Apocryphicity

Spurred on by the brief review of The Apocryphal Gospels by Bart Ehrman and Zlatko Pleše (Oxford University Press, 2011) in the LA Times, I have finally gathered together my own thoughts on the collection.

The goal of the collection, in the editors’ words, is to provide “everything that a graduate student or scholar working on the apocryphal Gospels would need or want access to” (p. viii). And, to some extent, they succeed. This is the first ever collection of primary texts in their original languages with facing English translations (though Andrew Bernhard’s Other Early Christian Gospels, used on occasion here, contains a number of texts). And it is undeniably an excellent all-in-one source for the material, drawing in texts from Tischendorf’s Evangelia Apocrypha, several CCSA (Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum) editions, a variety of century-old journal articles, the Nag Hammadi Library, and others. On Tischendorf, the editors comment that his 150-year-old editions are  “inadequate for the needs of scholars today” and that “many texts have been uncovered since Tischendorf’s day, some of them relatively difficult to access” (p. viii).  Nevertheless, they liberally draw upon Tischendorf’s work, primarily in the absence of new editions of certain texts—a deficiency the editors point out on several occasions, lamenting the slow pace of text-critical scholarship.

One of the strengths of this volume is in its expansiveness. Many apocrypha collections (in translation, that is) limit their content to texts composed in the first three or four centuries, thus eliminating a large amount of very interesting material. But this collection, running to almost 600 pages, features such rarely-seen texts as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, the History of Joseph the Carpenter, the Dura fragment of the Diatessaron (though an odd choice), an expansive collection of agrapha, and a large amount of the Acts of Pilate cycle (including the Anaphora Pilati, the Paradosis Pilati, the Letter of Pilate to Claudius and other letters, the Vengeance of the Savior, and the Death of Pilate). The editors avoided texts from the Nag Hammadi Library, since they are readily available in current editions, but opted to include the three most commonly-used texts: the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Judas. To their credit, they feature both the Coptic and the Greek fragments of Thomas and Mary, and with Judas, though they appeal to the contentious National Geographic edition of the text, they include expanded notes discussing the disputed readings.

As praiseworthy as the collection is, I can’t help but add a few nitpicky criticisms on their treatment of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (a text close to my heart).

• They chose to feature and translate Tischendorf’s Greek A text (fairly standard practice) and the first three chapters of Greek C (usually called Greek D; the same material is found in the late Latin version of the text).  Mention is made of an additional eight Greek Mss (drawing upon my article on the Greek tradition in Apocrypha 14) which “have never been published or made available to scholarly study” (p. 3). But these are certainly available in my PhD diss. (recently published in the CCSA series), and even Reidar Aaasgard’s 2009 IGT-study The Childhood of Jesus (which Ehrman is certainly aware of as he wrote a very supportive endorsement for its back cover) features an edition and translation of the very important Cod. Sabaiticus 259. There may be good reasons not to draw upon these resources, but they should be mentioned.
• Mention should be made also of Thomas Rosén’s study of the Slavonic Mss (The Slavonic Translation of the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas, 1997). They do note de Santos Otero’s earlier 1967 work but Rosén’s is more recent and it is in English.
• They discuss briefly the two fifth-century Syriac Mss (from London and Göttingen) and allude to three other later Mss. Which Mss are these? Only two (Vat. Syr. 159 and Budge’s Life of Mary Ms from Alkosh) have made much of a mark in scholarship. Many more exist, mind you, but it is still not clear what the editors are referring to. It would have been extremely helpful to include the Syriac IGT in the volume as it includes the longer version of chapter six missing in Tischendorf’s Greek Mss.
• Fabricius is credited with first publishing IGT in 1703 when, in fact, the Ms from the Fabricius collection first appeared in full in a work by J. B. Cotelier in 1698.
• And the Athens Ms of Greek C published by Armand Delatte is mistakenly said to be from the Bibliothèque National (sic) in Paris (p. 25, though they get the location right on p. 4).

Despite these minor reservations for IGT, I heartily recommend Ehrman and Pleše’s collection. But I would caution readers not to think of their editions, in many cases, to be authoritative. These are often merely entry points into the texts and must be supplemented with other text-critical work, particularly the contributions made by l’Association pour l’étude de la littérature apocryphe chrétienne reflected in the CCSA series and the two-volume French collection Écrits apocryphe chrétiens (1997 and 2005).

Mark Goodacre presented a paper at last year's SBL with the provocative argument that the "cross that spoke" in the Gospel of Peter is an element that derives from a scribal misunderstanding of the nomen sacrum ΣΤΑ (thus reading "cross" instead of "crucified one"). I missed the paper at SBL, but Mark has two posts describing his argument (start HERE) and these have sparked some fruitful discussion.

Reading the posts I was reminded of a few instances in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas manuscripts in which the same nomen sacrum has led to some corruptions in the text. The first is in the 11th-century Sabaiticus 259 (=Gs). In 6:2b we have the reading "…and that you may bear the name of salvation." Other Mss have instead "When you see my cross which my father mentioned to you…" The Gs reading seems to have arisen from a misreading of ΣΤΑ (cross) as "salvation." Another corruption appears in 6:2a where we have "Do not consider him to have the worth of a small man (ANOU)." The early versions have "small cross"; so perhaps our scribe (or an earlier one in the chain of transmission) misread ΣΤOU as ANOU.The only Ga Ms to have this chapter (Vienna, Cod. hist. gr. 91) is also corrupt (for microu staurou it reads mikroterou). The Gd Ms Cod. Ath. gr. 355 has the correct reading, but not as a nomen sacrum.

The programme for the 2011 Réunion de l'AELAC, which takes place June 30-July 2 in Dole, has been posted on-line (available HERE).These are the titles of the papers announced thus far:

Anne-Marie Polo de Beaulieu, “Usages et fonctions des apocryphes dans les recueils d'exempla et la prédication aux XIII^e-XIV^e siècles.”

Brent Landau, “Revelation of the Magi.”  

Yves Tissot, “Évaluation critique de l'édition des Actes de Thomas de M. Bonnet."

Kristian Heal, “The Syriac History of Joseph.”  

Tony Burke, “New Developments in Constructing a Critical Edition of the Syriac Infancy Gospel of Thomas.”

Witold Witakowski, “The ‘Vienna Protology’ and recently discovered paintings in a church in northern Ethiopia based on this Ethiopic apocryphal text.”

L’édition de textes à traditions multiples : approches théoriques et pratiques avec les interventions de:

Els Rose, “L’édition des Virtutes apostolorum.”

Zbigniew Izydorczyk, “Excer[-or-]cizing uncertainty: reflections on editing the Evangelium Nicodemi.”

Bart Janssens, “Les séries latines de Brepols et les outils électroniques.”

Caroline Mace, “La série grecque du CC et le logiciel Classical Text Editor.”

And here is the abstract for my paper:

“New Developments in Constructing a Critical Edition of the Syriac Infancy Gospel of Thomas”

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (IGT) is one of the most ancient texts of the Christian Apocrypha, dating perhaps to the early second century.  Though scholarship on IGT has been sparse for decades, the past ten years has seen a surge in interest in this text. Several major studies have appeared including my recently released critical edition of the IGT’s Greek manuscript tradition (De infantia Iesu Euangelium Thomae Graece. Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 17. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010). Despite the importance of the Greek tradition, it has long been recognized that some of the early versions of IGT—Syriac, Latin, Georgian, and Ethiopic—represent an earlier form of the text. The most important of these versions is the Syriac, of which there are manuscripts dating to the fifth century—six centuries older than the earliest Greek manuscript. This paper describes all of the known Syriac manuscripts of IGT and arranges them into three recensions: Sa, which includes the two previously-published but fragmentary fifth-century manuscripts along with two later but complete witnesses; Sw, the west Syrian (or “Jacobite”) form of the text extant in twelve unpublished manuscripts; and Se, the east Syrian (or “Nestorian”) version found in three manuscripts of the Life of the Virgin Mary, which was published from one of these witnesses by E. A. Wallis Budge in 1899. A critical edition of the Syriac IGT is long overdue and will be of great benefit to the study of this important text.

My long-awaited (well, at least by me) critical edition of the Greek tradition of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is now available (and hopefully coming to an academic library near you). Here is the abstract from Brepols' catalogue:

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 (Syriac, Ethiopic, Georgian, and another Latin translation) are discussed also as they inform the text of Greek S, an important new recension which brings us much closer to IGT’s original form and should be considered the new textus receptus for study of the gospel. The edition also features a detailed overview of previous scholarship on the text, and a commentary on the gospel that seeks to situate it in its appropriate theological and socio-historical contexts. Scholars of early Christianity have been waiting centuries for a comprehensive critical edition of IGT. While more work needs to be done on some of the versions of the text, this volume fulfills much of the needs of scholarship by providing a vastly improved edition of IGT in its likely language of composition. 

Well, the abstract of my forthcoming edition of the Greek tradition of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is back up on the Brepols page (HERE). The proofing stage of the project has taken a considerable amount of time, thus delaying the publication by a year. But, good news: I will receive the final proofs imminently and Brepols wish to have the book out in March (yes, 2011).Which means I won't be getting much sleep in the next few weeks as I check over the text again and generate indices. I hope everyone has their 300 Euros ready for the purchase.

Jim Davila at Paleojudaica pointed out this review of Reidar Aasgaard's study of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (The Childhood of Jesus: Decoding the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2009).

I have returned from my trip to the US to photograph a handful of Syriac manuscripts. The work went quite well, with only a few minor problems accessing the material. Here's a brief rundown of the trip.

I arrived in New York City Sunday night. Princeton Theological Society was scheduled for one o'clock the following afternoon. So, after a short stroll through Central Park Monday morning, I headed off to Princeton. When I arrived, a fire alarm was going off in the library (due to construction) and I had to wait a little while for that to be resolved. I speedily photographed the manuscript (Speer Library Cabinet C, Ms. 40). I was under the mistaken belief that this was a copy of a manuscript from Urmia (Urmia 43) that was now lost. In fact, however, it actually is Urmia 43. So, one mystery solved. Documents in the library suggest that the other two Urmia manuscripts (38 and 47) are indeed lost, though the Royal Asiatic Society Ms published by Budge is virtually identical to Urmia 38.

On Tuesday, I made it to Union Theological Seminary to photograph UTS Syr. 32, a fragmentary Life of Mary Ms of only forty or so pages. Upon arrival I was told I needed a temporary library card from Butler library, which was four blocks down the street. Sigh. After a quick run in terrible heat, I was back to complete the job.

And on Friday, I spent a few hours in Harvard's Houghton Library photographing Mss. 168 and 82. Houghton is somewhat more regimented than the other two libraries. Besides the elaborate security one has to get through, I could not use my tripod. I was also slowed down by some hem-ing and haw-ing over the manuscripts. They could not understand why the library itself could not photograph them, despite my insistence that I was told that the library informed me these could not be photographed because they were too delicate. After clearing everything with the curator, I was given the go-ahead. I also got a look at Titterton's very extensive catalogue of the Syriac manuscripts.

And now I am back in Waterloo, cropping and organizing the photographs so that I can print them out in the next few days. I still don't know how valuable the manuscripts will be: Houghton Ms. 168 I have collated already, so it holds no surprises, but the other three may very well be Life of Mary manuscripts that do not contain the Infancy Thomas material, in which case they are not particularly useful to me, but may be for others interested in the text. At the very least they will be incorporated into my description of the Life of Mary manuscripts, which have been terribly confused in previous studies of the material.

On Sunday I will be heading off to the US for a research trip. I have been collecting manuscripts of the two Syriac versions of the Life of Mary: an eastern one edited by E.A.W. Budge in 1899, and a western one still unedited but discussed here and there by a few previous scholars. My interest, of course, is in the material incorporated into these texts from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

The goal, ultimately, is to construct a critical edition of the Syriac tradition of this text. To date only two manuscripts of the Syriac IGT have been published. These two, plus two more, have been collated in my article that should appear in Apocrypha some time soon. Of the western Life of Mary, which incorporates all of IGT as one of its six “books,” there are thirteen known manuscripts. One of these is at Harvard and has not yet been photographed (thus the need for the trip). Of the eastern Life of Mary, which contains some episodes from IGT, there are 23 manuscripts. Two have been published (by Budge), and several are probably lost forever. One is at Harvard, one at Princeton, and one at Union Theological Seminary; all of these have to be photographed.

The US is not exactly Mt. Sinai, but I am excited about the trip, especially since I’ll be incorporating some site-seeing along the way and bringing my two girls for company. It is exciting also because these are probably the last manuscripts I need to finish a project that has occupied much of my time over the last few years. What next? Ethiopic? Um, no thanks.

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).

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.