There are books that are interesting, there are books that are important and then there are seminal studies that serve as road markers for the field, pointing the way forward. Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses is in the latter category, to be sure….
Bp. Robinson in Redating the NT quotes a writer who talks about the real world and the world of scholars. In the world of scholars, nothing ever happens. It is always someone’s version of another’s story. “The word war narrative began to take shape in the 2nd and 3rd decades of the 20th century.” If two newpapaers had slighly different accounts, one copied the other. When people write about events which occurred within their lifetiimes, it is surprising to find traces of the primitive tradition. It is time someone belled the cat on this one.
Sounds like an interesting work I’d like to read!
I think that what has always tainted the historical and “eyewitness” character of the Scriptures and what they reveal in the minds of modern secular scholars is that the Church chose what gospels to include and denounced the gnostic gospels as heretical.
I’ve read some of the gnostic gospels but not all and couldn’t find anything that was horribly problematic. And I’ve always found it interesting that religious artwork, particularly depictions of the saints, often contain symbols from the gnostic narratives.
I guess the gnostic gospels were left out because they believed in numerous gods and salvation by secret knowledge. They also denied the incarnation of Jesus. By TEC standards there is nothing problematic in them.
Pb, That’s a blanket condemnation — not all of them are “out there” and heretical. It is interesting to me that some folks went viral over the “Gospel of Thomas” in part because it quotes Jesus as saying that the “Kingdom of God is within you and all around you.” That’s pretty tame in comparison to “unless you eat My Flesh and drink My Blood you have no life within you.”
I can see how the Gospel of Mary Magdalene would rattle Rome, LOL, but the Infancy narrative and the Protoevangelion (sp.?) of James are interesting and rather sweet. (The described courtship of Mary and Joseph is particularly charming and the reason Joseph is often depicted holding a flowered staff in sacred art.)
Sorry. I don’t mean to derail this into a discussion of the gnostic gospels. And, Lord knows, I don’t want to descend into TEC sniping. I am SO weary of that entering every discussion.
Thomas also says that unless a woman become a man she can not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Teatime 2 (#4) –
The Protoevangelion of James and other infancy (childhood) narratives are not gnostic gospels. They are classified as the Pseudepigrapha. The hagiographical depictions of the flowering staff, the lily (for the BVM), etc derive from pseudepigraphal, not gnostic, sources.
And Pb’s “blanket condemnation” is right on the money – gnostic writings are by definition heretical, because their soteriology, christology and theology are completely at odds with that of apostolic Christianity and typically represent a syncretic amalgam of pagan (or, in the cultured varieties, neo-Platonic) and barely Christian ideas.
The word itself (“pseudepigraphum”, a falsely attributed work) literally could be applied to individual gnostic works like the Gospel of Thomas, but when capitalized the word refers to a varied corpus of non-canonical, generally fanciful though not necessarily heretical works that work narratives and “prophecies” into the interstices of canonical Scripture.
And where else do we find a syncretic amalgam of pagan and barely Christian ideas? The Glasspool consecration?