Apocryphote of the Day: 2-20-08

"My loins are girded with truth, and my sandals are bound on my feet. May I not see their thongs untied. I have put my hand to my ploughshare, and I have not looked behind me, so that my furrows may not be crooked. My fields are white and are ready for reaping. May I receive my reward...May I receive your face and worship before your holy beauty...The internal I have made external, and the external internal. Let your will be fulfilled in every part of me...Let us receive the crown of victory."

Acts of Thomas 147

Commentary: (ca. late second or early third c.) This is a prayer attributed to Judas Thomas (the Apostle) while in prison before his martyrdom. The reference to receiving God's face and worshiping before his holy beauty is striking in its merkavah mystical language. Thomas is asking to be allowed to enter the heavenly throneroom and receive a vision of God's face, in order to worship God's Beauty.

Apocryphote of the Day: 2-19-08

"A cup of milk was offered to me,
and I drank it in the sweetness of the Lord's kindness.
The Son is the cup,
and the Father is he who was milked,
and the Holy Spirit is she who milked him,
because his breasts were full,
and it was undesirable that his milk should be released without purpose.
The Holy Spirit opened her bosom,
and mixed the milk of the two breasts of the Father.
Then she gave the mixture to the generation without their knowing,
and those who have received it are in the perfection of the right hand."

Odes of Solomon 19:1-5

Okay, this one wasn't random. But I couldn't help it given the article in the Catholic National Registry which turned me into a man.

This is a baptismal hymn from a collection of liturgies used in the early Syrian churches at the end of the second and beginning of the third centuries. The reference to the cup and milk is likely a reference to eucharist practices. Some early Christians used milk (or water) instead of wine. Since the Syrian churches at this time tended toward encratic behavior (rejection of the body, marriage, meat and wine), the practice of drinking a cup of milk at the eucharist fits their overall lifestyle program. Notice that the Spirit is still being treated as a female figure in Syria, although it is the Father who has the breasts and gives the milk!

DeConick has become a man according to the National Catholic Register

Thanks to Professor Emmer of Emporia State University for sending me this link to an article in the National Catholic Register. He has already submitted a letter to the editor.

Not only does this article use my work to try to support its thesis against so-called "relativism" of the media, but I have become a man! Here is a link to the whole article, with the paragraph below that has wrongly identified me as a male. The National Catholic Register appears to have followed the lead of the Legionary Father John Flynn who spoke of me as a he.

Print media is not exempt from problems. An egregious case of inaccuracy came with the so-called Gospel of Judas Iscariot, which National Geographic hyped in 2006. April D. DeConick, in an editorial-page commentary published Dec. 1 in The New York Times, revisited the find. He described how he re-translated the Coptic text, finding many errors, including choices of translation made by National Geographic scholars that “fall well outside the commonly accepted practices.”

One wonders how such an identification could be made with the first name "April." Perhaps I should be flattered (although I'm not). What comes to my mind is the Gospel of Thomas 114: "For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven." And the fact that still we must fight gender bias (among other things!).

Apocryphote of the Day: 2-18-08

Jesus: "Truly I say to you, no one will enter the Kingdom of Heaven at my request, but rather because you are filled...Hence, become full of the Spirit." Apocryphon of James 2.29-34, 4.19-20.

NOTE: Many people are only familiar with the canonical materials and the forms of religiosity that have emerged from that material. Materials outside this purview have remained largely unknown and discredited for centuries for its impiety and heresy. I hope that my postings of these Apocryphotes will begin to make some of the para-biblical material heard more widely, particularly the voices of its authors who were living piously their interpretation(s) of Judaism and Christianity. Some have asked how I pick these quotes. The truth is I take a collection of apocryphal works, open it up, and post something from that page. This literature is so full of rich material, it is fairly easy to do!

Answering Tony's questions about the translation of the Gospel of Judas

Tony discusses a great exercise in his Gnosticism class, comparing translations of the Gospel of Judas - mine and Marvin Meyers. He ended with a few questions. Here are my responses.

Tony: 1. At 39, 24 DeConick has “And the animals that were brought for sacrifice” while Meyer has “And the cattle brought in are the offerings you have seen.” Is the Coptic “animals” or “cattle”?

My response: Crum 400b: TBNE: beast, domestic animal; used in translated texts for ox, ass, camel, sheep, goat, mule, oxen.

Tony: 2. At 52, 4-6 DeConick has “The first [is Ath]eth, the one who is called the ‘Good One,’” while Meyer has “The first is [Se]th, who is called Christ.” Again, what is the Coptic?

My response: The Coptic is an abbreviation: ChS. This abbreviation is used in Coptic literature for chrestos and for christos. Both are common. By the way, Layton even mentions this confusion over this abbreviation in the Coptic literature in his new lessons book (see section 17). So we must distinguish them from context. Since Christ is never an Archon, it is probably chrestos, "the good one". This is a well known title for Athoth, an Archon in the Sethian literature. He is to be associated with the moon, as I am finding out in my recent research on this Archon. As I have said in my book, I think that Athoth is the Archon in the partial lacunae, not Seth.

Tony: 3. At 33, 19-21 DeConick has “Often he did not appear to his disciples, but when necessary, you would find him in their midst,” while Meyer has “Many a time he does not appear as himself to his disciples, but you find him as a child among them.” Both editors note the difficulties in translating this passage. One student thought the key to the solution might be in the words translated “as himself”—if this is present in the manuscript, he asked, then “as a child” might be the superior reading. So, what is in the manuscript?

My response: The word in question is hrot. Meyer has translated this "as a child" from a Boharic Coptic word that is not quite the form that we have in the Coptic Judas (Crum, 631a-b). In fact, the spelling is not the Boharic spelling. So this Boharic translation is highly unlikely, and I wouldn't make any arguments based on it. Instead, our expression probably comes from htor, which means "necessity". So the literal translation would be "in necessity". The scribe has inverted the t and the r. As for "as himself", this personal pronoun is suffixed directly to the verb "reveal" as it should be. Coptic requires this sort of suffixing. Jesus is revealing himself. That is all it means.

4. In 40, 5-6 DeConick has “and generations of the impious will remain faithful to him,” while Meyer has “and generations of pious people will cling to him.” So, what is it: pious or impious?

Response: This is an editorial mistake that has to be corrected in my revised edition. My hand notes (which is how I work out my translations) have "pious" (which is correct according to the Coptic transcription). I have not been able to trace how the error came into the proof. I apologize for not catching this in proof, but it will be corrected in reprint.

Apocryphote of the Day: 2-15-08

"Listen, O soul, to my advice.
Do not become a den for foxes and snakes,
nor a hole for serpents and asps,
nor a lair for lions,
nor a shelter for vipers.
When these things happen to you,
O soul, what will you do?
For these are the Powers of the Adversary.
You were a temple.
You made yourself a tomb.
Stop being a tomb, and become a temple again,
so that uprightness and divinity may remain in you.
Light the light within you.
Do not put it out."

Teaching of Silvanus 105.28-106.3, 10-15 (an Alexandrian Christian writing)

Symposium on Early Christian Art at Kimbell Museum

It has come to my attention that there is a symposium planned at the beginning of March to go along with the terrific exhibition of early Christian art at the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth. Here are the details from the website advertising it. Again, this is something not to miss.

Symposium on Early Christian Art

Saturday and Sunday, March 1–2, 2008

A two-day symposium featuring distinguished scholars from Europe and America will discuss various aspects of the function of Christian art, including its use in the format of Christian self-identity. The symposium will be moderated by the curator of the exhibition, Jeffery Spier of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

This symposium has been made possible by a generous grant from the Leon Levy Foundation.

Welcome and Introductions Saturday, March 1 10:15 a.m. Malcolm Warner, acting director, Kimbell Art Museum, and Timothy Potts, director, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England

Temple, Church, and Synagogue: The Evolution of Religious Architecture in the World of Early Christianity Saturday, March 1 10:30–11:30 a.m. L. Michael White, R. N. Smith Endowed Chair in Classics and Religious Studies; director, Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins, department of classics, University of Texas at Austin

Emblems of Catholic Identity in Rome and North Africa Saturday, March 1 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Annewies van den Hoek, lecturer on Greek and Latin, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Images at the Christian Tomb: What They Do and What They Expect Saturday, March 1 2–3 p.m. Ann Marie Yasin, assistant professor, department of classics and art history, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Fountains, Apses, and the Meaning of Water Saturday, March 1 3–4 p.m. Beat Brenk, full professor of Early Christian and medieval archaeology, Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza," Italy

The Earliest Christian Decorated Books: Function and Use Sunday, March 2 11 a.m.–noon John Lowden, professor, Courtauld Institute of Art, London

Art and Liturgical Disposition in Early Christian Churches Sunday, March 2 1:30–2:30 p.m. Sible L. de Blaauw, Van der Meer chair of Early Christian art and architecture, Department of the History of Art, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, The Netherlands

"Countless Imaginations" and the Authentic Likeness of Christ Sunday, March 2 2:30–3:30 p.m. Herbert L. Kessler, professor of the history of art, Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

Discussion
Sunday, March 2
3:30–4:30 p.m.

Apocryphote of the Day: Valentine's Day

"Like this, the soul again made herself beautiful. [She hastened] to enjoy her lover, and he too loved her. And when she made love with him, she received from him seed, which is the spirit that gives life. She bears good children and raises them. For this is the great perfect wonderful birth. So this marriage is consummated by the will of the Father.
The soul needs to regenerate herself and become as she was at first. So the soul moves. And she received divinity from the Father. She caused her rejuvenation so that she should be restored to where she was from the first.
This is the resurrection from the dead.
This is the redemption from captivity.
This is the ascent to heaven.
This is the road up to the Father."

Exegesis on the Soul 133.32-134.16 (A Valentinian text) (trans. DeConick)

Picturing the Bible at Kimbell Art Museum

On display at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, is a manuscript page I have always wanted to see. It is The Ascension from the Rabbula Gospels, Syria 586, vellum, Cod. Plut. I. 56, Fol. 13v (Biblioteca Mdicea Laurenziana, Florence). I have been fascinated with this rendering of Christ for years, since he is standing on nothing less than the wheeled merkavah!

If you are in Texas, go and see this exhibit. I haven't been yet. But as soon as the Codex Judas Congress is over, it is on my list of things to do. Maybe I will even try to organize a "field trip" with some of my students. It appears to be a gorgeous exhibit that is NOT traveling.

The Kimbell's website describes it as follows:

The Kimbell Art Museum announces Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art, a landmark exhibition of the earliest works of art illustrating the Old and New Testaments that will be on view from November 18, 2007, to March 30, 2008. Developed and organized by the Kimbell (its exclusive venue), and guest-curated by Dr. Jeffrey Spier of the University of Arizona, this highly important exhibition draws upon recent research and new discoveries to tell the story of how the earliest Christians first gave visual expression to their religious beliefs....

For more prose about the exhibition, CLICK HERE.

Apocryphote of the Day: 2-13-08

Jesus
Truly truly
Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus on the right hand
Living water
Servant of the servant
Glorious Name
Truly truly
Aeon-Who-Is
truly truly
O He-Who-Is
Who sees the Aeons
Truly truly
He-Who-Is forever
Truly truly
In the heart
He-Who-Is forever and ever
You are what you are
You are who you are.

This is my own translation of a beautiful baptismal hymn found in the Holy Book of the Invisible Spirit 66.10-22. Interspersed in the hymn are vowels that were sung to bring harmony to the spheres. So old is this liturgy that some of the lines are retained in Greek, although the letters are Coptic. This suggests that the retention of the Greek was part of its liturgical performance.

Apocryphote of the Day: 2-12-08

"'Behold, I shall reveal to you everything, my beloved. Understand and know that you may come forth from the body and be as I am. Behold, I shall reveal to you what is hidden. Reach out your hand and take hold of me.' At once I reached out my hands, but I did not find him as I thought he would be. After this I heard him say, 'Understand, and take hold of me.' Then I understood, and I was afraid, yet I was exceedingly joyful." Second Apocalypse of James 57.3-20 (unknown Gnostic affiliation).

Apocryphote of the Day

In order to highlight the fact that "heresy" depends on where you are standing, and that the people who wrote the literature that we call "apocryphal" of "parabiblical", were "living" their religion, I am going to begin posting "Apocryphotes", or daily readings from the apocrypha.

"It is written in the Psalms, 'I have been deeply troubled in my groaning, I shall drench my bed and cover each night with my tears. I have become old among all my enemies. Depart from me, all you who do lawless things, for look, the Lord has heard the cry of my weeping, and the Lord has heard my prayer.' If we truly repent, God, who is patient and abundant in mercy, will hear us. To God be the glory forever and ever. Amen." Exegesis on the Soul 137.15-26 (A Valentinian text).

The problem with the Church Fathers testimonies about the Gospel of Judas

Eric Mader sent along his review of my book, The Thirteenth Apostle, which he posted on "Necessary Prose". Here is the link to his review. One paragraph of it struck me as particularly intuitive. Mader writes:

"I suspect, however, that if the National Geographic team's interpretation is flawed as DeConick claims, it is not a matter of the scholars unconsciously seeking to assuage a collective guilt. More likely it is simply a result of them working from their expectations of what the text was supposed to contain. All the scholars on the team, for instance, would have known of the Church Fathers' descriptions of the gospel, and these descriptions would have inclined them to preconceive a positive portrait of Judas, which in turn would have influenced their translation choices--one line at a time. Building up their own portrait step by step, and leaning meanwhile on their expectations of what the gospel was supposed to contain, once their translation was finished none of them would have gone back and questioned too carefully the individual snippets. But, as DeConick shows, those snippets added up."

In my own analysis of the Gospel of Judas, I purposely kept away from the Church Fathers. And I continue to find them not only unhelpful in terms of the Gospel of Judas, but downright harmful in terms of interpretation. Why? Because:

1. We don't know if any of them actually had a copy of the Gospel of Judas, or merely were writing from rumors that were circulating about the Gospel of Judas.

2. We don't know if any of them had the copy of Judas that we now possess.

3. Pseudo-Tertullian's and Epiphanius' descriptions of the Gospel of Judas are UNLIKE the Gospel of Judas we possess. This makes me conclude that neither of these theologians possessed or read the Gospel of Judas we have now.

4. Irenaeus' description has some affinities, but ONLY in that Judas THE TRAITOR is said to know more than the others, and that his BETRAYAL resulted in cosmic chaos.

5. If Irenaeus had a copy and read a copy of the Gospel of Judas we have, I am not certain that he understood it. If he did, was he being generous and characterizing it accurately? Or not?

My approach to the Gospel of Judas is simple. Forget about the Church Fathers and what they say. Read the Gospel of Judas and figure out what IT says. Then go back and critique what the Church Fathers say.

When this is done, we find out that the Church Fathers weren't reading the Gospel of Judas we possess, except maybe Irenaeus. But rather than associating the authorship of this text with Sethian traditions as he should have done, he wrongly connects the writing of this text with an unnamed group of Gnostics who he says think that the villains of the scripture are the good guys whom Sophia saves. But our text mentions none of these villains - neither Cain nor Esau nor Korah nor the Sodomites - nor does it mention Sophia saving anyone. This means that either Irenaeus was doing this to be polemical, or he wasn't reading our Gospel of Judas.

Page 123 of the book nearest me

I haven't been officially tagged by anyone, but upon reading tags by Jim Davila and others, here is the book closest to me right now: the Critical Edition of the Tchacos Codex (Kasser, Wurst, et. al.). In fact, it is sitting here open next to my computer. My Coptic class has begun to translate both versions of the First Apocalypse of James so we are working on making a synopsis edition, and I am writing about this text as I prepare my paper for the Codex Judas Congress.

p. 123, the first five lines of the Critical Edition happen to come from the First Apocalypse of James!

"As for me, I have come from the image of the One Who Is to show you the One Who Is. And I have also come to show you the image of the powers, so that the children of the One Who Is may understand what is theirs and what is not theirs" (trans. Kasser, Wurst, et. al.).

What is my translation of this passage?

"As for me, I have come from the image of He-Who-Is. Also I have come to tell you all about the image of the Powers, so that the children of He-Who-Is might know theirs and those who are not theirs" (trans. DeConick).

By the way, the Nag Hammadi version is very different:

"I brought from the image of [...] so that these children of He-Who-Is might understand which ones are theirs and which ones are strangers."

Either we are dealing with different Greek recensions which are being translated, or these scribes are treating whatever they are translating as they might handle oral traditions, or a little of both.

Lent Begins

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

Convergence and Historical Hermeneutics

As I work on writing my paper for the Codex Judas Conference, I have been thinking about astrology and the idea of sympathy or correspondence, the old saying "as in heaven, so on earth". This has led me to further thoughts about the job of the historian interpreting these ancient documents. Is locating anything close to "authorial intent" possible? Because texts are what readers say they are, does that mean that the historical inquiry is without merit? Since texts are multivalent in terms of their interpretation, is there a point to historical methods?

Certainly this is not a new discussion to this blog. But what is new to me is something that is sort of in my peripheriel vision, not quite focused clearly. It has something to do with convergences or correspondences. Although a text can be multivalent in its interpretation, not all interpretations are historical, nor are all historical interpretations equally convincing. Why is this (here I am speaking of the latter observation)? Because some historical interpretations have a more convincing frame, have more elements that converge with what we know from other literature (and material remains).

What should govern our historical inquiry so that the convergences or correspondences with other information is the fullest it can be? I can think of several things. First, the frame that I want to use when I am discussing any given text is traditional. That is, I want to make sure that the text I'm discussing is being discussed against the frame of its tradition(s). If the text is Valentinian, then I want to talk about it within the pool of Valentinian literature and information that we have access to, and I want to do it against texts that are regionally and chronologically similar (if at all possible). So besides framing it traditionally, I also want to frame it geographically and chronologically.

The other frame I try on is an oppositional one. Are there texts which are competing with the ideology, the sociology, the narrative of the one I'm studying (again, always with regionality and chronology in mind)? What can be known from this comparison?

The final frame I try on is turning to material external to the particular tradition (i.e, not Valentinian) to see if the discussion in my text is being developed or discussed in other places? What can be gained from this frame? is a question I then pursue.

I find this way of working to be very valuable and honest, because it transcends in many ways the interpretative cavern that post-modernity has left us with. But this is hard work, and it requires historians to become more careful and sensitive exegetes. It means that we have to try to work from inside the texts and traditions we have, rather than imposing on them our own wishes for their meaning.

The Looting of the Baghdad Museum

The Archaeological Institute of America, Houston Society has an interesting lecture scheduled for Thursday, February 14 (yes, Valentine's Day!), 7 pm, The Hilton Hotel, University of Houston, 4800 Calhoun.

Dr. Donny George Youkhanna, Former Director of the Baghdad Museum will be talking about "The Looting of the Baghdad Museum: A Loss of a Nation's Memory".

He will speak about the fate of the Museum and its collection of priceless artifacts that have been lost.

Tickets: 281-497-7382 or at AIA-HOUSTON.COM

Coffee and Dessert Reception to follow at 8:30 pm.

Kevin Edgecomb's January Carnival

I usually don't post on the carnivals because so many other bloggers do. So I figure that my readers probably already know about them, especially by the time I get around to reading them myself. But I just read Kevin's carnival covering January blogging, and it is truly amazing. If you haven't seen it yet, take a look. It is one to bookmark.

Faces from the Talpiot Conference

Here is a group photo of those of us who went to the Qumran excursion the day before the Talpiot Conference. In the front row is Valerie Hemingway, Lee McDonald, Geza Vermes, Jim Charlesworth, Leah, James Tabor, Ann Brock, Mrs. Feuerverger, Andrey Feuerverger. In the second row is Lamar Barden, Alan Segal, Konstantinos Zarras, John Hoffmann, Eric Meyers, Dick Darden, Mrs. Pokorny, Petr Pokorny, and me. It was a wonderful excursion with Professor Vermes giving us a lecture on site about his memoirs translating the Dead Sea Scrolls into English, and Professor Charlesworth walking us through the ruins.

Some of us tried to climb up to one of the caves. This is not a hike for the weary. I kept thinking, if the latrine is really behind that rock cropping, I guarantee I would have had a hard time being part of this community! My experience also got me to think long and hard about the idea that these caves are in some way a library. They are not easily accessible by any means. In fact, none of us was able to actually get to the cave we were headed for. So I'm starting to think about these caves as repositories for the literature during a time of crisis, that is the years of the Jewish War, to hide them. It is also possible that some of the caves were used as places to bury copies of sacred texts that needed to be discarded for whatever reason. But a library where people come and go, carrying manuscripts back and forth to read? I don't think so.

Setting up the Codex Judas Congress

I've been too busy to contribute much to the blogsphere lately. Since returning from Jerusalem, I've been working on some of the final details for the Codex Judas Congress, which is turning out to have a fabulous agenda thanks to the now thirty-five (!) scholars and graduate students who will be coming to Rice University the week of March 13-16. I keep adding abstracts to the website as the authors send them to me. So check it out every now and then. I moved the scholars and abstracts to a separate subpage on the Codex Judas site. You will find a draft of the schedule too.