Infancy Gospel of Thomas Site
June 18th, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Infancy Gospel of Thomas. No Comments.
Tony Burke has called my attention to his excellent Infancy Gospel of Thomas website. Burke holds a PhD from the University of Toronto and currently teaches at York University in Canada. He has made his full dissertation, “The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: The Text, its Origins, and its Transmission” available on his site.
The history of the transmission of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is complex; it has come down to us in significantly different rescensions. Since the mid-1800s, scholars have relied largely on the work of Constantin von Tischendorf for their knowledge of the gospel. Tischendorf prepared three different editions of the gospel based on the manuscripts available to him: Greek Text A, Greek Text B, and Latin Text (these are available online from Google Books in Tischendorf’s Evangelia Apocrypha). Many know the gospel only through the somewhat antiquated English translations prepared by M.R. James in the early twentieth century (these are available online courtesy of the Wesley Center for Applied Theology: Greek Text A, Greek Text B, Latin Text). An English translation and a provisional revision of Tischendorf’s Greek Text A were also published by Ronald Hock in the mid-1990s in his book, The Infancy Gospels of James and Thomas
Burke provides a clear, concise overview of the nature of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the history of its transmission on his website. He also includes introductions to and English translations of four recensions of the text:
- Greek Text A (Burke’s critical edition of the recension most closely resembling Tischendorf’s Greek Text A)
- Greek Text B (Burke’s slightly revised version of Tischendorf’s Greek Text B)
- Greek Text D (A recension resembling Tischendorf’s Latin text but based on Greek manuscripts)
- Greek Text S (An edition of Ms: Cod. Sabait. 259, the earliest Greek witness to the gospel, that was first published in Burke’s dissertation)
In addition, Burke includes English translations of versions of the gospel that have survived in different languages:
Finally, Burke includes his own critical edition based on his extensive research. It is worth pointing out that there is other material (not related to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas) on Burke’s site that may be of interest to readers of this blog.
I have added Burke’s blog, Apocryphicity, to my Blog Roll and posted links to his site and translations in the Other Early Christian Gospels Resource Center.
I greatly appreciate Dr. Burke taking the time to let me know about his work.
