VIDEO: The Gospel of Jesus' Wife intro

I saw that the newest issue of NTS (61.3) is devoted entirely to the interesting document called the Gospel of Jesus' Wife. I haven't had a chance to read any of the articles, but it looks like a good range of topics to get at the nature of this text. I also heard that some have done a little bit of mudslinging against those that say yea or nay on this text being an ancient document, but I think it's best to just give this text a fair hearing and see what the various scholars have to say about it in this top peer-reviewed journal.

For an introduction, see this intro video from Simon Gathercole of Cambridge:

HT: Mark Goodacre

Who Do People Say I Am?

This is the title of a forthcoming book from one of my teachers here at Emory, Vernon K. Robbins. It's his look into the Christology (or Christologies if you'd like) of early Christians at the time when things were being written about Jesus' origins and life outside of what we find in the NT canon. Over at EerdWord blog, you can check out his brief thoughts about the work (see part 1 and 2).

Google Hangout + NT studies

In one of my classes, we've had some discussions recently on the Gospel of Thomas and to my surprise, I saw that the Marginalia was hosting a live session with both Mark Goodacre and Simon Gathercole discussing the Gospel of Thomas and their very recently published books about it (respectively, here and here). Admittedly, I was taught at Duke by Mark, so there is much to his arguments I find convincing or at the very least, compelling and good arguments that need to be taken seriously. I do not know much about Simon Gathercole, though I have read his published dissertation on Romans and I had a former classmate who went off to do his NT PhD with him at Cambridge. They are both very good scholars and so this online conversation of two people thousands of miles away is a perfect example of what the intersection of technology and academia can provide for 21st century scholarship.

Check it out:

Get to know Thomas and the Synoptics.

If you're interested in that fascinating book called the Gospel of Thomas, there is one book fresh off the press (not even 6 months old) that might interest you from one of my teachers at Duke University, Mark Goodacre (see his blog here), titled, Thomas and the Gospels: The Case for Thomas's Familiarity with the Synoptics. I'm very happy to see this out in print as it was a book that was in its final stages when I took a course with Mark in my last year at Duke on the Greek Non-Canonical Gospels; he even let us read a chapter of the book that pertained to what we were discussing in class and it was great fun looking at the Greek fragments of Thomas that we currently have available. Check out the very chic cover:

I recently borrowed this book from Emory library and have been slowly reading it for leisure when I have some time to spare, and so far, I think it's vintage Goodacre. He is superb at doing careful analysis with various synopses which is a tool so often ignored in studies like this that compare two (or more) texts that are possibly related to each other literarily. I hope he's glad to know that I even recently used his method of using a colored synopsis when comparing Synoptic texts. I am TA-ing a class in the Candler School of Theology for their second semester NT interpretation class and as they are focusing right now on Luke 22:15-20, I hope it was helpful to the students to see a colored synopsis of Matt 26:26-29 // Mark 14:22-25 // Luke 22:15-20 to see what's happening in Luke at least from a redaction-critical standpoint. 

Eerdmans Publishing also released a video yesterday interviewing Mark about Thomas and his book. Check it out!



Now that you got that wonderful 8-minute introduction, what are you waiting for? Go purchase this book from Eerdmans (here) or even Amazon if that's your thing (here).

Thomas

It appears that the next few months has a number of books out on the Gospel of Thomas:

If Amazon's date is correct (Mar. 31, 2012), this book in the SNTS monograph series by Prof. Simon Gathercole is the first one to hit the shelves. It'll probably be a very good book that helps set the tone for how NT scholars understand the direction of influence between the Gospel of Thomas and the canonical Gospels. Unfortunately, unless you have a lot of cash or access to a library that carries this book, the price ($95) is quite prohibitive.

I'm not familiar with Prof. Christopher Skinner's work, but a quick scan in my library database shows that he's already done work in GThom, which is probably why he is a good person to write a book that provides an overview of recent discussions on this fascinating book. It's due out in May and the best part about this book so far is that it is quite affordable ($6.40 on Amazon!). I'll probably try to get my hands on this book esp. given its light footprint on my wallet.

Last, but definitely not least, is this book from one of my teachers at Duke, Prof. Mark Goodacre. As the title suggests, he will probably go at this by way of looking at the Synoptic Gospels and GThom closely. I always enjoy reading his work as they are very accessible but at the same time interesting and provocative, so I expect this should be a good read for those interested in this text. It's out in June and a tad over $25 on Amazon.








All three of these books sound interesting right now as I'm taking a class with Dr. Goodacre on the Non-Canonical Gospels. Keep a lookout for these books and borrow/purchase them when they become available.

Non-canonical Gospels

There's always talks about what Gospel actually has "real" data in terms of the historical Jesus, more accurate historically, etc. etc. And one document outside of the canon is the Gospel of Peter, which I just read today from the NT Apocrypha (it's not that long, so if you're interested go here to get the Greek text). In this document, there is an interesting little section:

9.34. Early in the morning, when the sabbath dawned, there came a crowd from Jerusalem and the country round about to see the sepulchre that had been sealed. 35 Now in the night in which the Lord's day dawned, when the soldiers, two by two in every watch, were keeping guard, there rang out a loud voice in heaven, 36 and they saw the heavens opened and two men come down from there in a great brightness and draw nigh to the sepulchre. 37 That stone which had been laid against the entrance to the sepulchre started of itself to roll and gave way to the side, and the sepulchre was opened, and both the young men entered in.

10.38 When now those soldiers saw this, they awakened the centurion and the elders - for they also were there to assist at the watch. 39 And whilst they were relating what they had seen, they saw again three men come out from the sepulchre, and two of them sustaining the other, and a cross following them, 40 and the heads of the two reaching ot heaven, but that of him who was led of them by the hand overpassing the heavens. 41 And they heard a voice out of the heavens crying, 'Hast thou preached to them that sleep?', 42 and from the cross there was heard the answer, 'Yea'.

I've heard this passage being referred to from time to time to show the fantastic nature of these "later" Gospels, in particular with respect to a talking cross. I was just reminded by Brian LePort that one scholar, Mark Goodacre recently blogged about this. His suggestion is "that we conjecturally emend the text from σταυρον to σταυρωθεντα, from "cross" to "crucified", so that it is no longer a wooden cross that comes bouncing out of the tomb but rather Jesus, the "crucified one" himself." I haven't personally looked at the Greek text yet, but this is an interesting post that has generated some discussion, so go and read the Gospel of Peter if you're interested and join in the discussion at the NT Blog.