Loading...I’ve decided today to take a brief break from my discussions of early Christology to post on something else (tomorrow I’m back to Christology, if all goes according to plan). As I think I have mentioned, my colleague Zlatko Plese and I are in the process of publishing an English-only version of our book The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations. That is, we are not including the Greek, Latin, and Coptic texts, but only the English translations. I have adjusted the Introductions for a lay-audience. We are adding a couple of texts that we did not include in the quadri-lingual edition, most notably “The Gospel of the Savior.” This text is not well known outside the ranks of scholars of the early Christian apocrypha, and so I thought I would mention it here. The following, in fact, is a draft of my Introduction (which will include bibliography as well):
*****************************************************************************
The Gospel of the Savior is one of the most recent Gospels to become available to public view, having been first announced in the mid 1990s. It comes to us on seven fragmentary parchment leaves from a codex that is housed in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin; the manuscript is labeled P. Berol. Inv. 22220. The manuscript, written in Coptic, was purchased by the museum on March 20, 1967 and was classified by a curator there as allegedly containing sayings of Jesus – and then it was put into storage. It was not until 1991 that an American scholar, Paul Mirecki, happened upon the manuscript in the museum; it was also found soon thereafter, but independently, by another American scholar, Charles Hedrick. The “discovery” was announced by Hedrick in 1996 in a paper read at the Sixth International Congress of Coptic Studies. Hedrick and Mirecki collaborated in the publication of the Coptic text, along with an English translation in 1999: Gospel of the Savior: A New Ancient Gospel.
There were problems with Hedrick and Mirecki’s reconstruction of the Coptic text; these corrected by the Coptologist Stephen Emmel in an important article in 2002. Emmel’s reconstruction of the text is now generally followed.
FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a Member. Click here for membership options. If you don’t belong yet, JOIN!!!
Bart,
What is of interest to me in all of these so called “Lost Gospels” and non-Canonical writings is this: after Jesus’ death, many different groups formed based on his life, teachings and resurrection. There was not just one church. The Jerusalem church may have been the first, but others formed and spread in all directions. Some say even as far as India and Spain and England, and most certainly to Egypt.
The point of what I am saying is that the theology that has come down to us through the teachings of Paul in Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome is not the only theology. Had circumstance and events been different, the church could have been deeply gnostic, or something else, or not even exist.
In your fine Christology series here you are tracing the development of how Jesus became God, and what is known as Western Orthodox Theology (or by other names), that lead to church developments in the European world.
However, even today there are other Christian groups: in India, in Egypt, in “Assyria,” in Ethiopia…all a bit different from the Western forms and many very ancient.
That fascinates me and helps me be very tolerant of those who have many faiths (even non Christian) and of the strong bond we have with our Jewish spiritual ancestors.
When I was a public school teacher I had many Assyrian Christian children in my class. It was so good to talk with them about Their Way.
Not everyone in our world today sees it that way…too much hate…so sad. Why can’t we all get along and appreciate the richness and beauty of each others traditions?
I’m with you!!
This will be a very helpful volume.
Ah, Paul Mirecki! I remember him from my college days at the University of Kansas. He was the source of some public controversy some years ago. It had nothing to do with the Gospel of the Savior, though.
Ah, KU!!! I grew up in Lawrence. Maybe we’ve covered this turf before…..
Very interesting! A picky question: What exactly do you mean by the disciples’ (plural) describing a vision “in the first person”? Does the narrative actually say that “we” are experiencing various things? (Don’t think I’ve ever encountered a plural “first person”!)
The focus on the *cross* – reminiscent of the strange “cross” in the Gospel of Peter. I wonder…does the interest people have always had in the cross itself stem from its being a symbol of universality (the four compass points), or from the idea of a *tree* that was once a living thing?
I have a question. I don’t think anyone today still believes Jesus had to carry the entire cross to Calvary. It was just the crossbar. But was the crossbar then nailed to an upright that was permanently in the ground (at the city’s regular execution site), or to a living tree? I’ve seen claims of the latter.
Yes, they say “we” (and first person plural is common in narrative!).
Yes, there may be connections with Gospel of Peter.
And on the cross: the problem is that we don’t have *any* literary references to how it was performed. So we don’t konw. And if anyone says they do know from ancient sources, they’re blowin’ smoke!
Again, like with other posts concerning similar extra-canonical Gospels, I am struck by how farfetched this gospel sounds. It seems like this exaggerated way of describing events was the accepted literary genre of the times. Did a similar style, since it appears to have been the style of the times, carry over, at least in part, to the Biblical Gospels?
My guess is that even the NT Gospels would sound farfetched if we weren’t so familiar with them!
Agreed.
Interesting.
Sounds dopey to me. A whining, reluctant Jesus. Sheesh! Doesn’t ring true at all. And I forget. In one of your books didn’t you say the “let this cup pass from me” wasn’t in the oldest manuscripts? And while we’re at it, were they really “poor” fishermen? If you go to Israel today, you see companies that fish the Sea of Galilee that certainly aren’t “poor,” and doesn’t the Bible talk about their father maybe owning a fishing fleet? Here’s the thing. Say they were wealthy. They COULD HAVE gone to rabbinical school. Jesus certainly had to attend the school of Hillel and become a rabbi to be called one. He couldn’t just pop up in Jerusalem one day and CALL himself a rabbi. He would have been run out of town. He had to have the right credentials. It is thought that maybe this was financed from the gifts brought to him by the sages from Babylon. Maybe the disciples weren’t illiterate after all.
I think most Gospels we’re not familiar with sound dopey. Just as the ones we *are* familiar with would sound dopey to someone familiar with these other ones. No, the cup saying is in all the mannuscripts. And on Peter and literacy, you may want to read my full treatment in Forgery and Counterforgery. (IN the meantime: there apparently weren’t rabbinic schools! Best resource is Catherine Hezser, Literacy in Roman Palestine: a full and compelling discussion of all the relevant matters)
Reading forgeries right now. What? No rabbinic schools? Here from wikipedia. There are lots of other sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shammai
and Gamaliel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamaliel
And in the book of I Samuel 10:5, there was a school of the prophets.
If you look into today’s rules for becoming a rabbi, they’re much the same. Many call themselves rabbis, but you have to be credentialed.
Ah, you need to read Hezser! And if you want other bibliography, let me know.
Here is a web site that tells what it entails today to become a rabbi.
http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_c/bl_rabbi.htm
“Jesus telling his disciples that the end is at hand” : this may suggest a very early date, can’t believe that Christians in the 3rd century didn’t try to justify the delay of parousia..