Archive for July, 2009
July 22nd, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Secret Gospel of Mark. No Comments.
Scholars trying to determine whether or not Clement’s letter describing the Secret Gospel of Mark is a modern forgery have faced a major obstacle: the lone manuscript containing the letter seems to have vanished. Thus, forensic tests that could conclusively demonstrate when the manuscript was copied are currently out of the question.
Charles Hedrick became involved in the search for the manuscript around 1990, and he summarized what he was able to ascertain about its fate in an article published a decade later:
Hedrick, Charles W., and Nikolaos Olympiou. “Secret Mark: New Photographs, New Witnesses.” The Fourth R 13, no. 5 (2000): 3-16.
In this article, Hedrick reports:
- In 1977, Archimandrite (an honorary title for a priest in the hierarchy of the Greek Orthodox church) Melito tranfered the 1646 Voss edition of the letters of Ignatius (still containing the letter of Clement) from the monastery at Mar Saba to the Patriarchate Library in Jerusalem.
- Later in 1977, Father Kallistos Dourvas (the Patriarchate librarian at the time) removed the Clement manuscript from the Voss book to photograph it. However, he did not separate the Clement manuscript from the Voss book. He insists that the two were kept together at least until the end of his tenure as librarian in 1990.
- In 1980, Professor Thomas Talley of General Theological Seminary in New York was informed about the transfer by both Melito (the deliverer) and Kallistos (the receiver). However, he was told the manuscript was not available for viewing.
- In 1990, Charles Hedrick and Nikolaos Olympiou, Professor of Old Testament at the University of Athens, visited the monastery at Mar Saba and were told the same thing Talley had been: the manuscript had been moved to the Patriarchate library.
- In 1992, Hedrick and Olympiou visited the Patriarchate Library and were told that the manuscript could not be located.
- In December 1998 and June 2000, Olympiou viewed the 1646 Voss edition of the letters of Ignatius, but the letter of Clement was no longer in the book.
Between 1990 and 2000, Olympiou obtained new color photographs of the Clement manuscript (published with this article) from Kallistos and photographs of the Voss book from Bishop Aristarchos, the librarian of the Patriarchate.
Hedrick concludes, with justification, that “the letter of Clement was indeed at one time included in the back of the Voss edition.” A small discoloration of the pages visible in the photos of both the Voss book and the Clement manuscript indicate clearly that the Clement manuscript was once a part of the Voss book, and there is no reason to doubt the corroborating testimonies of Melito and Kallistos.
The controversial letter attributed to Clement definitely did exist, and it was once located where Smith said it was.
But there remain many unanswered questions? Did Smith write the write the letter on the blank pages in the Voss book himself? Who separated the Voss book from the Clement manuscript? Why did that person do so?
And, most importantly, WHERE IS THE CLEMENT MANUSCRIPT NOW?!
July 21st, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Gospel of Thomas. No Comments.
Thanks to Mike Grondin for notifying the Gospel of Thomas e-list today about a recent post by Michael Bird on his blog, Euangelion. The blog post is entitled, Gospel of Thomas: Three Recent Books. Fittingly, it provides information about three recent books dealing with the Gospel of Thomas:
Plisch, Uwe-Karsten. The Gospel of Thomas : Original Text with Commentary. Freiburg, Germany: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2008.
Popkes, Enno Edzard. Das Menschenbild des Thomasevangeliums: Untersuchungen zu seiner Religionsgeschichtlichen und chronologischen Einordnung. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007.
Skinner, Christopher W. John and Thomas: Gospels in Conflict? : Johannine Characterization and the Thomas Question. Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2009.
These look like three interesting books, indeed. And Bird has provided a very helpful summary of each. It’s definitely worth checking out his post.
July 20th, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Secret Gospel of Mark. No Comments.
Shortly after the announcement of the launch of gospels.net, the following question was raised on the Biblical Studies discussion group:
Certainly the Secret Gospel of Mark publicized by the late Morton Smith has generated its share of controversy. At this juncture, has that controversy settled into a basic consensus regarding its authenticity?
The simple answer, as far as I can tell, is: no.
There are still scholars who believe the Secret Gospel of Mark is an authentic ancient document known to Clement of Alexandria in the late second century, and there are those who believe it to be a modern forgery. Of course, both sides claim to represent the majority opinion.
Since I know that this controversial text continues to be of significant interest to many, I have decided to add a few more entries to the list of publications dealing with it in the Other Early Christian Gospels Resource Center. I had originally intended to deal with the whole matter in a single post, but there is too much background information that needs to be provided and there are too many publications to list. I will have to address the issue of Secret Mark in series of posts.
The background of the situation is as follows. A scholar named Morton Smith claimed that he discovered a long-lost letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria (late second century) at the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Hagios Sabbas (Arabic, “Mar Saba”) near Jerusalem during the summer of 1958. The text of the letter had been handwritten on three blank pages at the back of a 1646 edition of Isaac Voss’s Epistulae genuinae S. Ignatii Martyris (a notable published edition of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, which were originally written during the first decade of the second century).
The letter, which is addressed to an otherwise unknown Theodore, describes and quotes two passages from a “Secret Gospel of Mark.” According to the letter, The Secret Gospel of Mark was an expanded version of the New Testament Gospel of Mark. Peter’s disciple Mark wrote the well-known Gospel of Mark primarily for new converts to the Christian faith during his time in Rome. After Peter was martyred there, Mark departed for Alexandria where he wrote “a more spiritual gospel.” This Secret Gospel was intended for use only by those who had already attained significant spiritual growth. Mark, the letter says, “left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries.”
Sensing the controversial nature of the letter, Smith spent 15 years preparing to publish about it. In 1973, he released two books simultaneously. One was written for a scholarly audience:
Smith, Morton. Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark. Cambridge, Mass.,: Harvard University Press, 1973.
The other was of a more popular nature:
Smith, Morton. The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
The publication of Smith’s books did indeed cause quite an uproar. It wasn’t long before charges that the letter providing information about the Secret Gospel of Mark was a modern forgery began to circulate. At the time, Smith quipped to the New York Times, “Thank God I have tenure.” Until his death in 1991, he defended the authenticity of the letter and maintained that he had discovered it just as described in his books.
A very helpful article that succinctly describes Smith’s discovery and summarizes the often heated debate over Secret Mark between 1973 and 1995 is:
Eyer, Shawn. “The Strange Case of the Secret Gospel According to Mark.” Alexandria: The Journal for Western Cosmological Traditions 3 (1995): 103-29.
July 14th, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Miscellaneous. No Comments.
Following my recent posts about the new articles on Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 4009 and the unveiling of Codex Sinaiticus online, I thought it would be fitting to announce that images of all the possible manuscripts of the Gospel of Peter are now available in the Other Early Christian Gospels Resource Center.
I have posted scanned images of the first ten pages of the Akhmim Fragment (which nobody disputes preserve a part of the Gospel of Peter) that were originally published in:
Gebhardt, Oscar von. Das Evangelium und die Apokalypse des Petrus. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1893.
I have also posted a scanned image of the Faiyum Fragment (which Dieter Luehrman tentatively proposed was a part of the Gospel of Peter) that was originally published in:
Bickell, G. “Das nichtkanonische Evangelium-Fragment.” In Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erherzog Rainer I, edited by Joseph Karabacek, 53-61. Vienna: Verlag der K. K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1887.
It is interesting to note the unusual abbreviation of Peter’s name on the manuscript, and how it has been colored over (highlighted?) in red. The transcription below in the manuscript image is also from the same publication.
All of the images of the two remaining possible fragments of the Gospel of Peter (Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2949 and Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 4009) are linked from the papyrology website at Oxford. I am pleased to see that the work of making digital images of the Oxyrhycnhus papyri available online is continuing vigorously at my alma mater.
July 10th, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Miscellaneous. No Comments.
I was pleased to see the following announcement recently posted on biblioblogs.com:
I changed the ‘New Testament’ links category to ‘New Testament and Early Christianity’ in order to make the category more broadly apply to the field of Christian origins. I also added a relatively new blog to this category, Gospels.net, which has been around for a little longer than a month. It’s an excellent blog and I look forward to more posts coming from Andrew Bernhard.
Biblioblogs.com is the premiere reference for information about blogs focused on biblical and related studies. Editors Brandon Wason and John Hobbins have put an enormous amount of time and energy into creating this resource. The site includes not only a single definitive list of biblioblogs but also monthly interviews with the different people responsible for creating those blogs. I am very glad to see that the editors have decided to change the “New Testament” category to the “New Testament and Early Christianity” category because, in my mind at least, these two topics are inextricably linked. Regardless, this blog is definitely worth checking out.
Another blog worth noting is Brandon Wason’s personal blog, Sitz im Leben: The Jesus Tradition – Then and Now. Like gospels.net, this is a scholarly blog that was launched a little over a month ago. I look forward to seeing more posts from Brandon . . . and I have to extend my extra appreciation to him for his most recent post containing a list of New Testament introductions commonly used in introductory New Testament classes (it just happened to be exactly what I was looking for at the time!)
Both biblioblogs.com and sitzimleben.com are included in the gospels.net blogroll.
July 8th, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Gospel of Peter. No Comments.
Thanks (again) to Wieland Wilker for calling our attention to two recent articles discussing Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 4009, one of the possible fragments of the Gospel of Peter.
Not all scholars agree that this manuscript fragment preserves a portion of the Gospel of Peter, and scholars have not previously been able to reconstruct one side of the badly damaged fragment. However, in the first article, Myllykoski proposes a reconstruction for the previously unintelligible side of the fragment and argues that it does indeed preserve a fragment of the Gospel of Peter. The second article explains the potential significance of Myllykoski’s reconstructions for textual criticism of the Gospel of Luke. I will have to examine these articles carefully.
The citations and abstracts are as follows:
Myllykoski, Matti. “The Sinful Woman in the Gospel of Peter: Reconstructing the Other Side of P.Oxy. 4009.” New Testament Studies 55 (2009): 104-15.
In 1993, Dieter Lührmann published a reconstruction of the more intelligible side of P.Oxy. 4009. He demonstrated that this side, which he called the recto, consists of passages parallel to Matt 10.16 par., Luke 10.3 and 2 Clem. 5.2–4. He also argued that the passage stems from the Gospel of Peter. However, Lührmann considered it impossible (‘ausgeschlossen’) to reconstruct the other side of the fragment. The aim of the present article is to demonstrate that a full reconstruction of this less intelligible side of P.Oxy. 4009, lines 1–13, is possible and that it enriches our knowledge of the Gospel of Peter with a new pericope which is an interesting parallel of Luke 7.36–50. The reconstruction also demonstrates that the side reconstructed by Lührmann is actually the verso, and that both sides together point towards the well-known anti-Jewish redactional tendencies of the author of the Gospel of Peter.
full article
Myllykoski, Matti. “Tears of Repentance or Tears of Gratitude? P.Oxy. 4009, the Gospel of Peter and the Western Text of Luke 7.45-49.” New Testament Studies 55 (2009): 380-89.
In an article published earlier this year (NTS 55.1: 104–15), a full reconstruction of the less intelligible side of P.Oxy. 4009 (lines 1–13) was presented, and it was argued that this text belongs to the Gospel of Peter. These 13 lines parallel the Lukan pericope of the sinful woman (Luke 7.45–49) and demonstrate that the Gospel of Peter used manuscripts that represent the Western text of the earlier Gospels. The most notable Western feature, the omission in P.Oxy. 4009 of Luke 7.47b–48, is no coincidence. There are weighty arguments for the omission of these verses in the Lukan original as well.
July 7th, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Miscellaneous. No Comments.
I mentioned in my previous post that most of the first part of the Old Testament (from Genesis-1 Chronicles) had been lost from Codex Sinaiticus. To this, I must now add information just posted by Tommy Wasserman, who is currently attending a conference on Codex Sinaiticus at the British Library:
A scholar who is working on the bookbindings of St Catherine of Mt Sinai has found what is most probably a new leaf of Codex Sinaiticus within the binding of the book!
Jan Krans has added in a note to the post:
The text, if I remember well, is from Joshua 1. It is currently debated whether it should be tried to liberate the fragment from the binding (one would like to read the backside as well), or to wait for technological advancements.
Fragments of ancient manuscripts do turn up in the most peculiar places, don’t they?
July 6th, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Miscellaneous. No Comments.
As has been widely reported (BBC, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC), the surviving portions of Codex Sinaiticus have now been reunited online. This famous ancient manuscript is described well at its official website, codexsinaiticus.org:
Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important books in the world. Handwritten well over 1600 years ago, the manuscript contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. Its heavily corrected text is of outstanding importance for the history of the Bible and the manuscript – the oldest substantial book to survive Antiquity – is of supreme importance for the history of the book.
The different parts of Codex Sinaiticus are currently housed in four locations:
Thanks to considerable international collaboration, digitial images of all the surviving pages have been brought together on a single website. It is great to see the culmination of such a major project and the significant media attention it has garnered (see Brandon Wason’s blog post regarding this matter).
The contents of Codex Sinaiticus themselves are noteworthy, as they testify to the slow process by which the ultimate boundaries and arrangement of the Christian canon of scripture were defined. The fourth-century manuscript presumably contained both the complete Old Testament and New Testament in Greek, even though most of the opening of the Old Testament (from Genesis to 1 Chronicles) has been lost. Yet, neither Testament is presented precisely as it would be in most modern Bibles. The Old Testament contains texts that are now commonly classified as Apocrypha (2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach), and the New Testament is arranged differently (Hebrews is placed after 2 Thessalonians, and Acts appears between the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles) with two additional ancient writings included (The Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas).
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Notes: The version of the Greek Old Testament/Hebrew Bible included in Codex Sinaiticus is called the Septuagint. While The Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas were ultimately excluded from the New Testament, quality critical editions of both ancient texts are available in modern collections of the “Apostolic Fathers.”
July 1st, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Miscellaneous. 1 Comment.
It has now been once month since I officially launched the blog, and I will say this: it has gone both extremely well and not at all as I expected.
When I started out, I planned to proceed somewhat systematically in working through the different gospels. However, I now realize that this is just not how a blog works. The course of gospels.net needs to be guided by new developments in the study of early Christian gospels and new information as it comes to my attention, not by my preconceived notions about what the path of the blog should be.
I won’t bore you with any further details. Suffice it to say, I now recognize that I’ll be jumping around a bit more than I originally intended with the blog. For this reason, I have decided (against my initial inclination) to categorize all posts. The categories are now listed in the sidebar; simply click on one to isolate posts pertaining to a particular topic.
