Christmas in May!

What follows is I’m sure one of the dorkiest things I’ll ever write. If you don’t mind, keep reading.

As I drove to the library today, I drove with a purpose. You see, last night I received word that one of my Interlibrary Loan (ILL) items had arrived. I request quite a bit through ILL, not because Marquette’s library is somehow deficient, but because the nature of my work is such that not many people are interested in it. Anyway, because I request a lot through ILL, I generally don’t even check to see what is waiting for me at the front desk. Last night, however, I caught a glimpse of which request had been fulfilled:

“The Greek Manuscript Tradition of the Protevangelium Jacobi,” a dissertation completed at Duke University in 1956 by Boyd Lee Daniels.

Here it is, in all its glory:

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I have been trying to get my hands on this thing for close to two years, and for whatever reason, my requests were continually denied. I imagine I would have had an easier time talking my way into the Pope’s personal library at the Vatican (you know, the place he keeps all the “secret books”). Needless to say, I didn’t sleep too well last night knowing that this baby was waiting for me.

Here’s where things really get dorky.

This 1,000-page dissertation is essentially a catalogue of nearly all the manuscripts known to contain a copy of the Protevangelium. I say “nearly all,” because it is not exhaustive. The remaining manuscripts were catalogued thirty years later by another Duke scholar, George Zervos (whose dissertation is also quite hefty). To my knowledge, there is only one hard copy of this thing in the world, and it is at Duke.

Why, you ask, is it necessary for me to have such a book in my possession? Well, the answer is simple. To date, no critical edition of the Protevangelium Jacobi has been produced. There are rumblings that one (or two) are in the works, but then again there have been rumblings for ten years. In the meantime, those of us interested in studying it must resort to doing some of the text-critical work ourselves.

The downside of all this, of course, is that the copy I received is on microfilm. I am lucky on one count and unlucky on another. I am lucky in that Marquette has a scanner that can transform microfilm to .pdf — slowly, page by page. I am unlucky in that I will have some free time next week.

Anyway, it would be remiss of me to not thank the ILL department at the Marquette Library. You have made one big dork extremely happy!

Parental Criticism

Since the text on which I’m dissertating (Protogospel of James) involves children of all sorts (Mary, Jesus, John the Baptist), as well as their parents (Joachim, Anna, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zechariah), I find it necessary to devise a new sort of exegetical method that I have decided to term “Parental Criticism.” It is brazenly non-historical, and is rather based on my own experience as father of a four month old. Here is an example:

Chapter six of the Protogospel of James (henceforth PJ) narrates the events following the birth of Mary. Mary’s mother Anna places her on the ground when she is six months old to see if she is able to stand (PJ 6:2). Mary surprises her mother when she walks seven steps. Anna snatches her up and vows that her feet will never again touch the ground until they bring her to live in the temple (this will happen in the following chapter). Anna creates a sanctuary in her bedroom for Mary, where she allows her to eat no unclean food and to only be entertained by virgins (PJ 6:4-5).

This story of course conveys the fact that Anna was a practitioner of what is commonly called “attachment parenting (AP),” the slogan of which is, loosely translated, “keep ‘em close.” Rather than teach her daughter to avoid the things of the world that defile, Anna decides to shelter her from them. Mary spends the first three years of her life in her mother’s bedroom. The root of AP seems to have been the inkling that one’s child is in fact the most significant child to have ever been born. The ironic thing is, of course, that in Mary’s case, this was true (it remains true until the birth of Jesus).

This account is of course striking given what follows her third birthday, namely, her parents allow someone else to raise her. Now, the tension is resolved slightly because those chosen to raise the three-year-old Mary are none other than the priests in the Jerusalem Temple, which becomes in PJ a sort of permanent day care for the Blessed Virgin. In contrast to the makeshift sanctuary in her mother’s bedroom, Mary now lives in the holy of holies, the “real” sanctuary. She is no longer fed undefiled food by her mother, but is rather fed from the hand of an angel.

One more aspect of the story has yet to be mentioned: Joachim’s role as the father of Mary. When Mary turns two, Joachim goes to Anna and says that it is time to bring Mary to the temple in fulfillment of their vow to God (PJ 7:1). Anna “suggests” that they should wait until she is three. Joachim complies without resistance to Anna’s amendment. Joachim, as the ideal father in this instance, does what he is told. His initial suggestion is well-reasoned and good, but because it is different from that of his wife, he realizes that it is wrong.

Amen

Super Spuds

I’ve always been slightly amused by funny looking words, especially funny looking foreign words.

This past week I was rifling through a tome that I’m fairly certain most have not heard of…Walter Bauer’s Das Leben Jesu im Zeitalter der neutestamentlichen Apokryphen…titillating, right?

Anyway, the fifth chapter of the second part of the book (confusing, I know) is entitled “Jesus als Wundertäter.” I will leave it up to you to Google Translate that, but in the meantime I leave you with a few images that are more or less what popped into my head when I first read that Jesus was a “Wundertäter.”

First, a group of “Wundertäters”:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second, one of my favorite “Wundertäters”:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course, the ultimate “Wundertäter”

The Illusive Reader

Six months ago, if you would have asked me about the topic of my dissertation, I would have told you that it was a study of the Protevangelium of James. My answer today would be largely the same. If you would have asked me (six months ago) to describe for you the identity of the reader in my study of Prot. Jas., however, I would have looked at you like you were insane: I am the reader, right? Wrong.

To be sure, the question of the reader has always been in the back of my mind: interpretation of ancient texts demands an ancient perspective, after all. If one approaches Prot. Jas. (or the Bible) in terms of one’s modern sensibilities, the result is likely anachronism, at least from a historical-critical point of view. This is of course not to say that modern readers cannot rightly interpret ancient texts. Rather, it is to say that modern readers must make judgments about what an ancient text can and cannot say on its own terms. Recently, however, the issue has become fuzzier (at least in the context of my project).

Without going into too much detail, my project involves the ways in which Prot. Jas. affects the imaginations and hermeneutical sensibilities of its readers. This involves discernment of various echoes in the text, as well as the new meaning engendered by those echoes. In short, my project focuses on what is going on between Prot. Jas. and, say, the Gospel of Luke.

The specific identity of the reader in the context of this project has proven to be quite important, and increasingly more complicated. Namely, to claim that there is an echo in this or that text implies the presence of a reader who is able to hear said echo without recourse to a lexicon or electronic database of ancient texts…clearly, I am not that reader.

I have several options with respect to how I’m going to frame what I mean by reader:

1. Implied Reader (Wolfgang Iser)
2. Informed Reader (Stanley Fish)
3. Intended Reader (Erwin Wolff)
4. Model Reader (Umberto Eco)
5. Super Reader (Michael Riffaterre)
6. Authorial Audience (Wayne Booth)

My task is to figure out what the differences are between these different readers, many of whom do not exist and never have existed in any objective sense, as well as why those differences actually matter to my project. As this project continues to unfold, I’m hoping to dedicate some posts in the near future to each of these readers. We shall see.

Contemporary Jesus Novels as Christian Apocrypha?

In his contribution to The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late Antiquity, Stephen Shoemaker takes issue with Wilhelm Schneemelcher’s definition of what constitutes the corpus of Christian Apocrypha (CA). Schneemelcher maintains that the category of CA incorporates literature that was penned with the intention of being included in the canon, and therefore any text written after the end of the fourth century (Schneemelcher’s date for the closure of the canon) is not considered CA.

Shoemaker finds Schneemelcher’s definition to be far too narrow, and I think rightly so. As an alternative, Shoemaker suggests Éric Junod’s definition of CA, which I quote here:

Anonymous or pseudepigraphical texts of Christian origin which maintain a connection with the books of the New Testament as well as the Old Testament because they are devoted to events described or mentioned in these books, or because they are devoted to events that take place in the expansion of events described or mentioned in these books, because they focus on persons appearing in these books, or because their literary genre is related to those of the biblical writings.

I find Junod’s definition of CA more appealing than Schneemelcher’s. That said, I do wonder if, in an attempt to counteract a definition that is clearly too narrow, Junod has consequently created one that is too broad.

With Junod’s definition, could we not include some contemporary Jesus novels under the rubric of CA? One would need to fudge slightly on the whole “anonymous or pseudepigraphical” bit, but not too far. Gerd Theissen’s Shadow of the Galilean could be considered pseudepigraphical in that it is written by Theissen but from the perspective of Andreas. Likewise, Christopher Moore’s Lamb, or perhaps even Bruce Longenecker’s Lost Letters of Pergamum could be classified as CA if we’re willing to open the floodgate as wide as Junod and Shoemaker propose.

This is not necessarily a bad thing…more of an observation. I’d love to hear your opinion if you have one.

Bibliography for the Protevangelium of James

For those interested in the study of New Testament Apocrypha, I’m working on compiling a more or less exhaustive bibliography for the Protevangelium of James. You can find what I’ve got so far at the top of this page, or by clicking here.