August 18th, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Oxyrhynchus Parchment 840. No Comments.
I’m always a fan of books on manuscripts related to the study of early Christianity, and a new one from my favorite publisher (NOTE: they published my book) looks outstanding:
Evans, Craig A, and H. Daniel Zacharias, eds. Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon. London: T & T Clark, 2009.
The publisher’s website offers the following summary:
Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon constitutes a collection of studies that reflect and contribute to the growing scholarly interest in manuscripts as artifacts and witnesses to early stages in Jewish and Christian understanding of sacred scripture.
Scholars and textual critics have in recent years rightly recognized the contribution that ancient manuscripts make to our understanding of the development of canon in its broadest and most inclusive sense. The studies included in this volume shed significant light on the most important questions touching the emergence of canon consciousness and written communication in the early centuries of the Christian church. The concern here is not in recovering a theoretical “original text” or early “recognized canon,” but in analysis of and appreciation for texts as they actually circulated and were preserved through time. Some of the essays in this collection explore the interface between canon as theological concept, on the one hand, and canon as reflected in the physical/artifactual evidence, on the other. Other essays explore what the artifacts tell us about life and belief in early communities of faith. Still other studies investigate the visual dimension and artistic expressions of faith, including theology and biblical interpretation communicated through the medium of art and icon in manuscripts. The volume also includes scientific studies concerned with the physical properties of particular manuscripts. These studies will stimulate new discussion in this important area of research and will point students and scholars in new directions for future work.
The table of contents is listed as:
- Introduction — C. A. Evans and H. D. Zacharias
- John P. Flanagan, “Papyrus 967 and the Text of Ezekiel: Parablepsis or an Original Text?”
- Gregg Schwendner, “A Fragmentary Psalter from Karanis and its Context”
- Thomas Kraus, “‘He that dwelleth in the help of the Highest’: Septuagint Psalm 90 and the Iconographic Program on Byzantine Armbands”
- Don Barker, “Another Look at Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1353?”
- Scott D. Charlesworth, “Public and Private — Second and Third-Century Gospel Manuscripts”
- Pamela Shellberg, “A Johannine Reading of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 840”
- Peter Arzt-Grabner, “‘I was intending to visit you, but . . .’: Clauses Explaining Delayed Visits and their Importance in Papyrus Letters and in Paul”
- Annette Bourland Huizenga, “Advice to the Bride: Moral Exhortation for Young Wives in Two Ancient Letters”
- Marianne Schleicher, “Transitions between Artifactual and Hermeneutical Use of Scripture”
- Larry Hurtado, “Early Christian Manuscripts of Biblical Texts as Artifacts”
- Stephen Reed, “Physical and Visual Features of Dead Sea Scrolls Scriptural Texts”
- Eduard Iricinschi, “‘A thousand books will be saved’: Manichean Manuscripts and Religious Propaganda in the Roman Empire”
- Kirsten Nielsen, “The Danish Hymnbook: Artifact and Text”
- David Chalcraft, “Some Biblical Artifacts in Search of a Sociological Theory”
- Dorina Miller Parmenter, “The Bible as Icon: Myths of the Divine Origin of Scripture”
- Peter M. Head, “Letter Carriers in the Ancient Jewish Epistolary Material”
- Juan Hernández, “The Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus”
The whole volume looks fascinating and there are a number of different essays that I am eager to read. However, the one that initially caught my attention (perhaps, because it is directly relevant to this blog) was:
Shellberg, Pamela. “A Johannine Reading of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 840.” In Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon. Edited by Craig A Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias. London: T & T Clark, 2009.
A Johannine Reading of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 840? That is a new one, to me at least. The manuscript fragment (which is actually parchment) preserves a part of an early Christian gospel that describes a dispute about purity between Jesus and a Pharisee. Jesus asserts that purity is not to be obtained through external rituals or cleansings but through internal purification of the heart. Jesus’s statement to the Pharisee in P.Oxy. 840,
Woe, blind people who do not see! You have bathed in the very same gushing waters dogs lie night and day. And you have washed and cleansed the outer layer of skin – this is the layer that prostitutes and flute-girls anoint, bathe, cleanse and adorn to arouse the lust of men, even though they are filled with scorpions and every kind of wickedness on the inside
has often been seen as similiar to his statement in Matthew 23:25-26
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean” (cf. Luke 11:39-40).
I’m not exactly sure what a “Johannine reading” of P.Oxy. 840 would be . . . but I’m eager to find out!
August 6th, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Secret Gospel of Mark. 1 Comment.
Hedrick also contributed an article to the special Secret Mark issue of the Journal of Early Christian Studies (see previous post):
Hedrick, Charles W. “The Secret Gospel of Mark: Stalemate in the Academy.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11 (2003): 133-45.
Hedrick provides a summary of the discovery and contents of the Clement letter describing Secret Mark. He then addresses the very sensitive issue of why Smith’s publications about the letter might have caused such a “firestorm of criticism,” namely because Smith suggested in a single sentence in his scholarly book, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark, that Jesus might have instituted a homosexual baptismal rite [page 251: "In this baptism the disciple was united with Jesus. The union may have been physical (see above, commentary on III.13 and pp. 185f - there is no telling how far symbolism went in Jesus' rite), but the essential thing was that the disciple was possessed by Jesus' spirit"]. Hedrick comments,
I have been asked in public gatherings, after presenting papers on Secret Mark, whether the negative reaction in the academy was due to homophobia. I cannot answer that question-I seriously doubt that anyone can. But the question is natural enough, in light of the strong response to Smith’s one line about homosexuality in both his books. On the other hand, homophobia may well have contributed to the disappearance of Clement’s letter. A homophobe who was also deeply religious would, not surprisingly, be greatly upset at the disrespect Smith’s suggestion accords Jesus. In addition, the “endorsement” of homosexuality by Jesus, which Smith’s suggestion implies, creates a practical problem for religious institutions rejecting homosexuality as a sin, but promoting communal monasteries and convents. It is understandable that some people might feel it would be better had the document never been discovered.”
He goes on to lament the situation surrounding the Secret Gospel of Mark:
In the case of Clement’s letter and Secret Mark, however, now thirty years after the publication of the editio principes, Smith’s discovery and its significance for reconstructing Christian origins, has never generally been taken up as a part of the raw data of New Testament scholarship. We have spent more time debating a hypothetical text (Q) than we have assessing the significance and implications of an extant text (Secret Mark).
Hedrick’s summary of the situation in 2003 is as follows:
- “The letter of Clement definitely exists (or existed at one time).”
- “The current whereabouts of the manuscript are unknown.”
- “Morton Smith did not forge the manuscript. If it is a forgery, it is an ancient forgery, earlier than the eighteenth century.” (Certainly, some would disagree with Hedrick on this particular point.)
- “The manuscript leaves containing Clement’s letter were definitely the two bound in the final leaves of the Voss volume.”
- “Clementine scholars have, in the main, accepted the authenticity of Clement’s letter (it is included among the standard texts of Clement’s writings in a 1980 German publication). If it is a forgery, it at least does not appear to be a modern forgery perpetrated by Morton Smith.” (On the question of whether Morton Smith forged the letter, see my comment on point 3; as for whether “Clementine scholars” have generally accepted its authenticity, I must confess that I am not sure. I usually see the topic addressed by New Testament rather than Clementine scholars.)
Hedrick’s final section in the article deals with the question, “Does Secret Mark have a future?” His answer is that, although an authenticated letter might provide us with valuable information about Secret Mark,
The early reactions to the letter of Clement and Secret Mark, published shortly after Smith’s books, in effect, have discredited Smith in the eyes of many of his colleagues, and stopped the discussion. Some think that the manuscript does not even exist, while others think Smith invented Secret Mark, and personally forged Clement’s letter. Others think the text reflects a genuine second-century tradition. Unless the academy can reach a closer agreement on Secret Mark’s past, the secret gospel has no real future.
August 4th, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Secret Gospel of Mark. 1 Comment.
In the summer of 2003, the Journal of Early Christian Studies published a special issue entitled, “The Secret Gospel of Mark: Discussion.” One of the three articles included was:
Stroumsa, Guy G. “Comments on Charles Hedrick’s Article: A Testimony.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11, no. 2 (2003): 147-53.
For those who remained suspicious that a physical manuscript containing a copy of a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria had ever been housed at the Greek Orthodox monastery at Mar Saba, it turned out that there was another corroborating witness. As Guy Stroumsa reported in his article, he himself had viewed the manuscript at Mar Saba during a visit to the monastery in 1976. With the assistance of Archimandrite Melito, Stroumsa and the late David Flusser and Shlomo Pines (professors from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem) had obtained access to the manuscript.
After examining the Voss edition of Ignatius’ letters with the Clement letter scrawled in the back, Stroumsa recalled:
It was obvious to all of us that the precious book should not be left in place, but rather be deposited in the library of the Patriarchate. So we took the book back to Jerusalem, and Father Meliton brought it to the library. We hoped to analyze the manuscript seriously and contemplated an ink analysis. At the National and University Library, however, we were told that only at the police headquarters were people equipped with the necessary knowledge and tools for such an analysis. Father Meliton made it clear that he had no intention of putting the Vossius book in the hands of Israeli police. We gave up, I went back to Harvard, and when I came back to Jerusalem to teach, more than two years later, I had other commitments.
Thus, the book was transferred from Mar Saba to Jerusalem.
“It was only recently,” Stroumsa continued, “more than a quarter-century later, in talking to American colleagues, that I realized that I am the ‘last living Western scholar’ to have seen the Clement manuscript, and that I had a duty to testify in front of a skeptical scholarly world.”
- – - – -
One of the America scholars with whom Stroumsa evidently discussed the manuscript was Bart Ehrman, who recounts the following epsiode in his book Lost Christianities,
I was at my colleague Elizabeth Clark’s house for a social event. Also there was a scholar named Guy Stroumsa, a professor of comparative religions at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a respected expert in early Christianity. Stroumsa happened to be in town to visit his daughter, who was just starting her Ph.D. program in classics at Duke University. The event was organized around Stroumsa’s visit. He gave a brief talk – about Clement of Alexandria, as it turned out – and then we had a light dinner and social, academic conversation. He and I had never met before, but we knew each other’s work. I told him I was writing a book on lost Christianities, and told him I had just completed a draft of my chapter on the Secret Gospel of Mark. To my astonishment – and everyone else’s – Stroumsa told me that years ago he had tracked down the book and seen it with his own eyes. He could confirm that the letter was in the final pages (which, of course, no one doubted). But he suspects that no one will ever see the letter again. I immediately stopped drinking and started listening . . .
