New Series on the Other Gospels in Expository Times

I want to draw your attention to a fantastic new series that Expository Times is publishing on the extracanonical gospels. These articles are written to present coherent accessible summaries of these gospels - the history of their interpretation, their provenance, and their meaning. Bibliographies of some of the major works are included at the end of each article.

I highly recommend these articles as a starting place if you are looking for information about any of these texts. They will make very good readings for classes, if you teach any of these gospels in your curriculum (whether university or church).

I plan to order hard copies of the journal for my personal library, but you can access this journal on-line. If your university has a subscription to the journal, you can print out a copy from your computer. If not, you can purchase individual articles on the website and print them from your computer.

My thanks to the editor, Paul Foster, who kindly sent me the details about the articles.

Expository Times 118 (2007)

Feb Gospel of Judas Simon Gathercole (Aberdeen) Exp Times 118.5 pp 209-215
Mar Papyrus Egerton 2 Tobias Nicklas (Nijmegen) Exp Times 118.6 pp 261-266
Apr Gospel of Peter Paul Foster (Edinburgh) Exp Times 118.7 pp 318-325
May Gospel of Mary Christopher Tuckett (Oxford) Exp Times 118.8 pp 365-371
Jun Gospel of Philip Paul Foster (Edinburgh) Exp Times 118.9 pp 417-427
July Gospel of Thomas April DeConick (Rice) Exp Times 118.10 pp. 469-479
Aug Jewish Christian Gospels Andrew Gregory (Oxford) ExpTimes 118.11
Sept Protevangelium of James Paul Foster (Edinburgh) Exp Times 118.12

Book Note: Das Thomas-Evangelium. Einleitung - Zur Frage des historischen Jesus - Kommentierung aller 114 Logien (Reinhard Nordsieck)

I received a wonderful gift in the mail yesterday. Mr. Nordsieck kindly sent me a copy of his new book, a commentary on the Gospel of Thomas. The publication of my own two volumes on Thomas occurred simultaneously, so we did not know about each other's take on the Gospel.

Mr. Nordsieck relies heavily on redaction-, form-, and tradition-criticism and argues against the current in German scholarship to perceive the Gospel of Thomas as a Gnostic text. He thinks that the text represents a form of Jewish Christianity. He also says that the Gospel of Thomas potentially can tell us about the historical Jesus, and should not be dismissed in these discussions. In fact, he doesn't think that a good reconstruction of the historical Jesus or New Testament theology is possible without reference to Thomas.

His book starts with a bibliographical introduction (27 pages), a short discussion of the historical Jesus (8 pages), and ends with a substantial saying-by-saying commentary (361 pages).

Book Note: The Misunderstood Jew (A.J. Levine)

Most of you are probably already aware of Amy-Jill Levine's book, The Misunderstood Jew, published in 2006. But as always I am behind, and the book just arrived today, so this is my first glance at it. It reflects that call for a Jewish Jesus that I have been harping about lately, so I thought I would post a few lines from Levine's book that jumped out at me (perhaps because they sound similar to my own voice in my classroom). I recommend the book, especially in terms of helping to negotitate interfaith dialogue between Jewish and Christian communities. But the book also has a lot to contribute in terms of re-evaluating biblical scholarship which has largely been an enterprise influenced, and even controlled, by the Christian perspective.

Selections from Levine's book

"Recognize that Jewish sources and Christian sources both contain ugly, misogynistic, intolerant, and hateful material" (p. 216).

"Avoid comments that create the picture of a Jesus divorced from his own people. Jesus is not speaking against Jews and Judaism; he is speaking to Jews from within Judaism. However, also recognize that his words, put into the literary context of the Gospels and then put into the canon of the New Testament, may well take on problematic connotations" (pp. 216-217).

"Recognize that history is a messy business, and religious competition makes it even messier. The Gospels are products of this process. They are not objective reports; rather, they are the stories passed down from the eyewitnesses to the later followers. The Gospel writers adapted the received traditions to fit the needs of their congregrations, just as priests and pastors adapt the stories of the New Testament to address congregrational concerns today" (p. 217).

"As the church grew increasingly gentile, the Jewish followers of Jesus became a minority, and their practices eventually marked them as heretics" (p. 218).

Bauckham on Vridar

Over on Vridar, Neil Godfrey writes a post that cuts to the chase of the main problem with Bauckham's new thesis about eyewitness testimony. Thanks to Mr. Godfrey for his comment.

Book Note: Other Early Christian Gospels (Andrew Bernhard)

I just received a copy of Andrew Bernhard's book, Other Early Christian Gospels: A Critical Edition of the Surviving Greek Manuscripts. Mr. Bernhard has a Master's Degree in Greek and Roman history from Oxford, and has re-edited and re-translated the Greek gospel Oxyrhynchus fragments. These are included in his volume (P. Oxy. 654, 1, 655, 4009, 2949, 210, 1224, 840) as well as others fragments not from Oxyrhynchus (P. Cair. 10759, P. Egerton 2, P. Köln 255, P. Vindob.G 2325, P.Mert. 51, P. Berol. 11710).

What a convenient volume! To have all these fragments published together in one book makes them finally accessible to everyone. The edition contains helpful appendices indexing the Greek words in each fragment. Basic papyrological analyses are presented, including the date of the manuscript, measurements, current location that the fragment is housed, original publication information, and any notable features. This is followed by a line-by-line Greek presentation, a "student's edition" where all the reconstruction apparatus has been eliminated, and an English translation.

A critical apparatus appears at the bottom of the page, but there is no justification for why particular reconstructions have been chosen over others. Photographs of most of the fragments are found collected in the back of the volume. Unfortunately the publisher did not produce high quality facsimiles (I guess that they would have been too costly to reproduce), so their usefulness for actual research is rather limited.

Book Note: Esalen (Kripal); and The Serpent's Gift (Kripal)

Jeff Kripal, my colleague here in the Religious Studies Department at Rice just gave me a copy of his newest book, a history of Esalen and the human potential movement in America. The book is called Esalen: American and the Religion of No Religion. Here is an excerpt released on-line by the University of Chicago Press, his publisher. I thought a post on this "alternative" to traditional religion in contemporary society might be of some interest to those of us studying the "alternative" Christianities (and Judaisms) in antiquity.

I want to congratulate him on his outstanding (and beautiful) book, which I saw displayed front and center among the new hardback releases at Border's Books this evening when I was out book browsing with my son and husband. There is a three-page full layout of his book in the Chronicle of Higher Education Review this week (April 13, 2007) for those interested in a taste of what his new work is all about.

While I am mentioning this book, I might also mention that he just published a book on religious studies as a field of study, comparing what we do as scholars (both content-wise and methodology) with ancient gnosis and the gift that the serpent has to give. I truly loved this book, particularly the first and last chapters which made me really think about the study of religion in terms of the esoteric, the subversive, and the gnostic. We had the pleasure of reading this book a few weeks ago for the Reading Religion at Rice lunch group, and it was applauded around the table. Its name couldn't be any more appropriate - The Serpent's Gift.

So I think that double kudos are deserved!

Book Note: Ancient Letters and the New Testament (Hans-Josef Kauck)

Baylor University Press has just made (2006) an English translation of Klauck's German work originally published in 1998, Die antike Briefliteratur und das Neue Testament. The English translation is not a straightforward translation of the earlier German work, but includes revisions and additions, especially in terms of explanatory notes on philological subjects, but also expansions and revisions of some arguments. This makes the book not only more use-friendly for the English-speaking student, but has made the book even better. So if you are only familiar with the German edition, you might want to check out the English one since it is really a second revised edition.

Klauck's book proves to me again how necessary, how urgent, it is for us to dismiss the canon boundaries that have locked us in the bible for too long. His book is quite comprehensive, covering letters in Early Judaism as well as the New Testament and beyond to the Greco-Roman world.

There are chapters on the "practical realities" of paper and the postal system in antiquity, nonliterary and diplomatic letters from the scores of documentary papyri available to us now, literary letters in poetry and philosophy, and the rhetoric of letters. His knowledge of the Greco-Roman world is extensive so he is able to include ancient letters that are little-known to most biblical scholars.

Each chapter is set up with students in mind, to function as a textbook as well as a reference resource. There are exercises at the end of the chapters, and an instructor's key at the end of the book. Each chapter contains valuable bibliographical sections that have been updated to 2005.

Book Note: An Introduction to Jesus and the Gospels (Frederick J. Murphy)

I just received a copy of An Introduction to Jesus and the Gospels by Frederick J. Murphy. I was very excited to get it in the mail because I am in love with his book Early Judaism: The Exile to the Time of Jesus which I have used whenever I have taught my second Temple course, The World of Jesus. Usually I avoid textbooks like the plague, but this one is so well done, I can't run my course without Early Judaism. In fact, a few years back when the book had another title and was not in print while Professor Murphy worked to revise it, I personally contacted him and asked permission to duplicate the book for my course. He kindly gave me permission for that semester, for which I am very grateful. Professor Murphy integrates all the extracanonical Jewish literature right alongside the canonical voices, giving them an equal and full hearing within their historical context, and the result is wonderful chorus about Judaism in the second Temple period. He includes too Jesus and the first Christians within this Jewish symphony, and the result is striking, I think.

So as you can imagine, I really was enthusiastic about getting his Gospels book. But I was disappointed when I received it and discovered that although Professor Murphy does a good job on the canonical materials especially in terms of standard biblical criticism, the extracanonical gospels are not integrated into his discussions or his history of early Christianity. They are all collected like afterthoughts into one chapter (25 pages) at the end of a 394 page book in a chapter called "Other Gospels." He covers them from a narratological perspective, but that is all. The book is fine for a class that only covers the New Testament gospels, but not for mine which tries to integrate them all.

So I think I will stick with the only other textbook I use in teaching, by Jarl Fossum and Phillip Munoa, Jesus and the Gospels, although it too could use a boost in its coverage of the non-canonical gospels. But at least the few that are covered (Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of the Hebrews, Gospel of the Nazarenes, and Gospel of the Ebionites), are dealt with as important early Christian documents with social locations and their own stories to add to the mix.

Book Note: The Treasures of Coptic Art in the Coptic Museum and Churches of Old Cairo (by Gawdat Gabra and Marianne Eaton-Krauss)

Here's the book on Coptic antiquities I've been waiting for! Paired with Mr. Gabra's other book (put together with Capuani, Meinardus, and Rutschowscaya), Christian Egypt: Coptic Art and Monuments Through Two Millennia (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2002), we finally are getting a close-to-thorough collection of Coptic artifacts and sites published. Both books are coffee table size books, but the information and details within reflect much more knowledge than a simple catalogue. Along with long descriptions of individual items, there are extensive narratives of the history of the region and its art.

Chapters in The Treasures of Coptic Art (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2007) include the first ever to be written as far as I know "History of the Coptic Museum" and a fairly intense overview of "The Churches of Old Cairo." Also: "Pagan Art and Coptic Art," "Pharaonic Elements in Coptic Art and Architecture," "Egyptain Monasticism," "Articles of Daily Life," "Burials," and so on.

There is even a brief chapter on the Nag Hammadi Codices with three beautiful leaves photographed, and a new full-color picture of the leather covers.

The photographs throughout the book are exquisite, down to the fibers of the old textiles in the Coptic Museum. The photographs of the art are better than the originals I remember seeing in person on any of my visits to Old Cairo and the Coptic Museum. The artifacts have been cleaned so that the images are clearly visible.

Book Note: Luke the Theologian (François Bovon)

Baylor University Press just published (2006) the second revised edition of Professor Bovon's single volume on the Gospel of Luke - Luke the Theologian. It is a bibliographical essential for our personal libraries, summarizing research on the Gospel of Luke from 1950 to 2005. The first edition covered only 1950-1975. So it contains three new chapters - What about Luke? (1983); Studies in Luke-Acts: Retrospect and Prospect (1992); and Luke the Theologian, from 1980 to 2005. It contains a completely updated bibliography through 2005 and a handy thematic index. It is also a good price - paperback edition for $34.95.

Book Note: Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity (Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher, eds.)

I wish to draw attention to an edited volume that I think is dealing with an extremely important subject, but one that has been largely neglected in biblical studies - social memory theory, what I have come to call "communal memory" in my own writings. The book contains a very good introduction to social memory theory and a number of specific studies applying the theory to biblical and extra-biblical texts. Sociologists and anthropologists who have studied social memory for decades now have shown us that communities as well as individuals create and commemorate their pasts in terms of their present experiences and social realities - that no history is a record of what actually happened, but a reimagining of what the community wishes to remember happened. The articles in this book provide a significant challenge to many of the assumptions we have made as scholars in biblical studies, including the very items we have been discussing on this blog. What kind of history do our gospels relate? Why did the early Christian literature emerge? Ritual? Ethics? Can we ever know the historical Jesus?

Memory studies are highly significant, so much so that I think the field of biblical studies cannot move forward honestly without embracing this large body of social scientific research and making it part of our baseline operation. I plan to post soon a more comprehensive discussion of communal memory theory and its implications for our period and literature with a starting bibliography, highlighting significant research from social scientific journals and books. But for now, I recommend Memory, Tradition and Text as a quick plunge into this material and its application to biblical studies.

Book Note: Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature: A Literary History (Claudio Moreschini and Enrico Norelli)

I came across this 2-volume set last spring and was thoroughly pleased to see such an even treatment of canonical and non-canonical material. Applause!

The volumes were published in 2005 by Hendrickson Publishers. The first volume covers early Christian literature from Paul to the Age of Constantine. The second, from the Nicea to the beginning of the Medieval period. The books generally are up-to-date on scholarship, providing tight narrative outlines of the literature followed by very brief bibliographies. The coverage is comparable to what might be found on certain subjects in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.

However, because of the overview nature of the "entries," not even a nod is made to a comprehensive treatment of the given topics. Rather, the work is written through the personal digest of Moreschini and Norelli, representing their understanding of the material. So these books are good places to go to get a quick overview of a subject, but should not be regarded as comprehensively representing the field on any given topic. This is not a criticism as much as a caution to readers.

I love the set up of volume 1 which is of most interest to me because of its coverage of the pre-Nicene period. It is set up chronologically beginning with the letters of Paul and the Pauline "pseudepigraphical" letters. The Gospels follow with Quelle, synoptics, Acts, Jewish-Christian, Egyptians, Fragmentary gospels, Thomas, Peter, John. The Apocalypses follow with John, Isaiah, and Peter. Then the Non-Pauline letters. And so forth. Fair language and even treatment of the literature is seen throughout the book.

The only sad remark I have to make, is where is the Coptic literature (besides the Gospel of Thomas which is included because it has greek fragments?)? I understand that the title of the book would have to be changed, but the missing Coptic material creates a silence, an emptiness of the Gnostic and (and later, monastic) voices.

Book Note: Performing the Gospel (Horsley, Draper, Foley)

Alan Kirk has written a very thorough review of Performing the Gospel: Orality, Memory, and Mark. It is an outstanding edited volume put together by Richard Horsley, Jonathan Draper and John Miles Foley for Werner Kelber. For those who want a quick introduction and submersion in oral consciousness (so vital for the study of our ancient texts), this is a good book to start the journey. I am already using Holly Hearon's contribution ("The Implications of Orality for Studies of the Biblical Text") in my 100-level Introduction to New Testament Studies course at Rice.

I would also like to draw attention to the candid contribution in Performing the Gospel by Jens Schröter, a German scholar who has written another very intense book that I highly recommend on the sayings tradition in the context of social memory studies (Erinnerung an Jesu Worte). His article is called "Jesus and the Canon: The Early Jesus Traditions in the Context of the Origins of the New Testament Canon." He argues quite convincingly that the early church understood the Jesus tradition from the beginning to be "a free and living tradition" which was augmented by an ongoing process of written versions of various gospels. There was "no fundamental difference" between oral and written tradition, but they represent analogous processes in which the living tradition was adapted to new contexts. The tradition was not oriented toward the preservation of original words of Jesus. He says that we must abandon the idea of a "fixed, authoritative form of the tradition." He also shows how the Jesus tradition became linked to "apostolic preaching" to give particular versions of the tradition authority. He takes very seriously the apocrypha for the study of Christian origins. His overview in this article hits many of the same points that I have written about as well, particularly in my first chapter of Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas ("The 'New' Traditionsgeschichtliche Approach," especially pages 24-37). Thank you Jens for this fine contribution.