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

Unreading Narrative

Lately I have been asked by more than a few people to explain, in plain terms, what precisely my dissertation is about. The exercise is a good one, yet difficult.

The object of my study is the Protevangelium of James, an “infancy gospel” that was likely composed in the second half of the second century (150-200). It tells the story of Mary’s birth, her betrothal to Joseph and the birth of Christ, among other things. The text was banned in the West, presumably because certain aspects of it were deemed heretical (or something along those lines).

My approach to the text is one that examines its relationship to the New Testament. Many in the past have noted the ways in which the Protevangelium uses material from the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke to tell its story. My interest in the text is in the ways that it changes one’s reading of the New Testament. This is where I end up having to explain myself.

At the heart of my project is the notion that it is difficult to “unread” something once you have read it. In the age of Gmail, “unreading” is simple enough. You read something, and then you click “unread.” This is not exactly what I have in mind, however. I’m certain that at some point in your life you have had someone perform the following “experiment” on you: you are told that, for the next minute, you may think of anything that you like, as long as you don’t think about an elephant. When faced with this exercise, most will have difficulty thinking of anything but an elephant. Even when you think of “not an elephant,” you are thinking of an elephant. Perhaps this is a strange example, but it is fitting nonetheless.

I first read the Protevangelium in the Spring of 2010. Like many, I was fascinated by the story. Despite its simplicity, or perhaps because of its simplicity, something about it stuck with me. Shortly after I had read the text, Ellen and I decided to start reading the Bible together a couple of times a week (cute, right?). We started with Luke, and we took turns reading the gospel aloud, one paragraph at a time. To her amusement dismay, I started saying things like, “Well you know, in this text I just read, this actually means that.” Or, “Hey, in this text I just read, there is a character named X and they do Y.” I remember thinking to myself how silly this was, as Luke was much older than the Protevangelium. What use could this newer text be to interpreting the older? The answer, of course, is complicated, and my dissertation is an attempt to answer it.

This example serves to illustrate the idea that it is difficult to unread that which you have read. Narratives have a way of sticking with us and altering the way that we perceive reality (and texts, for that matter). Even those narratives that we try to “unread” crop up from time to time when they are triggered by various elements we encounter. So, one who reads the canonical gospels after having read and internalized the Protevangelium will see certain things that the evangelists themselves  may not intended or foreseen. The goal of my dissertation is to articulate what such reading might look like.

Cheers.

Andrew of Crete and the Immaculate Conception

The focus of my research, the Protevangelium of James, is often cited as the earliest expression of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. As a consequence of my research, I have been reading many Patristic homilies on Mary, some of which speak of her birth and childhood.

Today, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, I decided it may be fitting to share one. This is from an eighth-century homily, the Canon on the Nativity, by St. Andrew of Crete (translated by Luigi Gambero in Mary and the Fathers of the Church, 394):

Let all creation dance; let David dance as well, for from his line and his seed arose the branch that will bear the Flower, the Lord and Redeemer of all…

Anna was sterile and barren, but not childless in God’s eyes. For from all eternity, she was predestined to be the mother of the chaste Virgin, from whom the Creator was to come forth in the form of a servant.

Unsullied Lamb, who alone, from your womb, gave Christ the wool of our nature, we all celebrate your birth from Anna with songs.

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.

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.