Non-canonical Gospels Research Articles

Dualistic Rethinking of the Christian Myth by Philip Pullman

Referring to a part of the Canongate project Myth, Ph. Pullman’s book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (2010), this article examines the correlation of myth and literature, specific to twenty-first-century culture, mediated by the influence of postmodernism and mass culture. Pullman’s book is considered within a more general framework of using myth as a tool of the author’s polemic with the influential ideological trends of our time (cf. The Penelopiad by M. Atwood and her polemic with feminism). Together with the author’s essays, the novel is not only perceived as an instance of apocryphal literature, so characteristic of twentieth-century authors when referring to Christianity, but also as a document of the main ideological stance — Pullman’s anti-clericalism and atheism. The ardent polemic message, bordering on blasphemy, finds its most original expression in the character reduplication (the person of Jesus Christ is split in two). This article aims to explore the ideological and socio-cultural roots of this device, the degree of its intellectual and artistic originality, its individual author’s premises. Pullman’s work with canonical and non-canonical gospels leads him to problematise their fictionality, genre nature, and narrative structure. Onomastic statistical analysis leads the writer to put forward an artistic hypothesis about the possible reduplication of a historical character, thus modelling a counterfactual situation, by means of which not only does he question religious dogma, but also makes each of his readers feel responsible for the shape that the history of the God-man has assumed. Using the methodology of historical-literary, comparative-typological, narratological and intermedial analysis, the author of the article concludes that the dualism of the image of Jesus Christ can be traced to the problematic nature of his anthroponym, and is undoubtedly associated with the state of postmodern knowledge, with the erosion of religious dogmas within intellectual and ethical pluralism, as well as with the influence of Gnosticism and mass culture (films, comics).

Normalized Datasets of Harnack’s Reconstruction of Marcion’s <i>Gospel</i>

These two datasets are the first born-digital, normalized, peer-reviewed datasets of Harnack’s classic reconstruction of Marcion’s <em>Gospel</em>. The first consists of human-readable postclassical Greek, the second of lemmatized and morphologically tagged text following the openly licensed BibleWorks Greek Morphology schema. The recent deluge of critical editions of Marcion’s <em>Gospel</em> makes Harnack’s public domain work even more relevant as scholars turn from theology- to text-based approaches to restore Marcion’s <em>Gospel</em> and account for its place in the editorial history of early canonical and non-canonical Gospels. These datasets resource Marcion’s <em>Gospel</em> becoming a major topic of interest in Computational Linguistics research.

Luke’s Gospel and the Qur’an

An interesting series of shared motifs and theological nuances are revealed when materials and themes from the Qur’an that relate to Jesus and John the Baptist are compared with their counterparts in Luke’s Gospel. Some previously acknowledged similarities between passages in the Qur’an and the non-canonical gospels are revisited, with attention given to likely background influences from Luke’s Gospel. The implications of the study for future perceptions of Luke’s Gospel and for traditional claims about the origins of the Qur’an are briefly considered.

An Origenian Background for theLetter to Theodore

AbstractTheLetter to Theodoremay need to be reattributed to Origen of Alexandria. Many of its features seem demonstrably Origenian, and its language aligns with early Christian and Origenian usage. Two noncanonical gospel fragments in the letter do not betray a modern author, but rather evoke early Christian symbolism and narrative structure. The single garment worn by a character in the first fragment reflects Christian symbolism and resembles the philosopher’s garment, which many early Christians adopted and portrayed in material artifacts. Origen’s intellectual interests can explain the letter’s preparation for philosophical exegesis, and its language reflects his text-critical practice. Nevertheless, Origen’s circumstances indicate the text of the noncanonical gospel fragments is unreliable. The letter also echoes Papias in the manner that Origen does. Morton Smith’s account of its discovery does not betray a forgery or hoax, but plausibly depends on other nonfiction works of manuscript discoveries written during the 1960s. Further work may be needed to secure attribution, but Origenian authorship is a simpler explanation of the evidence than modern forgery.

The Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Ebionites ed. by Andrew Gregory

Reviewed by: The Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Ebionites ed. by Andrew Gregory Matthew Goldstone andrew gregory (ed.), The Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Ebionites (Oxford Early Christian Gospel Texts; New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). Pp. xvi + 344. $170. As part of a series devoted to noncanonical Gospel texts, this work provides a thorough, cautious, and well-balanced assessment of the evidence for two no longer extant works: the Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Ebionites (the latter title reflecting modern nomenclature). Grounded in previous scholarship and presented in a well-organized fashion, this work offers the reader an accessible and comprehensive overview of the relevant data for understanding each of these lost Gospels. Gregory is wary of the numerous pitfalls that plague such a project and masterfully reminds the reader that the available evidence is ambiguous and open to alternative interpretation. G. truly succeeds in the series' goals of providing a clear presentation of the available textual evidence and an up-to-date survey of the pertinent scholarship. The first part of the book is devoted to fleshing out the many issues involved in approaching the difficult project of analyzing brief excerpts from these lost Gospels recorded in the works of the early Church Fathers. G. draws a clear line between literary issues, the primary focus of the project, and theological and historical issues. Previous scholarship often jumped to hasty conclusions about the communities these texts reflect, and G. admirably relegates such discussions to brief and tentative sections at the conclusion [End Page 730] of his discussion of each Gospel and in an appendix. Overall, G.'s introduction sets up a critical and qualified statement about what we can and cannot say about these two Gospels. The two central parts of the work engage in an in-depth textual analysis of the available evidence for the Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Ebionites, respectively. In each part, G. opens with a presentation of the available witnesses and the literary issues involved in approaching the texts before turning to the texts themselves. These sections summarize many of the crucial points and prime the reader for the evidence that follows. For the Gospel according to the Hebrews, G. creates two distinct sections in order to distinguish between probable and doubtful testimony. He also includes an appendix for those sources he considers to be spurious patristic witnesses. G.'s decision regarding the reliability of each piece of evidence is regularly clarified and supported within his discussion of the text. For each passage, G. provides the original Greek or Latin (although not Syriac), an English translation, a discussion of the context, and his commentary. Some texts also include observations regarding the attribution, that is to say, the way the patristic author refers to the Gospel. Some pericopae are accompanied by mention of parallels either in the Synoptic Gospels, for which a synopsis is typically provided, or in later works. The volume concludes with several appendixes that contain tangentially related materials as well as a discussion of the broader historical question of the groups or sects whose names are associated with these Jewish-Christian Gospels. The work is replete with qualifications of G.'s interpretations and conclusions. Although some may perhaps find this redundant, the constant reminder of the tentative nature of the assumptions upon which particular readings lie, and the regular presentation of multiple ways of understanding the evidence, force the reader to confront the implications of our paucity of evidence. While this work is firmly grounded in strong philological and linguistic analysis of Greek and Latin texts, some readers may find the engagement with Hebrew elements somewhat lacking. For example, G. (p. 142) reproduces the typographical error of tav (as opposed to ṭav), for "good ones," which originally appeared in the work of A. F. J. Klijn (Jewish-Christian Gospel Tradition [VCSup 17; Leiden: Brill, 1992] 64). In discussing Jerome's translation of the term barrama, G. notes, "Both the Latin and Greek are in the plural, whereas the word that Jerome quotes appears to be a singular form, and it is difficult...

The Contribution of Non-Canonical Gospels to the Memory of Jesus: The Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter as Test Cases

This article argues that the social memory approach makes a significant contribution to the interpretation of the early gospel tradition. This approach helps to overcome an anachronistic distinction between ‘canonical’ and ‘non-canonical’ (or ‘apocryphal’) Gospels by highlighting the way Jesus was portrayed in various Gospels of the first and second century. Early Christian Gospels in general presuppose the post-Easter perspective on Jesus as a divine figure, but depict his activity and teaching in different ways. A closer look at the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter demonstrates how these Gospels take up and continue perspectives which can be observed already in the earlier Gospels in their own ways. Thereby they provide glimpses of different social and theological contexts of second-century Christianity.

Did Origen Write the Letter to Theodore?

In 1958 Morton Smith discovered, in the monastery of Mar Saba, a Greek copy of a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria, addressed to one Theodore. The letter’s authenticity has been viewed with some skepticism, and since its publication in 1973, scholars have scrutinized it intensely, with some accusing Smith of forgery. Recent debate has suggested forgery is implausible; yet the letter does include non-Clementine elements, including the proposal that Christians should perjure themselves rather than reveal the authorship of a non-canonical Markan gospel that the letter describes. Since the misattribution of ancient texts is not uncommon, it is prudent to wonder if the letter has likewise been misattributed, rather than forged. Ancient testimony and recent scholarship suggest the letter’s author is Origen of Alexandria. Origen’s attitudes towards deception resemble those found in the letter, and many other features of the letter are demonstrably Origenian, including its theological attitudes and themes, its phrases and metaphors, and its biblical references. The letter is consistent with Origen’s use of Clement’s writings, and with Origen’s text-critical practices. It finds a plausible setting during Origen’s years in Caesarea Maritima, and a plausible recipient in Origen’s pupil Theodore.

‘I Have Come to Abolish Sacrifices’ (Epiphanius,Pan.30.16.5): Re-examining a Jewish Christian Text and Tradition

TheGospel of the Ebionitesis a ‘text’ that only exists as fragments cited in and extrapolated from the heresiological writings of Epiphanius (Pan. 30). LikeRecognitions1.27–71, theGospel of the Ebionitesis one of a number of second- and third-century Jewish Christian sources, texts and traditions alleging that Jesus rejected animal sacrifice. In this article, I seek to review the history of research on this particular text and tradition and explore its significance as a case study in the use of non-canonical gospel traditions in New Testament studies.

A Response to Richard Bauckham and Heike Omerzu

My two reviewers choose to focus on the central section of my book and to pass over its wider argument, which is an attempt to rehabilitate the canonical form of the fourfold gospel as an object of study in its own right. Both reviewers are understandably preoccupied with my critique of the Q hypothesis and with the ‘L/M’ and ‘SC’ hypotheses with which I propose to replace it, and much of my response is therefore concerned with these issues. I also engage with Bauckham’s attempt to distance non-canonical gospel texts from the canonical ones, and with Omerzu’s proposed ‘complexity theory’ of gospel origins.

Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacy Edited by Sara Parvis and Paul Foster (review)

Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacy. Edited by Sara Parvis and Paul Foster. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2012. Pp. xvi, 274. $39.00. ISBN 978-0-8006-9796-9.)It is no doubt unusual for a reviewer to suggest that readers should read penultimate chapter of a book first, but that is exactly what this review recommends. Paul Parvis's masterful summary of and insights concerning various scholarly editions of St. Irenaeus's Adversas haereses demonstrates clearly that even best critical editions of ancient texts are never value free. This applies equally, if not more so, to modem translations of Irenaeus's extant genuine works-conveniently listed on pp. xi-xiii. Parvis's chapter (17) is a powerful reminder that task of understanding literary and personal legacy of Irenaeus includes taking into account biases and contexts of scholars who give us access to that legacy.The Irenaean legacy, as Irenaeus Steenberg (chapter 18) points out, is also shaped, somewhat inaccurately, by way in which earliest Church Fathers utilized his writings. They, at least until St. Augustine, portrayed Irenaeus primarily as heresiologist, peacemaker, and statesman rather than as theologian (p. 205).The contributors to this volume, product of a conference held at University of Edinburgh in 2009, examine Irenaeus's life and work from a much broader perspective. Part 2, Scripture: Irenaeus and His Scriptural Traditions (which should be read after chapter 17), for example, commences with a fascinating study by Denis Minns on Irenaeus's exegesis of Parable of Two Sons (chapter 4). This study also sheds light on specific version of Matt. 21:28-31 to which Irenaeus had access. Other chapters in this section explore Irenaeus's use of Hebrews (chapter 5, by D. Jeffrey Bingham), Song of Songs (chapter 6, by Karl Shuve), and noncanonical gospels (chapter 9, by Paul Foster). This section also includes a study (chapter 10) by Charles Hill on Irenaeus's concerns regarding unintentional (and even intentional) scribal corruption of texts, drawing insights from P. Oxy. 405-the earliest known extant fragment of Irenaeus's writings.Chapters 7-8 of part 2 debate identity of the in Adv. Haer. 4.2732, with Hill defending his position, against Sebastian Moll (chapter 7), that unnamed elder is, indeed Polycarp of Smyrna (chapter 8). These chapters could, perhaps, have fitted equally well in part 1, Life: Irenaeus and His Context, as each of its current three chapters refers to Irenaeus and his relationship to Polycarp. …

Book Review: The Non-Canonical Gospels and John: J. Andrew Doole, What was Mark for Matthew? An Examination of Matthew’s Relationship and Attitude to his Primary Source

Book Review: The Non-Canonical Gospels and John: J. Andrew Doole, What was Mark for Matthew? An Examination of Matthew’s Relationship and Attitude to his Primary Source

„Bevor der Hahn zweimal krähen wird ...“

AbstractAlthough I have repeatedly published about the so-called Fayum Fragment (P.Vindob.G) 2325 - a fragment of a potential, non-canonical gospel, I have previously only briefly touched on the two lexemes ἀ λεκτρυών and κοκκύζω used for the cock’s crow. In the present study, I will offer a more detailed presentation of their usage and provide a more thorough analysis of the question, which expressions for the cock and its crow were common in Greek in various areas and situations. The result comes as a surprise: it is not the usage in the text of the Fayum Fragment that is striking and peculiar in comparison with the rest of Greek literature, but rather the fact that the canonical gospels consistently use ἀ λέκτωρ with φωνέω. Furthermore, the term

Book Review: Collection of Non-Canonical Gospel Fragments in Paperback

Book Review: Collection of Non-Canonical Gospel Fragments in Paperback

“REVIEWING THE RITES PROPER TO CANONISATION”: NEW WOMAN NOVELS AND NEW CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF CANONICITY

This essay examines theways in which New Woman novelists and their critics negotiated and revised Victorian literary canons in the 1880s and 1890s in light of the controversial publications of the Higher and feminist critics of the Bible. It explores the relationship between nineteenth-century literary and religious canons and the ways in which New Woman writers both drew on and intensified contemporary debates on canonicity. While literary canons are often perceived as allowing the possibility of adding new or re-evaluated works whereas biblical canonization seems final and definitive, nineteenth- century discoveries of early, non-canonical Christian writings and fragmentary gospels such asPistis Sophiaand theGospel of Maryprofoundly problematized late-Victorian understandings of the process of canonicity. The growing recognition of the historical significance of such fragments, as well as fierce theological debates in the leading magazines of the day, highlighted canonization as a political procedure which enforced internal coherence and unity at the expense of cultural diversity. Many writers suggested that canonization involved a repression of ideological controversies and a marginalization of competing narratives, a process which was both dramatized and redressed in New Woman fiction. The scholarship that turned to the era before the biblical canon had been sealed explored the conditions which made it final and unassailable, enabling feminist novelists to examine canonicity imaginatively and critically. By drawing attention to the essentially historical and political forces that governed processes of canon formation, New Woman writers sought to expose the narrowness and the limitations of the literary canon within and against which they worked.

The Gospel of Thomas (Pynchon): Abandoning Eschatology in Gravity’s Rainbow

AbstractIt is tempting to read Thomas Pynchon’s sprawling masterpiece Gravity’s Rainbow—with its shell-shocked refugees fleeing across a missile-pocked, post-war landscape—as an eschatological text that plays out religious end-times scenarios. However, an invented citation from the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas included as a chapter epigraph—“Dear Mom, I put a couple of people in hell today”—suggests that we should do otherwise. In grafting a playful fragment about Jesus, judgment, and hell onto Thomas, Pynchon parodies a common need to read eschatological themes back into non-eschatological texts. In doing so, he also provides a powerful heuristic for interpreting his own book. Ultimately, Pynchon’s own rocket-gospel is likewise a non-eschatological text. Like Thomas, Gravity’s Rainbow stymies readers’ efforts to derive a clear eschatology from it—or to read one back into it. In this essay, I contend that Pynchon enacts a number of strategies to keep his audience from reading classic end-times scenarios into his own work, all of which are prefigured by the Gospel of Thomas.

The non-canonical gospels and the historical Jesus

This essay offers a brief introduction to selected non-canonical gospels as potential evidence for the historical Jesus. I argue (contra N. T. Wright) that many of these texts may be referred to appropriately as gospels, and that historians should approach both canonical and non-canonical gospels in precisely the same way. I then survey six texts to show what this might mean. I conclude that the non-canonical gospels offer little evidence about the historical Jesus, but that reading them can teach New Testament scholars useful lessons about the way in which we approach the canonical gospels.

New editions of non-canonical gospels

New editions of non-canonical gospels

The Gospel of Peter

The Gospel of Peter was the first non-canonical gospel to be rediscovered during the modern period.' This nine page fragment from a larger text narrates a version of events dealing with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Some of the document's more striking features include its increased anti-Jewish tendency, the heightening of miraculous elements, Jesus' cry from the cross 'my power, the power, you have left me' and perhaps most strikingly the vision of a talking cross emerging from the tomb. This text represents a later popularizing trend in handling gospel traditions.

Collection of Non-Canonical Gospel Texts

Collection of Non-Canonical Gospel Texts

Lion and Human in "Gospel of Thomas" Logion 7

Logion 7 (NHC II, 2, 33:23-29) has challenged interpreters of Thomas's Gospel since the text first became available scholars.1 In the only sustained treatment that the has received, Howard Jackson characterizes Gos. Thorn. 7 as [a]mong the hardest of the 'hard sayings' that the [Gospel of Thomas] sets upon the lips of Jesus.2 In its Coptic version, divided into clauses, it runs:3 1. Jesus said, 2. Blessed is the lion that the human eats, 3. and the lion becomes 4. And cursed is the human that the lion eats, 5. and the lion will become human. No parallel may be found attributed Jesus in any canonical or noncanonical Gospel or the agrapha.4 Although it is attested in at least two recensions of the Gospel of Thomas, Coptic (NHC II, 2) and Greek (P.Oxy. 654), its isolated transmission in Gospel of Thomas has rendered the logion frustratingly enigmatic. And it is enigmatic indeed. The logion shares little in the way of thematic motifs with other sayings in the Gospel of Thomas tradition. The motif of the lion so dominant in Gos. Thorn. 7 does not occur elsewhere in the Gospel of Thomas, or even in other Thomas traditions preserved in the Nag Hammadi codices or elsewhere.5 More broadly, concern over eating is shared with only one other logion, Gos. Thorn. 11: Jesus said, This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. And the dead (elements) will not die. In the days when you (plur.) used ingest dead (elements), you made them alive. When you are in the light what will you do? On the day that you were one, you made two. And when you are two, what will you do?6 Even here it is not entirely clear what the connection may be between the two sayings.7 The enigma of Gos. Thorn. 7 has left it in a state of exegetical neglect in comparison with the attention received by other passages with parallels in the Synoptic Gospels or in extrabiblical testimony.8 In the following pages I offer a new reading of Gos. Thorn. 7. Since Gos. Thorn. 7 exists in relative isolation in the Gospel, I WUl avoid predicating my reading on any a priori theory of the Gospel's compositional or redactional history, its theological coherence (or lack thereof), or its social location or liturgical use. Rather, the present paper takes up the very reasonable charge tendered by Francis Fallon and Ron Cameron to analyze in depth the originally discrete sayings in the text.9 In short, I argue that the key understanding Gos. Thorn. 7 as a discrete may be found in early Christian discourse about the resurrection. That is say, the allegory of lion and human in Gos. Thorn. 7 represents at least one strand of Thomasine reflection on the general resurrection. I will first discuss as briefly as possible the previous attempts place the logion theologically and literarily, and then move on my own analysis of this of the living Jesus. I. PREVIOUS APPROACHES TO GOSPEL OF THOMAS 7 Yet, for a variety of reasons, the commonsense emendation of early commentators has failed convince the majority of the Gospel's students.11 On the one hand, the proposed emendation renders the supposedly obscure saying almost tautological. It is hard imagine what hidden meaning such a commonplace truism about digestion would hold for readers of the Gospel of Thomas, faced tiiroughout with paradoxical logia of the living Jesus. In this respect, NHC II, 2 certainly preserves the lectio difficilior. Even clearer are the text-critical reasons for preserving the original reading of Gos. Thorn. 7 as preserved in NHC II, 2. The reason for the supposed error is not entirely clear, purportedly either due a copyist's or translator's error, and Jackson has effectively countered the arguments for emendation.12 The subsequent critical edition of the Coptic and Greek witnesses by Bentiey Layton and Harold Attridge has shown without any doubt that the text should not be emended and must be understood as it stands. …