Apocryphicity

The latest issue of the Bulletin for the Study of Religion (41.3) features my article on the More Christian Apocrypha Project. The abstract for the article provides some details about the project:

Scholars interested in the Christian Apocrypha (CA) typically appeal to CA collections when in need of primary sources. But many of these collections limit themselves to material believed to have been written within the first to fourth centuries CE. As a result a large amount of non-canonical Christian texts important for the study of ancient and medieval Christianity have been neglected. The More Christian Apocrypha Project will address this neglect by providing a collection of new editions (some for the first time) of these texts for English readers. The project is inspired by the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project headed by Richard Bauckham and Jim Davila from the University of Edinburgh. Like the MOTP, the MCAP is envisioned as a supplement to an earlier collection of texts—in this case J. K. Elliott’s The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford 1991), the most recent English-language CA collection (but now almost two decades old). The texts to be included are either absent in Elliott or require significant revision. Many of the texts have scarcely been examined in over a century and are in dire need of new examination. One of the goals of the project is to spotlight the abilities and achievements of English (i.e., British and North American) scholars of the CA, so that English readers have access to material that has achieved some exposure in French, German, and Italian collections.

The volumes will be published by Eerdmans, with the first going to press some time in 2013. Brent Landau (University of Oklahoma) is my co-editor for the project. For introductory information on the texts to be featured (or we hope to be featured) in the volumes, see my More Christian Apocrypha page.

Brent Landau passed on to me a few notes regarding the find:

"Cool things I learned at Dirk Obbink's lecture in Oklahoma City this evening" (Tuesday, September 13, 2011)

1) The new "unknown gospel" from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (mentioned in THIS news report) that was mentioned in press releases in connection with the ancientlives.org project has Jesus performing an exorcism on the Gerasene demoniac…BUT, there's no herd of swine! The demons just go away. No pigs were harmed in the performing of this miracle.

2) On the other side of the "unknown gospel" fragment are several sayings of Jesus about acknowledging him as Lord that resemble (but are not identical to) logia found in the Synoptics and Thomas. So apparently this gospel alternates between narrative and sayings, but with less of the transitional material found in the Synoptics.

3) The "unknown gospel" will be published in vol. 77 of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri.

4) A new fragment of the beginning of the Gospel of Mark has been identified, which was probably enclosed in an amulet and likely dates to the third century. Like several other important witnesses, it lacks the phrase "Son of God" after "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ." But, unlike any other manuscript, it has the definite article "tou" before "Christou."

5) Oxford University has developed a portable multi-spectral scanner that is inexpensive enough to be purchased by both institutions and individuals. I don't know what the exact cost is, or whether it is available for purchase yet, but Dr. Obbink said it was in the price range "of a high-end laptop computer." See HERE for their info page.

Congratulations to Jim Davila and Richard Bauckham on getting the manuscript of their first volume of Old Testament Pseudepigapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures to their publisher. Jim's post on Paleojudaica (HERE) includes a list of the contents of the volume. Note that some of these texts are actually Christian-penned, but feature Old Testament/Hebrew Bible figures or events; so the book will be of interest also to readers of the Christian Apocrypha. 

The page on More Christian Apocrypha provides introductory information on neglected and unpublished CA texts. It is by no means comprehensive and I welcome any suggestions for improvement.

I have just updated my page of More Christian Apocrypha, a resource page on rarely-studied apocryphal texts. The first section, on various gospels and epistles, now has more links to on-line texts, a brief description of manuscript sources, and some additional bibliographical items. The other two sections (Acts and Apocalypses) will be updated soon.

I have added two texts to my More Christian Apocrypha page: the History of the Thirty Pieces of Silver (based on the edition and translation made by myself and Slavomir Ceplo), and the Dialogue of the Paralytic with Christ (my English translation of Bernard Outtier's French translation).

I mentioned in a previous post several texts that tend to be omitted from "New Testament Apocrypha" collections and thus have been neglected in scholarship. Typically this is because they are relatively late texts and thus fall outside of the temporal parameters of the formation of the New Testament. As a means of attracting attention to these texts I have added a new page (More Christian Apocrypha) to my site focusing on the texts. At the moment it is little more than a list of the material but I will add more information to the page when time permits. Any suggestions for additions and general improvement would be appreciated.

I have been thinking this past week about the typical contents of CA collections and what texts tend to be included and what get left out. The parameters are usually temporal—i.e., most collections include only material that is pre-Constantinian (the Pleiades collection is an exception)—though earlier studies of CA did include some later texts because there were not that many texts yet available. This led me on a search for some of these forgotten texts; many of which are found on the Church Fathers page of the New Advent site (scroll down to “Apocrypha”).

The English translations of the texts offered here are quite old and often unacknowledged. But they do offer the reader a glimpse at the texts as they were known to scholars at the end of the nineteenth century (or thereabouts). For some, more work has been done in the interim, but many have yet to be examined in sufficient detail. Here are a few of the more interesting texts:

Avenging of the Saviour

Narrative of Joseph of Arimathaea

Apocalypse of the Virgin

Acts of Barnabas

Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena