Apocryphicity

A Blog Devoted to the Study of Christian Apocrypha

The Flying Head of John the Baptist

by Tony

I have started some work on apocryphal traditions of John the Baptist. One of the texts I am consulting is the Life of John the Baptist ascribed to Serapion (read the text HERE). The text was published almost a century ago and tends to be overlooked in CA scholarship. But it has some interesting, and bizarre, traditions within it. Just to whet your appetite, here is a scene about the amazing abilities of the head of John the Baptist:

But immediately after the head of the blessed John let the locks of its hair rise from the dish, and it flew to the middle of the convivial room before the king and his high officials. In that very moment the roof of the house was opened and the head of John flew in the air…As to his head, it flew over Jerusalem, and cried for three years to the town, saying: "It is not lawful for you, O Herod, to marry the wife of your brother while he is still alive." After it had cried for three years, it went to all the world shouting and proclaiming the horrible crime of Herod, and repeating the words: "It is not lawful for you, O Herod, to marry the wife of your brother while he is still alive." Fifteen years after it had been cut off it ceased proclaiming, and rested on the town of Horns. The faithful who were in that town took it and buried it with great pomp. …

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Blog Roundup: Thecla, Secret Mark, Gospel of Mary

by Tony

Just a few things recently noted in other people's blogs:

Timo Panaanen at Salainan evankelista offers a critique of Francis Watson's article"Beyond Suspicion: On the Authorship of the Mar Saba Letter and the Secret Gospel of Mark" from JTS. Read also the extensive critiqueat Synoptic Solutions.

April DeConick a The Forbidden Gospels reports on the restoration of images of Peter, Paul, John and Andrew in the Thecla catacomb in Rome.

Mark Goodacre at NTBlog reports Prince Charles' odd use of the Gospel of Mary in a recent speech.

2010 Réunion annuelle de l’AELAC

by Tony

The 2010 réunion annuelle de l’Association pour l’étude de la literature apocryphe chrétienne (AELAC) takes place June 24-26th. Here are the papers to be presented:

Jane Baun, “The Apocalypse of the Theotokos: Some Avenues of Approach.”

Christoph Markschies, "Das Evangelium der 12 Apostel. Beobachtungen im Rahmen der Arbeit am neuen Hennecke zu diesem und zuanderen apokryph gewordenen Texten.”

Alessandro Bausi, “Les listes des apôtres et disciples en éthiopien.”

Nicole Volmering, “The Seven Heavens in the Old English Tradition.”

Caitríona Ó Dochartaigh, “The Relationship between the Tenga Bithnua and the Irish Seven Heavens Texts.”

Charlotte Touati, “Les sept cieux de l'ascète. Témoignages égyptiens du IIIe s. ap. J.-C.”

Christophe Guignard, “Les listes grecques d’apôtres et de disciples”

André Gagné, “Jésus, la lumière et le Père vivant (EvTh 15; 50; 77). Existe-t-il des traces d'une christologie modaliste dans l’Évangile selon Thomas?”

Sever Voicu, “A popos de la tradition latine des Paidika Iesou.”

Valentina Calzolari, “Les Actes de Thècle arméniens.”

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Brown and Pantuck on Carlson’s Secret Mark “Hoax” Theory

by Tony

Scott Brown and Allan Pantuck, now well-known as critics of Stephen Carlson's book The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark, have composed a guest-post on Timo Paananen's Salainan evankelista blog. It is an excellent piece that confronts Carlson's argument that the manuscript of Secret Mark betrays signs of a forger's tremor. (And if you read to the end you'll see a little comment from me).

New Article on the Secret Mark Debate

by Tony

Timo S. Paananen at the Salainen Evankelista blog has posted on a recent article by David Landry on the Secret Mark debate. Landry is rather positive about Stephen Carlson’s achievements, but strangely negative about the rebuttals of Scott Brown and Allan Pantuck. For my part, I am still interested in mounting a real debate on the text in a public forum and will be pursuing the idea when the time comes for us Canadian scholars to beg for government funding. Stay tuned.

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Update on the Syriac Version of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas

by Tony

I have updated the text on my Syriac Infancy Gospel of Thomas page to reflect the work I completed recently on a translation of the unpublished manuscript Vat. Syr. 159, the only manuscript published (well, almost published) to date that includes the full text of the Syriac tradition of this text (previous Mss are all fragmentary). I am working now on another branch of the tradition preserved in eleven known (and unpublished) Mss. And one of these Mss (Mingana Syr. 5) can be viewed on-line at the University of Birmingham's Virtual Reading Room (the text begins at fol. 18).

Was the Author of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas a Child?

by Tony

I was recently e-mailed a link to an article (though it is only on-line and apparently unpublished) on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas that suggests the author of the text was a child. Here is the LINK and the abstract (make of it what you will):

Apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Thomas is very controversial apocryphal text of uncertain origin. More authentic recent Czech translation by Petr Pe?áz (Dus, Pokorný 2001) tries to preserve original colloquial style and suggests an idea that the author of this text was not an adult person, but a child – boy at prepubescent age (10 – 12 years) with hyperactive tendencies. All the text represents childish megalomaniac imagination, which helps the child to cope with everyday conflicts with teachers, the father and friends by means of identification with young Jesus. The text had been probably forgotten in child’s lair and revealed a few decades afterwards without recognizing the real childish author. This article illustrates this hypothesis by comparing the gospel’s style with other literal works of similar age children and the Gospel of Mark and tries to depict a plausible psychological profile of the childish author by deliberate classification of his cognitive, emotional, moral, psychosexual stage of development.

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Infancy Gospel of Thomas Edition Due April 2010

by Tony

My long-awaited (well, by me at least) critical edition of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is due to be published this year. Seeing it in print seems a little closer to reality now that it is listed in the Brepols on-line catalogue (and it's a steal at a mere 160 Euros!). The listing will soon be updated with the following product description:

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (IGT), an early apocryphal writing about Jesus’ childhood, was first published from a Greek manuscript in the seventeenth century. At the time, and for several centuries thereafter, scholars believed the text to be the “Gospel of Thomas” mentioned by a number of early Church writers and frequently associated with gnostics. With the publication of the true Gospel of Thomas from Nag Hammadi in 1956 interest in the text waned. A few scholars published editions of various versions of the text—including Syriac, Ethiopic, Georgian, Latin, and Slavonic—but study of the Greek tradition stalled, despite indications of the existence of a number of manuscripts that could greatly improve our knowledge of the text. This edition brings together all known published and unpublished Greek manuscripts of IGT, assigns them to four separate recensions (Greek A, B, D, and S), and presents them in Greek and English translation. Attention is also paid to the versions, particularly the Slavonic and Latin traditions, which are shown to be translations of Greek A and Greek D, and therefore help to establish the original form of those recensions. The early versions …

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Roger Viklund vs. Craig Evans on Secret Mark

by Tony

Roger Viklund has posted this excellent response to a discussion between Craig Evans and lee Strobel about Secret Mark (from Strobel's The Case For the Real Jesus). The comments Evans makes are similar (and thus similarly erroneous) to those he makes in his own book, Fabricating Jesus, which I discussed back in 2007 in this post. Viklund has written now several compelling on-line articles about Secret Mark. They can be found on his web site HERE.

Christian Apocrypha Site of the Week

by Tony

(Yes, I know, I have hardly been regular on posting these “CA of the week” features, but I try) A helpful reader has passed along a link to Pitts Theology Library at Emory University which has prepared an excellent research guide on Early Christian Apocrypha (one I will certainly recommend to my students).  It provides information on concepts and methodology, print resources, on-line resources, and research guidance. Of particular interest is the extensive alphabetical list of texts. Selecting a text will give you a brief description of the text, the original language and estimate of time of composition, alternate titles, and a source for English translations (where available).

Detecting a Gospel Forgery

by Tony

There is an interesting article on the Friends of CSNTM (Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts) page on the recent uncovering of a forged NT manuscript (HERE). I don't know, though–let's see, it was written on one side of a page, the page had paragraph divisions, capitalized names, and no nomina sacra. What was their first clue? Thankfully, Morton Smith knew well enough not to make these blunders 😉

Searching for Syriac Manuscripts

by Tony

In my neverending work on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, I have begun the process of collating copies of the Life of Mary edited by E. A. W. Budge over a century ago. Some of the manuscripts, however, are quite difficult to obtain (indeed, it may be that they are now lost forever). I was hoping some experts in the field might know how to find manuscripts from Diyarbakir, Mardin, Alqosh (specifically the convent of Notre-Dame de Sémances), and Urmia.

Children in Late Antique Christianity

by Tony

I just received my free copy of Cornelia Horn and Robert Phenix’s essay collection, Children in Late Ancient Christianity (Mohr Siebeck, to be published this month). I have a free copy because the book features my essay, “‘Social Viewing’ of Children in the Childhood Stories of Jesus.” The essay is essentially a summary of the last 200 pages of my doctoral thesis on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. The book also features a few other Christian Apocrypha related pieces, including Reidar Aasgaard’s “Uncovering Children’s Culture in Late Antiquity: The Testimony of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” and Cornelia’s “Approaches to the Study of Sick Children and Their Healing: Christian Apocryphal Acts, Gospels, and Cognate Literatures.” Congratulations Cornelia and Rob on a fine publication.