(4) Are Gnostics fringe believers?

My third point was that most biblical scholars aren't interested in studying the NH documents because they are perceived to be late and therefore of no consequence to Christian Origins. The same is true, I suppose, for ante-Nicene literature in general. Not many biblical scholars take the time to become well-versed in much beyond the apostolic fathers.

This is a terrible mistake in my opinion. Christian Origins isn't just about studying the historical Jesus or the rise of the first Christian Jews or the study of Paul. Christian Origins is about trying to map out how an obscure Jewish messianic apocalyptic movement became a Christian religion by the time of Constantine. The second century is the "moment" when this transformation was underway, when the normative process kicked into high gear.

It is a fallacy, although one tauted around frequently as fact, that the "other" forms of Christianity in the second century were "fringe" groups of Christians. Part of the reason for this characterization is that for years we have called the proto-orthodox tradition "mainstream" while all the other traditions "alternatives." Although better than "orthodox" and "heretical," this is language that still gives us a false impression. It is still language that is the consequence again of our theological heritage, the desire to preserve authentic biblical faith of the churches today. Our tradition is "mainstream"; everyone else's is "alternative." This makes it seem like everyone else is on the "fringe" of Christianity, and that they are small, minor or deviant movements.

I have realized the problems with this language only recently. So in my newest book on the Gospel of Judas (The Thirteenth Apostle), I have shifted the language I use to talk about the second century Christians. I now use the term "Apostolic church(es)" when discussing what we have previously called "proto-orthodox" or "mainstream." This shift in language suggests something much closer to the truth: that the Apostolic Church was one variety of Christianity in the ancient world, and in the second century it was not yet the dominant form.

The literature tells us - both the patristic and the NH - that the "other" forms of Christianity were in no way fringe or minor. The Church Fathers tell us over and over again, how massive the Churches of Marcion and the New Prophecy were, how widespread the Gnostic teachings. How concerned were they? Enough to write volumes and volumes against their teachings. Tertullian alone devotes an entire book to depose Valentinianism; five books to criticize Marcion. Irenaeus' Against Heresies is no small feat arguing against minor forms of Christianity. Etc. In the ancient world, where literacy is low and writing expensive and for restricted purposes, the massive amount of rhetoric written against these people is extremely informative.

The literature produced by the "other" forms of Christianity looks scant only because the members of the Apostolic Church burnt it. But these other Christians were equally prolific in their writing and instruction. We happened to get lucky with the NH and Tchacos finds, which recovers part of this other literature. From it we can tell that they were very very sophisticated theologically, and were often critical of theologies of the Apostolic Church. And we can see theologies develop within the Apostolic Church that respond to the criticisms of the other Christians. The theology of the Apostolic Church would not have become what it did without the Gnostics and other Christians (and Jews) as dialogue partners.

The next time we want to dismiss the Gnostic material in particular as late and irrelevant, just remember that a version of the Apocryphon of John existed by the time that the Pastoral letters were written (about 130 CE)! Basilides was our first known commentator on any NT books, teaching and writing around 120 CE. By 120 CE, Valentinus had already set up his school in Alexandria and was a well known theologian. Carpocrates similarly was fully operational at this early date. Marcion (who was no Gnostic) was not only functioning in this period, but had successfully established his own churches with the first NT canon in place (Luke and ten of Paul's letters).

Update:
Doug has an interesting post on his blog about this very issue, and how it is perceived by people outside the academic sphere.

Recommendations from Refugees International

Here is a link to recommendations that are now being made by Refugees International for Iraqi Refugees. Many of these refugees are Mandaeans who are in very vulnerable situations because of their religious affiliation as neither Jew nor Christian nor Muslim.

Iraqi Refugees: Time for the UN to Fully Engage

Refugees International recommends:

The United Nations:

• The Secretary General and the Emergency Relief Coordinator take a leadership role in directing cooperation between UN agencies, the establishment of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the region, and effective country team management.
• Operational agencies, such as UNICEF, the World Food Program, and the World Health Organization, make responding to Iraqi refugees’ needs a priority of their work in countries hosting Iraqis; coordinate increased activities and appeals with UNHCR; and establish contingency plans to respond to the refugee crisis in the medium term.
• UN country teams in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon make responding to the Iraqi refugee crisis a priority; better coordinate the overall UN response in each country; and join UNHCR in advocating with host governments to respect the rights of Iraqi refugees.
• OCHA immediately establish a presence in the region to provide information and coordination support to UN agencies responding to the needs of Iraqi refuges.

Donor governments:

• Fully fund all current and future UN appeals to respond to the Iraq displacement crisis;
• Engage directly with individual UN agencies and insist on their greater involvement in the region.

Catholic Bishops urge Secretary Rice to increase aid to Iraqi refugees

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio have just returned form a mission to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. They have written a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezz Rice (dated July 26). An e-version of their letter can be read here. They voice their concern about the Iraqi refugees (Mandaeans are a vulnerable part of this population) who are “in dire need of additional support from the United States and the international community.” The bishops highlighted in their letter that the basic needs of the refugees and their families are not being met, including medical care. They say that the children are particularly vulnerable.

(3) Is Coptic a hindrance to serious study of NH texts?

My second point was that the Nag Hammadi texts are in Coptic, a language not as accessible to NT scholars as the language of the DSS.

Okay. But so what. Learn Coptic.

I have been a strong advocate that Coptic become a regular language in any Christian Origins curriculum. It should not be considered an additional language to Greek and Hebrew. Over fifty early Christian texts are written in Coptic, and this doesn't even begin to include the early monastic literature, although the early monastic literature is farther removed from the study of Christian Origins than the second and third century literature from NH and the Tchacos Codex.

If a scholar doesn't learn Coptic, he or she can only include the Greek literature in any discussion of early Christianity and Christian Origins. This means that his or her study of the period is lopsided, including only the NT texts and the early fathers. Not knowing how to read Coptic is not an excuse for excluding almost half the literature from full consideration in our reconstruction of early Christianity.

If you want to learn Coptic, it is taught at many major universities. The International Association of Coptic Studies keeps a web page of all places where Coptic is taught. There is one very good learning grammar by Thomas Lambdin. There is another that has just been published by Bentley Layton, although I have not received my desk copy yet to comment on its usefulness as a learning grammar. Crum has been reprinted. There are also online resources available. I have all of these links here. Click and scroll down to Coptic History, Literature, and Art - General Resources/Coptic Language Resources.

Update: July 30, 2007
Mark Goodacre here also recommends that all graduate students in Christian Origins learn Coptic early in their career.

(2) Is Gnosticism Perverted Christianity?

As promised, I'm going to unpack my earlier post. My first reason why the NH documents aren't used or known by scholars as much as the Dead Sea Scrolls: because they were quickly labeled "Gnostic." "Gnosticism" has been used as a pejorative term meant to label texts that "pervert" scripture and the "real" Christian faith. Why would any "real" biblical scholar want to waste time studying perverted Christianity?

There are several things I'd like to note about the inaccuracy of this position for those of us invested in the historical hermeneutic:

1. Not every piece of literature in the NH collection is "Gnostic." The Thomasine literature is simply early Christian literature that represents the earliest form of orthodoxy in eastern Syrian around Edessa - a mystical form of Christianity that required celibacy to be admitted to the church. There is some Hermetic literature in NH collection (i.e., Discourse on 8th and 9th; Ascelpius). There is some Platonic literature (i.e., Republic). There is some early Christian (i.e., Teaching of Silvanus; Letter of Peter to Philip). To lump them all together as "Gnostic" and then ignore them is a way of marginalizing forms of Christianity that aren't familiar to us.

2. The word Gnosticism is a term relatively modern (18thc.) and it does not reflect the historical reality of the second century. There was no Gnostic religion separate from Judaism and Christianity or trying to pervert Christianity. Gnostic thought developed first within Judaism as a way to read the Bible literally while also maintaining the cosmology and anthropology of Middle Platonism. By the early second century, Christian theologians like Basilides and Valentinus who were philosophers were reading Christian scripture through this same lens. Orthodoxy did not yet exist, so there was no "real" Christianity to "pervert." There were many varieties of Christianity competing to control the Christian landscape. The "real" story is that Christianity was diverse in its early expression, and became more and more singular as borders were drawn and ideas and practices limited by very powerful bishops in the big metropolitan areas like Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch. This story is quite different from the one that these bishops claimed and which scholars for centuries bought into: that Christianity was singular in its early formation and that heretical thinkers (the Gnostics!) emerged along the way to lead good Christians astray.

3. The notion that Gnostic thinkers were perverting authentic Christianity is a theological position, not a historical one. It is a position with theological investment, that is, securing and maintaining the "real" and "biblical" Christianity of today.

4. If we want to know how the heck early Christianity formed into the type of Christianity it did, the second century is what we have to study. It is in the second century that the boundaries are drawn and the lines lay out. Everything prior feeds into it and everything after flows out of it. It is a period when normation is at a high and yet nothing has been established. Everyone is talking to everyone else and defining their own positions over and against those of others. Everyone is control of his own piece of the pie and no one owns the whole pie but everyone acts as if he does. Really understanding the second century literature is the only way to really understand Christian Origins. Christian Origins is not just about the creation of the NT books, or what the NT books can tell us about the first Christians. Christian Origins is about understanding how a messianic apocalyptic Jewish sect became a Christian Church by the time of Constantine.

5. If we take seriously the fact that the heretic was not a heretic before he was labeled a heretic by someone else, then the second century literature becomes even more interesting. What was the heretic before he became a heretic? Orthodox? Think of the Ebionites. Their form of Christianity was akin to the "original" form of Christianity of the Jerusalem Church (pre-Paul). By the mid-second century, they are heretics. Why? Because the Christian population became dominated by Gentiles, and their Jewish constituency became in their eyes an oddity and a liability. So the original form of Christianity was declared heretical by the newer Christians. What might this say about the Gnostics?

A 7-minute Video: Mandaeans Struggle to Keep Their Faith Alive

James Angelos, Mary Catherine Brouder, and Peter Cox have produced a video for News21 called "An Ancient Religion Endangered by Iraq War: Mandaeans Struggle To Keep Their Faith Alive".

Here is the link to the video. It is absolutely worth taking the time to view. I haven't been able to figure out how to make a direct stream to my blog, so to view it you will have to go to this link.

Dr. Charles Haberi of Rutgers is interviewed, along with several Mandaeans who are living in the States. There are several clips of baptisms of men, women, and children, and images of a Mandaean wedding. The point of the video is to show that the Mandaeans are scattered in a diaspora, and without help, they will not survive.

This is the written accompanying report from News21 about their conference held in Canada:

CAMBRIDGE, ONTARIO–It is one of the oldest religions in the world, predating Christianity. Mandaeans see John the Baptist as their greatest teacher and ritual baptisms are a staple of their faith. They speak a dialect of ancient Aramaic and are the only surviving Gnostic faith. Despite their antiquity, the Mandaean religion and people are in danger.

For two millennia, they've lived in Iraq. But since 2003, they've been leaving en masse, fleeing attacks by Islamic extremists who consider them infidels. Prior to the fighting, scholars estimate 60,000 Mandaeans lived in Iraq. Today there are fewer than 5,000. Most have fled to Syria and Jordan, among the nearly two million Iraqi refugees.

There are roughly 1,000 Mandaeans now living in North America, admitted as refugees during Saddam Hussein's reign. They are lobbying Congress to allow their Iraqi relatives to join them in the United States, where they hope to keep the their faith alive.

(1) Why Nag Hammadi texts aren't as interesting to scholars of early Christianity as the Dead Sea Scrolls

Jim West has made an interesting observation in a recent post. He has noticed that more scholars of Christianity show interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls than in Nag Hammadi. Why? he asks.

I have thought about this for a long time. It is one of the reasons why I started this blog - to raise awareness about the Nag Hammadi writings and to focus attention on why they are so vital for us to study as biblical scholars. I'm also trying to get an exhibit of Nag Hammadi manuscripts to accompany the Codex Judas Congress, but this will depend on whether or not the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities will allow them to leave the Coptic Museum. Let us hope!

I think that scholars of early Christianity are more interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls for these simple reasons:

1. The Nag Hammadi documents got labeled pejoratively "Gnostic" from the beginning. Doresse when he looked at the first codex and read a few lines made the announcement that these books were Gnostic writings. In the 1940s and 1950s this was not a positive spin (and frankly it still isn't). In fact, many early commentators talk about these texts as "perverting" scripture and the "real" Christian faith. Since our field is so dominated by this theological perspective, the study of "perverted" literature was not considered important. Many scholars (even yet today) wonder why any "real" biblical scholar would want to waste his or her time studying perverted Christianity. I know this because scholars have said this directly to me, calling the literature "crazy" and "a waste of time."

The Dead Sea Scrolls never had this labeling problem. My understanding of the spin originally put on the scrolls is that it was not one of a perversion of "real" Judaism, but of a disgruntled sect of Judaism (the Essenes), a sect that might tell us something about Jesus and early Christianity. For scholars of Christianity at the time, this was a positive thing because it helped them explain the formation of Christianity which was for them like the Essene movement, a critique or revolt against Judaism. From what I can tell, this was part of the anti-Semitic explanation of Christian Origins common at the time. The other explanation was to erase its Jewish roots by demonstrating the victory of Hellenistic thought and practices. So Christianity was understood to be a Gentile religion that superceded and erased the Jewish one.

2. Because the Nag Hammadi materials are in Coptic, they are difficult for the majority of scholars to assess in the original language. This is not the case with the Dead Sea Scrolls whose original language is much easier for scholars of the bible to handle.

3. The Nag Hammadi materials, for the most part, are from the second and third centuries. Most biblical scholars don't even study the ante-Nicene fathers let alone the Nag Hammadi documents because they perceive the time period to be later than the NT, so therefore inconsequential to biblical studies. This is not so for the Dead Sea Scrolls which predate the NT writings.

4. Gnosticism is a word with a lot of baggage, most of it completely inaccurate. One of these inaccuracies is the belief that Gnosticism is a religion in antiquity that is separate from Judaism and Christianity, that is is a revolt against Judaism and Christianity. So scholars who understand Gnosticism as a religion separate from/revolting against Judaism and Christianity, do not see that the study of Gnosticism has anything to contribute to the study of the bible or early Christianity.

In future posts, I will address why each of these assumptions needs to be reassessed by all of us studying early Christianity.

Coptic Culture Conference

The Coptic Orthodox Church in the UK is proposing to organize a conference in Stevenage on Coptic Culture: Past, Present, and Future. The conference aims to bring together specialists, academics, and Coptic clergy working on all aspects of Coptic culture, from its earliest phases to the present day. New research on Coptic art, writings, and archaeology will be highlighted. One of the panels being discussed is Coptic culture and the nature of Coptic identity (religious, ethnic, and cultural), and its integration into local community in Egypt and abroad.

I don't know much more than this. As more information comes my way about this event, I'll post on it. Right now, the proposed dates for the conference are May 15-17, 2008.

So 2008 is going to be a big year for Coptic studies, with three major conferences. This is highly unusual, but let's make hay while the sun shines. These are the dates for your calendars:

Codex Judas Congress, March 13-16, 2008, Rice University, Houston, Texas

Coptic Culture: Past, Present, and Future, May 15-17, 2008, Shepalbury Manor, Stevenage, UK

Ninth International Congress of Coptic Studies, September 14-20, 2008, Sonesta Hotel, Cairo

More Information about the IACS 9th International Conference

The Ninth International Association for Coptic Studies Congress will take place in Cairo, 14-20 September 2008.

His Holiness Pope Shenouda III will be the host of the congress. He has put the Saint Mark Foundation for Coptic History Studies in charge of the local organization. The president of that Foundation is Dr. Fawzy Estafanous. To open the congress, on Sunday 14th, there will be an all day public event at the Coptic Patriarchate with lectures and discussions.

The congress will function with morning plenary sessions followed in the afternoon with panels, workshops, and papers.

If you are interested in attending (even if you are not a member of IACS), you can request an electronic pre-registration form at iccopts9@web.de. Put in the header of your e-mail, "please send me iccopts9.rtf".

International Association for Coptic Studies Call for Papers

In the most recent Newletter for IACS, there appears a Call for Papers in the following categories:

1. Christianity in Medieval Egypt. Panel Coordinator: Johannes den Heijer (johannes.denheijer@uclouvain.be)

2. Coptic Language and Linguistics. Panel Coordinators: Ariel Shisha-Halevy, with Eitan Grossman (shisha@cc.huji.ac.il or eitan.eg@gmail.com)

3. Coptic Versions of the Gospel of Mark. Panel Coordinator: Anne Boud'hors (anne.boudhors@irht.cnrs.fr)

4. Early Coptic Codices: Typological Criteria. Panel Coordinator: Sofia Torallas Tovar (sofiatorallas@gmail.com)

5. From Coptic to Arabic. Panel Coordinator: Mark N. Swanson (mswanson@lstc.edu)

6. Gnosticism and Manichaeism in Egypt. Panel Coordinator: Gregor Wurst (gregor.wurst@kthf.uni-augsburg.de)

7. Monastic and Liturgical Vestments in Egypt: From Late Antiquity to Medieval Times. Panel Coordinators: Sabine Schrenk with Maria Mossakowska-Gaubert (schrenk-sa@netcologne.de and mmossakowska@ifao.egnet.net)

8. Shenoute of Atripe. Panel Coordinator: Andrew Crislip (crislip@hawaii.edu)

9. The Visual Culture of Egyptian Monasticism. Panel Coordinator: Elizabeth S. Bolman (ebolman@temple.edu)

These are the panels with calls for paper; there are other panels without calls for papers too. So this is going to be a huge conference - Ninth International Congress of Coptic Studies - Cairo, September 14-20, 2008.

The Magdalene Feast

I just returned home from the Magdalene Festival held at Christ Cathedral in Houston. What a fabulous, moving, and inspiring celebration. I felt that we really brought Mary Magdalene as "the Apostle to the Apostles," into the church. The icon that Rev. Mary Green "wrote" was stunning, a real centerpiece of the Taize worship service. The music was outstanding, performed by Anita Kruse (pianist/composer), Jennifer Kenney (flutist), and Sonja Bruzauskas (soloist/singer).

I am very honored to have been part of this ceremony, and thank Betty Adam and Pam Stockton (President of Brigid's Place) for bringing the service to life in such a elegant and beautiful way. And it was so much fun to see a few of you there too!

This evening will be one of those warm fond memories that I will cherish in the years ahead.

St. Mary Magdalene Festival at Christ Cathedral

Tomorrow is the feast day for Saint Mary Magdalene. The folks at Bridget's Place and Christ's Cathedral in downtown Houston have put together a Taize worship service based on Mary's story to celebrate her feast day. Rev. Mary Green has painted a gorgeous icon of Mary Magdalene that will be blessed at the ceremony. After the service, I'm giving a lecture on the Gospel of Mary and women in the early church. I am looking forward to the event, and hope that some of you who live in or around Houston might join us. Here is a link to all the information about it.

Paperback Cover for Autumn Release of Original Gos. Thom. in Translation

I have been given a preview of the cover art for the autumn 2007 paperback release of The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation, the companion volume to Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas.

Since the cover art for the 2006 paperback version of Recovering was dependent upon my own "iconic" rendering of the apostle Thomas, I was asked to make a comparable design for In Translation. This way the companion volumes would look like companion volumes.

So I decided to do an orality-scribality theme. Since the cover for Recovering is the apostle Thomas teaching, I felt that the cover for In Translation should be the apostle Thomas scribing. Here he is sitting as his desk, hard at work "remembering" the teachings of Jesus and writing them down.

I want to thank the people at Continuum who are responsible for making my renderings look so good on these covers, and for taking the risk of using an author's drawing rather than an image created by graphic designer.

More about Hybridity

There have been some interesting comments on my last post on hybridity. So I want to respond here to those.

In my opinion, hybridity is a buzz word, and it is problematic because many in our field are applying it too loosely. Often I think that it is being used to try to dress up our field and discussions so that it appears that we are saying something new. There is a tendency in many fields to use arcane insider language instead of transparent. This has always been a gripe of mine about the field of philosophy, and I resist bringing over this language into my own writings UNLESS it is going to help us.

The usage of hybridity is confusing in our field when it moves out of the arena of imperialism and post-colonial analysis where it can be argued to make some sense (but, even the scholars who study post-colonialism cannot agree if it is a best term to use or not!).

To apply it as a descriptor of the tradition of early Judaism-Christianity (pre-Nicaea) - to call this a hybrid - is misleading. It is a "single" tradition that develops positions internally that eventually, through normation, compete and force the consolidation of two separate and different traditions with common heritage.

Gnosticism is not a hybrid either. It does not represent the mixture of the views of a colonizer imposed on the colonized. It is the Platonic world view made biblical by people who wanted to think in these directions. It has nothing whatsoever to do with post-colonial hybridity and imperialism.

Gnostic movements did, however, make other Christians anxious, but then other forms of Christianity made certain Gnostic groups anxious as well. I don't think this had to do with hybridity producing colonial anxiety. I don't think that Irenaeus really cared whether the Gnostic groups laid claim to Christian tradition - what he cared about was the fact that some of his own church members, including one of his deacon's wives, had joined a Gnostic church down the street from his own. This led him then to begin to criticize the Gnostics for not really being Christian, but trying to trick people into thinking they were Christians by stealing Christian language and ritual.

All religions may indeed be syncretistic. But this is not a reason to discard the word or replace it with hybrid (which is a word that has too much baggage from the sciences and from philosophy, and is not being applied carefully enough in our field). To say that a religion is "syncretistic" isn't the point. The point is to describe and analyze the way in which this is true. Then a whole range of possibilities presents itself in terms of politics, normation, religious identities, and all the rest.

Hybridity, the new buzz word

Since my summer is filled with catch up reading and writing, I have become very aware that post-colonial hybridity has found fertile ground in recent publications in the field of early Jewish and Christian studies. In postcolonial studies, "hybridity" refers to "the creation of new transcultural forms within the contact zone produced by colonisation" (Aschroft, Grittiths, Tiffin: Post-Colonial Studies, p. 118)

A hybrid, if I remember my biology correctly, is an often (always?) sterile offspring of two different taxa. So a donkey and a horse make a mule. A blackberry and a raspberry make a loganberry. A fallen angel and a human woman make a giant (okay, not in our biological world, but in biblical mythology!).

I have nothing particularly against the term "hyridity" when it is applied in the context of two or more different aspects of society-culture morphing into something other, although I know that the word is debated in post-colonial circles.

In religious studies, one of the words that we used to use to talk about this phenomenon was "syncretism," which still seems like a good descriptor to me. So the worship of Serapis was a religious movement that morphed out of the mixture of Egyptian devotion to Osiris and the religious sentiments of the Greek colonizers. His name is a combination of Osiris and Apis, a bull god that was worshiped at Memphis. The Greek ruler of Egypt, Ptolemy I established the cult of Serapis at Alexandria and incorporated features of Greek worship including iconographical features of Zeus.

As a side - when I was in Egypt last, I made the trek down to Alexandria - a spectacular city on the coast - and visited the Serapion site. This picture is from that adventure. It was an incredibly beautiful day. Below the Temple ruins was a huge underground library, with shelves carved out of the rock ledges.

Although "hybridity" might be used to replace our term "syncretism", I wonder if its application as a descriptor of early Judaism-Christianity is really such a good idea. To apply this term to Judaism-Christianity before Judaism and Christianity became distinct, only serves to confuse an already confusing nomenclature. Christianity was Jewish for almost two centuries, although by the mid-second century some demarcations are beginning to be either created and/or acknowledged. But this entity was not a hybrid that developed out of Judaism and Christianity merging! It was more like an androgynous entity which became two religious traditions over a long period of time. Maybe I should coin the term "androgynity" to refer to this phenomenon?!

The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says is available at Amazon US

Finally the US Amazon has caught up with the Canadian and European. So for the price of four lattes or cappucinos, you can pre-order the book at Amazon (US) and get it just in time for Christmas presents! The link to Amazon (Canada) is here, and Amazon (UK) is here.

At this time, the web page at Amazon doesn't contain a summary, but I am told that the book will become searchable in the not so distant future. Until then, I provide here and on my own web page an annotated version of the table of contents. The book is not 160 pp. The last set of proofs I saw ended around 200 pp.

Part 1 An Unfamiliar Story

Chapter 1 The Silenced Voice

Provides overview of the diversity of second century Christianity. Includes discussions of the Apostolic Church, the Marcionite Church, the Ebionite Church, the Church of New Prophecy, and the Gnostics.

Chapter 2 A Gnostic Catechism

Everything you ever wanted to know about the origins and ideologies of Sethian Gnosis. Discusses the question, "What is Gnosticism?" as well as fundamental aspects of Gnostic thought: the world created by Plato, bible stories about Yahweh's Angel, oppositional gods in Gnostic theology, God's original sin and fall, the Gnostic created order, and Gnostic liberation.

Part 2 Translation Matters

Chapter 3 A Mistaken Gospel

Covers the problems I have identified in the National Geographic English translation, problems which have resulted in an interpretation of the Gospel of Judas which just cannot be maintained. Judas is not the perfect enlightened Gnostic; he never ascends to the holy generation; Jesus does not want Judas to betray him; Judas does not perform a righteous act by betraying or sacrificing Jesus; Judas' dream does not mean that he will enter the divine realm one day; the number 13 is not his lucky number.

Chapter 4 The Gospel of Judas in English Translation

Provides my own English translation of the Gospel of Judas, set out page-by-page and line-by-line according to the manuscript.

Part 3 Good Old Judas?

Chapter 5 Judas the Confessor

Argues for a subversive interpretation of Judas' confession. This chapter covers the critical attitude of this text toward the twelve apostles and how Judas fits into this scheme.

Chapter 6 Judas the Demon

Examines Judas' relationship to demons within the Sethian traditions, and discusses his tragic fate and the reason for the revelation of the Sethian mysteries.

Chapter 7 Judas the Sacrificer

This chapter contextualizes the sacrifice of Jesus within Gnostic traditions about Jesus' passion and Gnostic criticisms of atonement theology.

Chapter 8 An Ancient Gnostic Parody

Summarizes the narrative in the Gospel of Judas and considers what this Gospel might mean for us today.

Epilogue

Discussion of the contemporary need for a "good" Judas in light of our reappraisal of Jewish and Christian relationships in the wake of WWII. Looks at portrayals of Judas in popular film pre- and post-WWII.

Appendices

Further Reading

Recommends books on the Gospel of Judas, second-century Christianity, the New Testament Apocrypha, Gnosis and the Gnostics.

A Synopsis of Sethian Gnostic Literature

Describes every piece of Sethian Gnostic literature extant, laid out chronologically by approximate date of composition. Includes references to where each text is located in manuscript, including multiple versions.

Testimony from the Church Fathers on the Gospel of Judas

Includes quotes from each Church Father who mentions the Gospel of Judas, plus my own commentary on these quotations.

An Interview with April DeConick

A brief interview covering the main points of the book and its implications.

Notes

Expository Times on Thomas

In the latest issue of The Expository Times 118:10 (July 2007), my article on the Gospel of Thomas is published (pp. 469-479. The piece is an overview of work that has been done on the Gospel since it was found in the 1940s, but provides this overview from the perspective of my own work and understanding of this Gospel.

Top Ten Recommendations for Books on Biblical Orality-Scribality

Many of you have been writing to ask me for a reading list for studies in orality-scribality in biblical literature. So here are my top ten picks in alphabetical order:

1. Samuel Byrskog, Story as History, History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
2. David M. Carr. Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
3. William A. Graham. Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
4. Richard A. Horsley with Jonathan A. Draper. Whoever Hears YOU Hears Me: Prophets, Performance, and Tradition in Q. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1999.
5. Richard A. Horsley, Jonathan A. Draper, and John Miles Foley (eds.). Performing the Gospel: Orality, Memory, and Mark. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006.
6. Martin S. Jaffee. Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE–400 CE. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
7. Werner Kelber, The Oral and Written Gospel. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983.
8. Terence C. Mournet, Oral Tradition and Literary Dependency. WUNT 2:105, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005.
9. Susan Niditch. Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature, Library of Ancient Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.
10. D. C. Parker. The Living Text of the Gospels. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

How did oral performances actually work?

David Hamilton has left a very intuitive comment on the last post, which I duplicate here:

I have been enjoying your comments on orality and have struggled, like many modern people, I think, to connect with that approach on a personal level. But I realized earlier this week that I have actually experienced the compositional interaction of text and oral performance in a deep personal way.

Before taking my current job, I was a technical trainer for 20 years. For the last 10 of those years, I trained people on Lotus Domino and used courseware provided by Lotus. But of course one cannot read course materials verbatim; that would be the worst kind of training approach. So I would follow the outline or at least keep it in mind, while I filled in the gaps with my own interpretation of the relevant knowledge. I became quite conscious that my teaching was very much a performance, including techniques for engaging the students on a personal level, using humor to keep the mood light, asking probing questions to inspire them to think, and making the material relevant to their (professional) lives.

I mention this because I suspect that we moderns, deeply embedded in the book world, have trouble relating to how orality and text can interact in performance. Yet if we think about it a little, probably most of us have experienced this in some way.

Composition in an Oral-Literate Culture and a Book Note: A Full Hearing: Orality and Literacy in the Malay World (Amin Sweeney)

What does a book about contemporary literacy in Malay have to do with biblical studies? Quite a bit actually. As I continue to prepare my paper "Memory and the Sayings of Jesus: Contemporary Experimental Exercises in the Transmission of Jesus Traditions," I find myself drawn to all kinds of studies on orality and literacy. Sweeney's book, A Full Hearing, is particularly interesting to me because it examines a society dominated by orality but encountering literacy. Fascinating is Chapter 9, "Oral Orientation in Written Composition," in which Sweeney describes the shape of Malay literature, a literature preserving orality. He writes on pp. 307-308:

"The introduction of print literacy - which brought with it the possibilities already realized in the 'donor' cultures - did not cause a clean break with the past. Even those highly literate in a Western language who rejected the old modes of expression found themselves in a battle with the past when they wrote in Malay, for the language brought with it the past, a past of radically oral manuscript culture...The introduction of print literacy did not cause an immediate change in the general state of mind. The natural tendency was to perceive the new in terms of familiar schemata. The result was that even the educated sector of the populace continued to favor a paratactic, formulaic, copious, repetitive, narrative, and concrete mode of expression. Such a mode was necessary for effective communication in an oral or aurally consuming society; in a print culture, it is not: what became redundant in print now strikes us as mere verbosity."

When we think about the oral-scribal culture of the ancient world, and the type of literature that we are dealing with by and large, we see a similar oral mode of expression dominating the writing. What our early Christian literature is, is literature produced within orality, often as a support for oral performance behaviors, including reading which was an oral-aural enterprise.

I am more and more convinced as I continue to immerse myself in these studies, that our old way of framing the Synoptic Problem (and the Thomas Problem) just is not correct. We don't seem to have a good enough handle on how the ancient peoples actually composed literature, and for what purposes. We must push head on in the direction of orality-scribality if we are ever to have a chance to work out these issues fully, and we must leave behind the cut-and-paste literary redaction model, which may work for our world of composition, but has little to do with oral consciousness and composition of works within that type of environment.