-author of the The Heresy of Orthodoxy (discussed HERE) and, most recently, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books.

Readers of the Christian Apocrypha may find interesting Kruger's series of posts on "10 Misconceptions on the New Testament Canon" and his most recent post "Apocryphal Gospels and the Mainstream Media."