Apocryphicity

Years ago, way back in 2006, a group of North American Christian apocrypha scholars gathered in Ottawa to discuss, among other things, the creation of a collaborative project that would show the world that we (i.e., North Americans) had contributions to make to the field. We wanted to create something on the scale of the great European apocrypha collections, such as the two-volume Écrits apocryphes chrétiens or the highly-regarded Hennecke-Schneemelcher (now Markschies-Schröter) Neutestamentliche Apocryphen volumes. Nothing concrete came out of that discussion but it was the germ for the MNTA project that Brent Landau and I took on several years later, and the same desire to create opportunities for collaboration among North American scholars was behind the creation of the York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series (running from 2011 to 2015) and the creation of the North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature (NASSCAL). It struck me recently, as I finished up (most of the) work on MNTA 2, how far we have come in realizing that ambition of bringing scholars together, not only for formal, co-authored projects but also for informal, behind-the scenes consultation to make each other’s work better, to mentor students and young scholars, and to advance the study of these fascinating texts.

One of the difficulties of working with apocryphal texts is that the texts come in numerous forms, in multiple languages. We are all trained in at least one ancient language (typically Greek), many of us two (add Latin, Coptic, or Syriac), …

This past Spring I sat on a panel for students at the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies annual meeting entitled “Review, Respond, Reflect.” I was asked to discuss my experiences editing the work of other scholars. I included some tales (many of which were cautionary) from my experience editing the two MNTA volumes, as well as from my other editing projects: the three York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium collections, and Rediscovering the Apocryphal Continent (co-edited with Pierluigi Piovanelli).I thought it might be useful to include the advice I gave to the students and young scholars in this short series of posts on editing MNTA vol. 2. My comments were somewhat candid, so I won’t repeat them all here (and even so I’m a little worried that what I do say could offend some).

1. To edit or not to edit

When my colleagues ask me what I’m working on and I tell them about editing projects, they respond with pity and some statement along the lines of “better you than me.” Edited volumes are universally (throughout the scholarly world, not just in Religious Studies and related disciplines) considered unpleasant and extremely frustrating experiences that come with little reward, because most universities don’t count assign them much weight in their calculations for tenure and promotion. I contend, however, that they do have value.

For grad students or junior scholars the first exposure to editing likely would come from working with an advisor or colleague on indexing a volume. This is considered …

Yesterday I sent off the last chapter of New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures vol. 2 (=MNTA 2) to its authors for revisions. The project is not over by a longshot, but it is the end of a major stage in the process of getting this volume, now over three years in the making, to publication.  Of the 36 texts included in the volume, 29 are complete, four are in the authors’ hands waiting for final revisions, and the last three are contributions by the editors (Brent Landau and I)—these always get delayed until the very end. This seems to me a good time to pause and look back at how the project came together.

The planning for this volume began when  we submitted the manuscript of vol. 1 to the publisher back in January 2015 (yes, that long ago). The introduction included a provisional list of texts to be included in vol. 2. As you can see below, that list was provisional indeed.

Why so many changes? Well, some are not that dramatic at all and are merely changes in titles. But some texts are absent from the final contents because these projects were just too big and our contributors simply realized at some point that they could not finish it in time for our deadline. This was certainly the case for the Infancy of the Savior and the Vision of Theophilus (both of which I promised to contribute), and the other major work was the Pseudo-Clementines, …