The program for this year’s réunion annuelle de l’AELAC (Association pour l’étude de la littérature apocryphe chrétienne) taking place June 26-28 has been posted on the association’s web site. You can access it HERE.

Ahh…more scholarly thrust and parry over Secret Mark. This week, Peter Jeffery (author of The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled) responds to the lengthy review of his book by Scott Brown (available HERE). You can access Jeffery's response HERE and for Jeffery's own running compilation of discussions of Secret Mark, go HERE.

Allan Pantuck passed along to me an article he wrote with Scott Brown challenging one of the claims made by Stephen Carlson in support of his position that Secret Mark is a hoax perpetrated by Morton Smith. Brown, long a supporter of the authenticity of the text, has chipped away at several of Carlson’s claims now, and this one is quite devestating to Carlson’s argument. Here is the abstract for the article: 

Allan J. Pantuck and Scott G. Brown, “Morton Smith as M. Madiotes: Stephen Carlson’s Attribution of Secret Mark to a Bald Swindler,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 6 (2008): 106-125.

In 1960, Morton Smith announced that he had discovered in the Mar Saba monastery tower library a fragment of a previously unknown letter of Clement of Alexandria containing excerpts from a longer version of the Gospel of Mark that Smith called the ‘Secret Gospel of Mark’. Controversial since its publication in 1973, this discovery has recently been criticized in print as both an academic hoax and a malicious forgery. This paper uses newly discovered manuscript photographs and archived documents to refute a claim found in Stephen C. Carlson’s The Gospel Hoax, namely that Smith invented a pseudomymous twentieth-centuty individual named ‘M. Madiotes’ as an elaborate and deliberate clue that he himself had forged the letter of Clement.

While researching Syriac manuscripts for the Infancy Gospel of Thomas I came across a reference in a manuscript catalogue (W. Wright and S. A. Cook, A Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, 2 vol. Cambridge: University Press, 1901) to a text called “History of the silver which Judas received from the Jews as the price of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I have never heard of this text before and thought I’d ask here if anyone knows anything about it.

The manuscript is Cambridge Add. 2881. It is dated 1484 and comes from Damascus. It is written in Garshuni (i.e., Arabic in Syriac letters) with some portions in Arabic, but not the Judas text. The Judas text runs from f. 136b-138b. Also included here are several other apocryphal texts: Acts of Thomas (f. 53b), The Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ to his Disciples on the Mount of Olives (f. 103b), the Abgar Correspondence (f. 158b), The Relation of Pontius Pilate regarding the dealings of the Jews with our Lord, written in the year 18 of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius (f. 160a), and History of the Decease of the Virgin Mary (f. 223a).

Bruce Chilton, a prominent Historical Jesus scholar, has contributed a piece on Elaine Pagels' groundbreaking book The Gnostic Gospels for the New York Sun (HERE). Thanks to Jim Davila at Paleojudaica for pointing this out.

For our penultimate class in Gnosticism we took a bit of a break and watched Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner: The Final Cut (2008). For those in-the-know, Blade Runner is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Dick had an avid interest in Gnosticism and, though the film takes some liberties with his book, it is still suffused with Gnostic imagery and themes. Blade Runner was originally released in 1982 . Unfortunately, the film flopped but it became a cult classic and led to several further incarnations, including a Director’s Cut in 1992 and now the “Final Cut.” For more information on the film’s history, check out its WIKIPEDIA page.

After the film, we had a short discussion of the Gnostic themes and imagery we were able to observe. Several excellent ideas arose, including the identification of Replicant Roy Batty as a saviour figure (the nail in the palm and the ascending dove were tip-offs), Tyrell as Demiurge, the post-apocalyptic city as the dark earthly realm of matter, Rachael as the archetypal Gnostic seeking salvation, etc. Another observation made was that there are no children in the film. This led me to think further of my own take on it; so I thought I’d post that here to stimulate some discussion outside of the classroom. Note, however, that I have not consulted any commentaries on the film, so my comments risk being unintentionally similar to others and/or pitifully naïve.

As mentioned, the post-apocalyptic city represents the corrupt earthly world, a world of darkness, danger, and rain (lots of rain), with strange and nefarious inhabitants and unfamiliar languages. A flying billboard advertises a panaceaic life “off-world.” Above the noise and filth of the city fly the Blade Runners, moving to and fro in their halo-circled levitating cars between the city and the looming pyramids of the Tyrell Corporation. The Blade Runners represent the archons, and their master, Tyrell, creator of the Replicants, is the Demiurge, dwelling above creation on his heavenly throne. The Replicants are genetically engineered humans created to be slaves. They are “born” without emotions but develop them over time; to prevent them completely acquiring emotions (and in effect becoming “human”) their lifespan is limited to four years. Thus, our Demiurge has created a flawed copy of the perfect human, just as in Gnostic mythology.

Occasionally a Replicant will escape and it is the Blade Runner’s job to “retire” (that is, execute) the runaway slave. In the film, a group of escaped Replicants seek audience with their creator. They are looking to extend their lifespan, to in effect attain immortality or salvation. Their leader, Roy, is disappointed to find out that what he seeks is not possible. We also meet another Replicant in the film, Rachael, who believes she is human because Tyrell implanted her with false memories that belonged to his niece. In a sense, Rachael is Adam, given an extra quality akin to the spark of the divine; however, these memories are also meant to keep her docile, which is more suggestive of the Demiurge’s efforts to keep humans ignorant. Rachael shows her archetypal Gnostic features also in her efforts to learn her true origins. This may render the film’s lead character, the Blade Runner Deckard played by Harrison Ford, as the story’s real redeemer figure as he helps Rachael discover that she is a Replicant and endeavours to keep her safe from rival Blade Runners.

The film concludes with a battle between Deckard and Roy. When Roy seems poised to kill Deckard, he instead saves his life, delivers a monologue on what it means to be human, and dies. Roy did not achieve earthly immortality but his awareness of the value of life may have given him an eternal soul. In Christlike fashion, he finishes his allotted span on earth but leaves behind a message, with Deckard now awakened to a new conception of humanity.

That is one way of imagining the film, but the student’s observation of the absence of children and hints that Deckard himself may be a Replicant led me to another way of looking at it. Perhaps all of the characters in the film are Replicants, created as adults with false memories to keep them docile. Roy’s rebel Replicants are simply those who have become aware of their true nature and seek freedom from it. We may see, then, all of the apparent humans in the film as the fleshly who are unaware of their nature and origins and will not achieve salvation; the Replicants are the Psychics who have achieved gnosis and are on their way to salvation; and those who live “off-world” are the Pneumatics who have ascended. The billboard represents the efforts of the heavenly realm to tell us of this other existence and rescue us from the world of matter.

Blade Runner is a rich film that allows for a number of interpretations, both Gnostic and non-Gnostic. Our viewing of the film recalls the class’s earlier efforts to read gospel episodes through a Valentinian perspective. Then, as now, we found that there were numerous— sometimes overlapping, sometimes competing—ways to interpret the texts.

I have been trying to catch up on some news items I’ve been sitting on for a while. I’ll begin with some information on three apocrypha-related films.

The first is “The Messiah,” an Iranian movie that looks at the life of Jesus from an Islamic perspective. One of the sources used in the film, besides the Qur’an and other Muslim traditions, is the Gospel of Barnabas, a fourteenth-century Muslim anti-gospel hailing from Italy. Of interest in this text is the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. Like several early Gnostic Christian texts (including the Apocalypse of Peter, Second Treatise of the Great Seth, and, according to Irenaeus, Basilides), Barnabas states that someone else was crucified in Jesus’ place. The full text can be read HERE, but here is an excerpt of the relevant section (ch. 216):

1. Judas entered impetuously before all into the chamber whence Jesus had been taken up. And the disciples were sleeping. Whereupon the wonderful God acted wonderfully, insomuch that Judas was so changed in speech and in face to be like Jesus that we believed him to be Jesus. And he, having awakened us, was seeking where the Master was. Whereupon we marvelled, and answered: 'You, Lord, are our master; have you now forgotten us?' And he, smiling, said: 'Now are you foolish, that know not me to be Judas Iscariot!'

2. And as he was saying this the soldiery entered, and laid their hands upon Judas, because he was in every way like to Jesus. We having heard Judas' saying, and seeing the multitude of soldiers, fled as beside ourselves. And John, who was wrapped in a linen cloth, awoke and fled, and when a soldier seized him by the linen cloth he left the linen cloth and fled naked. For God heard the prayer of Jesus, and saved the eleven from evil.

Read more about the film in an interview with the filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh HERE. A video clip is available from CNN HERE. Thanks to Jim Davila at Paleojudaica for the update.

The second is a documentary based on Paul Perry’s book Jesus in Egypt, released in 2003. It features Perry’s journeys through Egypt tracing the route of the Holy Family as sketched out in several apocryphal infancy texts (including the Arabic Infancy Gospel, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, and a little-known text called the Vision of Theophilus) and local traditions. The documentary was completed in 2005 and is available from the official web site (HERE).

The third is a film adaptation of The Aquarian Gospel, a modern apocryphal text which first appeared in 1908 and is now in its 53rd printing. It traces Jesus’ life from the ages of 13 to 30, a time he is said to have spent as a wandering mystic in India. For more information on this production, click HERE.

“The Christ Files,” a four-part documentary on the Historical Jesus to air in the Australia beginning March 21, begins with an episode titled “Gnostics and Romans.” A 2-disc DVD will be released on the same day. The documentary is based on the book by the same name by Dr. John Dickson, Director of the Centre for Public Christianity and Honorary Associate of the Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University, Australia. As he criss-crosses the globe, Dickson interviews such noted scholars as Tom Wright, Richard Bauckham, and James Charlesworth. Visit the official site HERE, and see a short clip on the Gospel of Philip.

As mentioned in my previous post, the Wedgewood Baptist Church have sent me some questions to answer regarding the Christian Apocrypha. Here is another one (and I'd be interested to see what other scholars think of the question):

Could you name two or three contributions Christian Apocrypha (CA) have made to the historical study of Jesus?

I assume that should read the “study of the historical Jesus.” If so, only a few CA texts have been used in the effort to find authentic Jesus traditions outside the canonical gospels. These are Gospel of Thomas, the Egerton Gospel, and the Gospel of Peter. The agrapha (i.e., isolated sayings, which can include the citations from the lost Jewish-Christian gospels) are also a good source, though very few of them have been considered early (mind you, that is because the investigators have ruled out some of them as authentic only because they are so different from canonical sayings; and that is a spurious argument). Of the three gospels, GT has made the greatest contribution; even conservative scholars have been forced to admit that some of its unique sayings may be authentic, though they often state that these sayings do not change the image we have of Jesus from the canonical gospels. The CA have made a contribution also in widening the available pool of evidence for the historical Jesus; once one makes the ideological leap to consider that these might have authentic Jesus traditions, then our investigations are taken to a new level. The more evidence the better, even if we end up ruling some of it out. The CA have made a huge contribution to the study of Early Christianity, but that’s another question.

This week's Gnosticism lecture focused on the so-called School of Thomas. Our discussion looked at evidence for dating the text (whether early or late) and the implications this has for its study. As a way to present some of this discussion, I thought I would include here a condensation of my own thoughts on the Gospel of Thomas that I prepared for another forum. The Wedgewood Baptish Church in Charlotte, North Carolina contacted me several months ago asking if I would respond to questions about the Christian Apocrypha put forward by members of their congregation. I just obtained these questions (thirteen in total), and one of them deals specifically with the Gospel of Thomas. Here is the question and my response:

Do you agree with Crossan that the Gospel of Thomas comes from the first century and is possibly contemporaneous with “Q”? If not, why?

I am open to the possibility that apocryphal gospels could be early texts, or at least could contain early traditions. I do not dismiss the possibility a priori as some scholars do. But we need to look at the evidence:

1. What do we mean by the “Gospel of Thomas”? The only complete version of the text we have is a fourth-century Coptic manuscript. Our other evidence comes in three Greek fragments of the late second and third century. The Greek evidence is quite different from the Coptic; obviously it has gone through some development in the intervening years (and even the Greek fragments may not represent adequately the original text).  It is methodologically dangerous to use a fourth-century source (and in another language to boot) to discuss a first or second century text.

2. Therefore, if one sees evidence of “lateness” in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (e.g., Trinitarian formulae, Gnostic affinities), it is quite possible that these are additions to the text. But we may only want them to be additions so that we can establish a case for GT being early. We have to be careful not to let our desires dictate how we evaluate the evidence.

3. Another issue with GT is its parallels with now-canonical texts. It has parallels with Q (Matt/Luke), M (Matt only material), L (Luke only material), Mark, John, and some would say letters of Paul and Revelation. If GT is early, the author had one hell of a library before him. But, again, some of these parallels may be later additions to the text.

4. Two pieces of evidence do lead me to think that GT, at some point in its development, was an early text: its lack of narrative context (it is only a collection of sayings, and form critics for centuries have thought that Jesus’ sayings first circulated independently of narrative), and signs in at least some of the sayings that GT’s versions of synoptic sayings are in an earlier form than we find them in the synoptics. The esteem granted to James, the brother of Jesus in log. 12, is also convincing evidence of an early stratum in the gospel.

5. I find arguments for GT being a late second-century text unconvincing. First, the material evidence is quite early (one fragment is dated ca. 150-200); we don’t get much earlier than that for even the canonical gospels. Associating the text with Gnosticism could place the text late, but only if Gnosticism is a late development in Christianity (and I’m not convinced that it is) and only if GT is Gnostic (and I’m not convinced that it is). And efforts to show that GT shows signs of Matthean or Lukan redaction (i.e., it appears to have taken material from these gospels rather than the reverse or both have used a common source) or to show that GT obtained its material from Tatian’s Diatessaron (a harmony of the canonical gospels created ca. 150 CE) are also not convincing.

Getting back to the question: is GT possibly contemporaneous with Q? Perhaps at an early stage in its development, yes. I think Crossan (and others) are on the right track to isolate GT/Q overlaps and consider these good evidence for early Jesus traditions.