Last week’s New Testament Apocrypha class focused on Matthew and Luke and related apocrypha—namely, Jewish-Christian gospels and infancy gospels.

The Jewish-Christian gospels are important texts, not least because their very Jewishness suggests that they may be early—Jesus was Jewish, his followers were Jewish; so, perhaps these texts record Jesus’ teachings and mission more faithfully than the more Gentile gospels of the NT. Except for the Gospel of the Ebionites, that is, which shows clear evidence of harmonization of the Synoptic gospels. The students were struck by the different dates assigned to the remaining two Jewish-Christian gospels (Hebrews and Nazareans) by the authors of the two textbooks we use. Bart Ehrman dates the two to the late first century, while Klauck to the early or middle of the second century. There seems to be no reason for Klauck’s late dating other than a need to keep the canonical gospels primary—i.e., no non-canonical gospel can be earlier (and therefore “better”) than the NT gospels. But it is a real possibility that these gospels are indeed early, and we should remain open to that possibility.

To add to the introductions to the texts provided by Ehrman and Klauck I discussed two lesser-known witnesses to Jewish-Christian traditions. The first is Ahmad ibn Abd al-Jabbar’s Confirmation of the Proofs of Prophethood of Our Master Mohammed which Shlomo Pines (“The Jewish Christians of the Early Centuries of Christianity according to a New Source,” 1968) claimed drew upon an anti-Christian polemic composed in Syriac by Jewish-Christians around the fourth to sixth century. The text criticizes Gentile Christians for failing to obey the Mosaic law and for giving up Hebrew (Hebrew was Christ’s language and the language of the original and true Christian gospel). Paul is criticized for denying the validity of all of the Mosaic laws, and is killed by Nero for encouraging the Romans to practice a religion opposed to the true religion of Jesus. Pines’ argument was countered by S. M. Stern (“Abd al-Jabbar’s Account of How Christ’s Religion Was Falsified by the Adoption of Roman Customs,” 1960), and the exchange between the two scholars grew heated. Now some decades later, perhaps it is time to revisit the evidence.

The other lesser-known witness is the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew found in Even Bohan, a fourteenth-century Jewish treatise written by Shem-Tob Ibn Shaprut of Aragon. George Howard (Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, 1995) claims it is a version of Matthew preserved in Jewish rabbinical circles that predates the Greek version of Matthew in the NT. I first read about the text in James Tabor’s The Jesus Dynasty (2006)—he considers it a valuable source for the early decades of Christianity. Howard’s book was brutally critiqued by William Petersen in 1998 (available HERE); Howard countered the review a year later (available HERE).

The distinction between orthodoxy and heresy again crept into our discussion. The Gospel of the Hebrews apparently contained a version of the woman caught in adultery from John 7:53-8:12. Though it cannot be determined that Hebrews was the original source of the story, certainly the story was not original to the Gospel of John. In a sense, the story is non-canonical—it should not be in the Bible; yet it remains. Childhood stories of Jesus also straddle the canonical/non-canonical divide as images from them appeared regularly in medieval art and iconography. And the Protevangelium of James was virtually canonical in the Greek East; some of its traditions (e.g., the names of Mary’s parents, the perpetual virginity of Mary) even became accepted teaching in the West.

To take this discussion a little further, some early CA scholars identified the texts studied in this course as “orthodox apocrypha” (Gnostic apocrypha, which had not yet been discovered, presumably would have been considered “heretical apocrypha”). All of these texts continued to be copied over the centuries and influenced art and literature. Since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library and other Gnostic texts, the orthodox apocrypha have been somewhat neglected. Yet they form a compelling corpus of texts that is situated on the spectrum of Christian literature just lower in esteem than the Apostolic Fathers.

The class came full circle with a few comments on Jean-Daniel Kaestli’s claim that a class of late Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew manuscripts contain material from the Gospel of Nazareans (“Recherches nouvelles sur les ‘Évangiles latins de l’enfance’ de M. R. James et sur un récit apocryphe mal connu de la naissance de Jésus.” Études Théologiques et Religeuses 72 [1997]: 219-233). Similar claims of earlier sources have been made for the Protevangelium of James and of the Latin version of Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Such claims attract attention to the infancy gospels; as in the search for sources for the historical Jesus, the earlier the text or tradition the better. But these texts deserve to be studied in their own right as examples of popular Christian piety on the periphery of the New Testament.

I discussed a few weeks ago the topic of palimpsests in CA studies. Anyone interested in the topic may want to see the recent publication J. Gippert, Palimpsest Codex Vindobonensis georgicus 2 (Monumenta Palaeographica Medii Aevi: Series Ibero et Caucasia. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007). This Old Georgian codex contains a number of biblical, hagiographical, and homiletic texts, but the text of interest to us is a version of the Protevangelium of James from the fifth to the eighth century. More than 95 % of the codex has been deciphered.

The Infancy Gospel of James is featured prominently in a new book by Frederica Mathewes-Green, The Lost Gospel of Mary: The Mother of Jesus in Three Ancient Texts from Paraclete Press. An interview with the author is available here. The title is somewhat misleading (Infancy James has never really been “lost,” and calling it the Gospel of Mary leads to confusion with the Gnostic text of the same name). The following excerpt from the interview reveals which texts Mathewes-Green examines:

The first text, the “Gospel of Mary,” shows us Mary as an adorable little girl, and then as a teenager coping with a “crisis pregnancy” that could cause her execution as a suspected adultress. This was an extremely popular work among Eastern Christians (that is, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern) in the second century. Many of the stories here made it to Europe, but the intact text did not. A 16^th-century scholar who translated it into Latin named it “the Protevangelium of James;” this is how scholars know it today, but it’s not the original title (no one title stuck, actually). In this work, Mary is steadfast under this trial, and teaches us much about courage.

The other two texts illuminate other aspects of Mary’s role. The second is a very short prayer that was found on a scrap of papyrus in Egypt in 1917, and dated 250 AD; it is the earliest prayer to Mary. It begins, “Under your compassion we take refuge…”, and it’s still in use East and West (Roman Catholics know it as “Sub Tuum Praesidium.”) This second text shows us that early Christians believed that she (like all the saints) are alive in Christ’s presence and continually in prayer, so we can call on her as a prayer partner. The third text is a beautiful and intricately complex “sung sermon”, written around 520 A.D., which explores the mystery of the Incarnation and all the ways that Mary’s role is foreshadowed in Scripture.

The Nov/Dec 2007 issue of Biblical Archeological Review features an article on the discovery of a church commemorating a scene from the Protoevangelium of James (“Where Mary Rested,” pp. 44-51).

In chapter 17 of the text Joseph, Mary, and Joseph’s children journey to Bethlehem for the census. Three miles outside of the city Mary feels labour pains and stops to sit on a rock. According to Cyril of Scythopolis a church was built on the spot in 456. It is called the Kathisma, “seat” or “chair” in Greek. The church is described also in the account of the anonymous sixth-century Piacenza Pilgrim.

The church (more a martyrium actually) was rediscovered in 1993. The digs finished in 2000 and Dr. Rina Avner has written her doctoral dissertation at the University of Haifa on her excavations of the Kathisma.

The article includes photographs of the mosaics from the site and an image of the similarly structured house of St. Peter in Capernaum.

As visitors to my main web site know, my principle area of study is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (IGT). So it was with some excitement that I heard of J.K. Elliott’s A Synopsis of Apocryphal Nativity and Infancy Narratives (New Testament Tools and Studies 34; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2006). Even today, relatively little attention has been paid to IGT, so any new work on the text is appreciated. And the synopsis promised to be a helpful tool. I ordered the book immediately (despite the high price: $159 US) and eagerly awaited its delivery.

Unfortunately, the book does not meet my expectations. In brief: the selection of texts is limited, the synopsis is awkward, and the scholarship is not always up-to-date. This is not the kind of quality I expected from Elliott, who is well-known for his books The Apocryphal New Testament and Art and the Christian Apocrypha (with David Cartlidge), and frequently contributes to the SBL Apocrypha section.

The texts featured in the synopsis include the “usual suspects” – Protoevangelium of James, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Pseudo-Matthew, M.R. James’ Latin Infancy Gospel (Arundel 404), Birth of Mary, and Arabic Infancy Gospel. Included also are History of Joseph the Carpenter, the fragmentary Pap. Cairensis 10735, and the Irish texts Leabhar Breac and Liber Flavus  Fergusiorum. Elliott lists several other texts that could have been included—(e.g., Armenian Infancy Gospel and the Syriac Life of Mary) – but does not explain why he neglects them (p. xix). He primarily draws upon published English translations, many of them rather old—e.g., he uses older translations of the Irish material and the Arundel gospel despite the recent publication of new translations in McNamara’s volume for CCSA. To be fair, this decision may be based more on publisher’s proprietary interests than scholarly usefulness.

The synopsis is presented vertically, with each parallel printed after the next, rather than horizontally. The reason given is because “in many cases there are too many texts to have made parallel vertical columns practicable” (p. x). Nevertheless, the vertical layout reduces the synopsis’ utility. At times the Arundel and Irish texts are represented only by citations, presumably because the material is little different from the excerpts printed from the earlier texts. The stories appear in chronological order (running form the conception of Mary to Jesus at the age of 12) and include the tales from the canonical infancy narratives. On one occasion Elliott breaks from pattern to include a parallel from the Koran (Jesus animates the birds from Surah 3:49). While it is valuable for readers to observe this parallel, it makes one wonder why other parallels are not included—for example, the allusion to the same story in the Gospel of Bartholomew 2:11. Another peculiarity in the synopsis is the decision to print the three teacher stories from IGT 6, 14 and 15 one after the other, suggesting that Elliott believes them to be variants of the same story rather than tales with their own particular themes and concerns.

The synopsis is preceded with a brief discussion of the texts and select bibliographies. The IGT bibliography has some striking omissions: it neglects work on some important Syriac witnesses (Vat. syr. 159 discussed by P. Peeters in 1914, and Göttingen Syr. 10 published by W. Baars and J. Heldermann in 1993/1994), T. Rosén’s 1997 critical edition of the Slavonic  text, and my own 2001 Ph. D. dissertation on the Greek tradition (and Elliott is certainly aware of it). For his text of IGT Elliott relies on the translations he made of Tischendorf’s old and inadequate texts (Greek A, Greek B, and the prologue to the Latin version). The least Elliott could have done was to translate A. Delatte’s Greek D text, the source of Tischendorf’s Latin version. In addition, Elliott makes some erroneous remarks about the IGT material: referring to Ps. Matt. 26-42, a section added to late manuscripts of Ps. Matt. from an early Latin translation of IGT, he says “These chapters are what Tischendorf called the Pars Altera. They are found in later forms of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas” (p. 132 n. 1); and he states that the story of Jesus sowing a field (IGT 12) is not found in all manuscripts of the text when, in fact, it is. The synopsis fails to include also the story of Jesus Rides a Sunbeam which is found in several infancy gospel witnesses, including the Ethiopic version of IGT and some manuscripts of Ps. Matt.

Other texts in the Synopsis also rely on out-dated text-critical work: the translations of History of Joseph the Carpenter and Arabic Infancy Gospel are from 1870 and work on these texts by contributors to the Pléiade volumes appears neglected.

To its credit, Elliott’s synopsis presents the infancy stories in a nice, tidy volume and should bring attention to the little-known Irish traditions. It is unfortunate, however, that the book is not the tool that it could be and it will be some time before another attempt is made at such a project.

This may be old news to many but…December 1 marks the release date of The Nativity Story, a film about…well, you know.

What is of interest to CA scholars about the film is its use of traditions that can be found in apocryphal stories of Mary—namely, details absent from the canonical gospels such as the names of Mary’s parents. This information, though accepted as historical by most mainstream Christians, was disseminated over the centuries in the Protoevangelium of James and derivative texts (such as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, the Arabic Infancy Gospel, and the various versions of the Life of Mary) which expand the story.

Several years ago The Passion of the Christ drew the public’s attention to Historical Jesus scholarship; The Nativity Story may do the same for the CA. Or, more likely, reporters will call up the usual suspects (John Dominic Crossan, Bart Ehrman) or the local priest. For more information about the film, visit the official web site or read a preview article.