Christian Apocrypha at 2010 SBL
[Since I was not able to attend this year's SBL in New Orleans, I asked Harvard alum and CA scholar Brent Landau to provide this summary for us. Thanks Brent.]
I was only able to attend two of the three Christian Apocrypha sessions at the SBL this year, having missed the session that focused on “Animals as Symbols and Metaphors in Apocryphal Texts.” But the sections I attended had a range of very interesting topics.
The first session (22-210, Sunday 1:00-3:30) was an open session, with papers on the Pseudo-Clementines, the figure of Joseph, and the Protevangelium of James.
Dominique Côté from the University of Ottawa presented a paper entitled “Prophecy in the Pseudo-Clementines.” His basic argument was that the Ps-C are engaged in a conflict with Neoplatonic philosophy, its conception of “the True Prophet” being set over against Greek philosophical thought. Specifically, Côté contends that the Ps-C are responding to Porphyry of Tyre, the student of Plotinus who may also have advised Diocletian during his early fourth-century persecution of Christians. Nicole Kelley of Florida State University was Côté’s respondent, and was generally persuaded by his thesis. She observed that Côté’s work was part of a recent trend in Ps-C scholarship that attempts to understand the Ps-C as late antique (3rd-4th c.) documents rather than seeking after a 1st or 2nd c. primitive core (the so-called Grundschrift or “Basic Writing”).
Reidar Aasgaard from the University of Oslo, with a copy in hand of his …