Apocryphicity

The first few classes of my course The New Testament Apocrypha provide the students with what I consider necessary background: I discuss certain important terms (apocrypha, canon, orthodoxy, heresy) and provide a lightning quick overview of first-century Christianity (Jesus, Paul, the gospels, other NT texts). This is a third-year course with no prerequisites, so I have to consider everyone to be new to the material. And that’s how all the classes are structured: we look at both canonical and non-canonical texts and consider how the non-canonical work with earlier traditions (assuming, as in most cases, that apocryphal texts post-date the canonical texts).

I have peppered both lectures so far with comments about how the apocryphal texts should not be judged inferior to the canonical—all of them are valid expressions of early Christian thought, all are just as likely to be pseudepigraphical (or at least may have attributions that are not original to the texts), all help us understand the history of Christianity. No one has taken issue with this so far. Is it really not controversial to hold this position anymore? Maybe it’s because I teach in Toronto and not the Bible Belt.

Last night we focused on canon formation and discussed the work of Walter Bauer (author of Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity). This is a beloved piece of scholarship among “liberal” scholars (like Bart Ehrman, the author of the textbook for the course, and me). It argues for an early plurality of thought in the early centuries, with various “heretical” forms of Christianity being dominant (and therefore “orthodox”) in some areas, and only one of these becomes the dominant form of Christianity in the fourth century and beyond. It is a relativistic look at the development of Christianity that rankles conservative scholars who have worked hard to discredit the book. Some of their concerns are legitimate (discoveries of new texts, like the Nag Hammadi Library, are damaging to some of Bauer’s points), but Bauer’s larger argument remains valid, at least for some areas, particularly Edessa. Anyway, the students again did not seem bothered by Bauer’s theory, nor did they take any offense at the notion that the categories of “orthodoxy” and “heresy” are subjective (one person’s orthodoxy is another person’s heresy) and fluid. Canadians.

I tried an exercise last night that I have not used before. It was created by Bryan Whitfield and is found in Roncare and Gray’s Teaching the Bible volume (from SBL). The exercise asks the students to choose the three most significant movies they have seen. They then partner with another student and the two of them must reach a consensus on the significance of four of their six choices. Then they join another group and pick six from the eight. When finished we discuss the process by which they reached that consensus and link this to canon formation. I think the students enjoyed the process and it made it clear how various interests and backgrounds and needs dictated the choices made to establish the New Testament. I also wanted to make it clear to students how we need to take care how we use the terms canonical and non-canonical, given that the western canon of 27 texts is not the same as canons to the east (in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Armenia). What is “canonical” varies over time and space.

Next week we turn to examining some texts (finally). We will be looking at fragmentary texts (various papyri, the Gospel of Peter, Secret Mark), infancy gospels, and Jewish-Christian gospels.

Michael Kok, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Sheffield, has begun a series of posts on the Secret Gospel of Mark on his blog, Euangelion Kata Markon. So far, he has posted an introduction and the clip of Morton Smith discussing the text on the documentary Jesus the Evidence.

I just received word that my article, "The Infancy Gospel of Thomas from an Unpublished Syriac Manuscript. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Notes," has been accepted for publication by the journal Hugoye. This article has been years in the making (editing?) and it is rewarding to see that it will soon be published. Here is the abstract:

The Syriac tradition of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (IGT) has been published from three manuscripts, two of which hail from the 5th or 6th centuries. Unfortunately, all three sources lack large sections of the text. In 1914, Paul Peeters discussed a fourth Ms (Vat. Syr. 159 from the 17th century) preserving the entire text, but until now, that Ms has not been published. This article presents a diplomatic edition of Peeters’ Ms, comparing its readings with those previously published, and with another Ms very similar to Peeters’. Also included are a comprehensive overview of other Syriac sources for IGT, and a discussion of Peeters’ theory of Syriac composition for IGT.

Christopher Rollston of the Emmanuel Christian Seminary has a post on the ASOR blog on the subject of forgeries ("Forging History:Motives, Methods, and Exemplars of Forged Texts"). The post discusses inscriptions and texts. What is conspicuously absent is Secret Mark. Perhaps Rollston does not consider this text a forgery. He does discuss, however, Paul R. Coleman-Norton's "Amusing Agraphon" which Craig Evans brought into the debate on Secret Mark at the York Symposium. 

The latest thriller from writer Mary Higgins Clark, The Lost Years, is based on the (now rather tired) plot of the discovery of a lost early Christian text–this time, a letter from the twelve-year-old Jesus to Joseph of Arimathea. An excerpt can be found HERE, but here's a little taste:

In the hushed quiet as late shadows fell over the walls of the eternal city of Rome, an elderly monk, his shoulders bent, made his silent and unobtrusive way into the Biblioteca Secreta, one of the four rooms that comprised the Vatican Library. The Library contained a total of 2,527 manuscripts written in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Some were available under strict supervision to be read by outsiders. Others were not.

The most controversial of the manuscripts was the one known as both the Joseph of Arimathea parchment and the Vatican letter. Carried by Peter the Apostle to Rome, it was believed by many to be the only letter ever written by the Christ.

It was a simple letter thanking Joseph for the kindness he had extended from the time Joseph had first heard Him preaching at the Temple in Jerusalem when He was only twelve years old. Joseph had believed He was the long-awaited Messiah.

When King Herod’s son had discovered that this profoundly wise and learned child had been born in Bethlehem, he’d ordered the young Christ’s assassination. Hearing this, Joseph had rushed to Nazareth and received permission from the boy’s parents to take Him to Egypt so that He could be safe and could study at the temple of Leontopolis near the Nile Valley.

Few scholars have yet worked on this text, but the early discussions indicate that it draws upon several earlier works from a Syriac milieu and new material was grafted onto the original core over the centuries. Much of the more recent sections of the text comprises apocalyptic visions announcing the coming of Mohammed (referred to as “the follower of the Archon,” “the leader of the children of the wolf,” and “the prophet of falsehood”) and the Islamic conquest of Egypt. In one memorable section, a Christian anti-biography of Mohammed is given by the risen Jesus, which begins: “O Peter, know that when the leader of the children of the wolf appears, he will be taught the faith, which he will learn from the straying sheep who will be banished by my church to the deserts, on account of his teaching about me the beliefs held by the Jews who hate me and my people. He will be a devouring wolf in sheep’s skins” (p. 250). Jesus goes on to say that Mohammed will be befriended by two Jews, who will write him a book (the Qur’an?) “compiled from all the books” (p. 252). It’s interesting to see in this biography some elements of historians’ reconstruction of Mohammed’s origins—that he was influenced by heretical Christians in Arabia, and that the Qur’an has connections with Syriac Christian liturgical texts.

Among the older materials incorporated in the text are a portion of the Testament of Abraham, sections of the Pseudo-Clementine Romance, and an otherwise-unknown account of the career of the apostle Paul. This account, found in book eight of the Garshuni version (p. 379–407), presents the apostle to the Gentiles in rather unflattering ways. Though he is converted on the road to Damascus as in Acts, Paul later appears in a pagan temple in Antioch where he challenges Peter to prove the power of Christ over that of the pagan deities. After successfully performing a series of miracles, Peter is then challenged to restore to life the king’s son, who has been dead for three years. Peter does so and the king and his court become believers. Then Paul reveals he only pretended to be a pagan in order to orchestrate the king’s conversion.

A similar contest occurs in Rome, this time leading to the conversion of the emperor (!). On both occasions Peter is surprised at Paul’s actions. After some tales of Peter and Paul’s missionary activities in North Africa and Ethiopia, the text concludes with Peter instructing his disciple Clement to write down all that he has revealed to him and to deposit the book in the archives of Rome. He then says, “As God liveth no one ought to divulge these mysteries to Paul [or be he Paul] or those who resemble him” (p. 405). He goes on to describe Paul as the one “who had tampered with the language of the books” (p. 406). The Garshuni Book of the Rolls is difficult to decipher, so conclusions about its contents must be tentative; nevertheless, it is tempting to see in this account of Paul evidence for the conflict between early groups of Jewish and Gentile Christians, a conflict seen also in the Pseudo-Clementine Romance, some of which is incorporated in this text.

Philip Tite, a McGill University graduate and currently an independent scholar in Seattle, has completed a monograph (the first ever?) on the Apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans. The book is due out in August from Brill (see the catalog entry HERE). Phil and I met when I was a graduate student at the University of Toronto and he was at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo. I think a study of Laodiceans was in his plans even back then. Congratulations Phil on seeing it to completion. 

I have just been informed that my paper has been accepted for the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. The session focuses on childhood stories of Jesus. I decided to present on my ongoing efforts to compile critical editions of childhood stories in Syriac. Here is the abstract:

"The Childhood of Jesus in the East Syriac Life of Mary"

The East Syriac Life of Mary, published for the first and only time by E. A. Wallis Budge in 1899, is a combination of a variety of non-canonical texts, including the Protoevangelium of James, the Dormition/Transitus of Mary, sections from the Abgar Legend and the Acts of Pilate, and, in some manuscripts, much of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Also included in the text, but not often discussed, is a series of stories of the holy family during their time in Egypt. The source of these tales is unknown. The same stories occur in the more widely published Arabic Infancy Gospel, long believed to be a translation of the Life of Mary, perhaps from an earlier stage in its development. Scholars interested in the childhood of Jesus and the life of Mary would be better served reading the stories in the Syriac Life of Mary than in its Arabic translation. To that end, this paper provides a new edition and translation of the Egyptian childhood tales based on a pool of over fifteen manuscripts. It represents a considerable advance on Budge’s edition, which employed only two manuscripts, one of which is now lost. The paper includes also a full description of all the manuscripts available today and information on those that have been lost in the turmoil faced in the east over the past century.

I have been doing some reading on the Book of the Rolls, a sprawling work of around 400 pages extant in Garshuni, Arabic, and Ethiopic. It also goes by the name of the Apocalypse of Peter (not to be confused with the other two texts of that name) or simply Clement. It's a fascinating text, and I may comment on it more later, but right now I just wanted to reproduce some words on the study of the CA offered by Mingana towards the end of his work on the text.

In the third volume of Woodbrooke Studies, Mingana mentions his intention to take a break from work on editing and translating apocryphal texts (p. 356). He then excerpts some comments about the CA by R. A. Lipsius and M. R. James. I'll leave aside the German quotation from Lipsius, but James writes: "There is no question of anyone’s having excluded (the apocryphal Gospels and Acts) from the New testament: they have done that for themselves. Interesting as they are, they do not achieve either of the two principal purposes for which they were written, the instilling of new religion and the conveyance of true history” (The Apocryphal New Testament, p. xi-xii). To this Mingana responds: “Whether the critics of the year, say, 2500, will wholly subscribe to this verdict I cannot say. That it will be slightly modified in favour of some Apocrypha seems to me just possible. Our main task for the present is to edit and translate as many of these uncanonical documents as we can, and leave the duty of studying them more elaborately and comparing them more fully with what we term canonical Books, to future generations. In the year 2500 scholars may possibly be in a position to study both the canonical and uncanonical scripture with a more detached spirit and better equipped minds.”

Well, some of us have been able to achieve that goal in 2012.  But it is heartening to see a scholar as eminent as Mingana express this viewpoint back in 1931.