‘He who has seen me, has seen the Father’: The Gospel of Philip’s Mystagogical Reception of the Gospel of John [2019] (original) (raw)
Related papers
Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way. Philip Jenkins
The Journal of Religion, 2003
Hidden gospels. How the search for Jesus lost its way. By Philip Jenkins. Pp. viij. New York-Oxford : Oxford University Press, . $. JEH () ; DOI : .\S Attempts to write ' objective ' lives of Christ or to embark on yet another quest for the historical Jesus have had a long tradition especially among radical theologians. In recent years outrageous views have seemed to be in the ascendancy ; the more heretical the conclusion the more likely it is to be publicised. From Allegro and his sacred mushroom of through Elaine Pagels on the Gnostic Gospels to the publicity-seeking work of John Dominic Crossan, Robert Eisenmann and Barbara Thiering the general reader is likely to know their unorthodox rewritings of early Christianity. It is this phenomenon that Jenkins, an historian at Pennsylvania State University, investigates in this timely and well-researched book. One recurring theme is that most of their ' heresies ' are not new ; he cites precedents for them from writings of a century or more ago. But the popularity of similar views nowadays is attributed to the growth of academic religious studies departments, the rise in feminist studies (sic) and the willingness of publishers and the media to pander to sensationalist opinions. Radical historians of religion are fascinated by Christian origins but the origins they wish to see are made to conform to the requirements of modern (secular) society's agenda, where an anti-authoritarian stance and liberal values are buttressed by a revisionist history of Jesus, which is made compatible with such opinions by an uncritical use of certain ancient noncanonical texts. Contemporary practitioners have a large number of esoteric or hitherto lost texts to hand. Hidden documents whose origins are obscure and whose discovery involves subterfuge grab the headlines. The Nag Hammadi codices, especially the Gospel of Thomas and the Dead Sea Scrolls, figure prominently in these rewritings. Valuable though all these texts are, their insights are to do with sectarian movements and should not be used indiscriminately as foundational documents for earliest Christianity. Similarly many of the New Testament Apocrypha give valuable insights into popular piety from the second century onwards but are of little historical value for knowledge of the New Testament era, whose dramatis personae they write about. By misusing such writings a genuinely academic quest for the historical Jesus has been hijacked-hence this book's subtitle. In successive chapters Jenkins shows how many studies of ' Q ', Thomas, the elusive Secret Gospel of Mark and other texts are biased, uncritical or just three prefaces Schweitzer wrote to his first, second and sixth editions. Although not an entirely new translation, but rather a major overhaul of the earlier one, this edition is a timely resource for English-language theology. Making Schweitzer's final text available to English readers for the first time is invaluable not only for those still engaged in a quest for the historical Jesus but also for all theologians engaged in Christology. This book lies behind all the Christological projects of the twentieth century and its impact is not exhausted yet. S J' C, J C O The Gospel and Ignatius of Antioch. By Charles Thomas Brown. (Studies in Biblical Literature, .) Pp. xiiij. New York : Peter Lang, . £. JEH () ; DOI : .\Sx Based on a dissertation for Loyola University, this is a study of Ignatius' use and application of the term ευ0 αγγε! λιον (Gospel). The first part of the book analyses the contexts and associated vocabulary and concepts in Ignatius, and in other early Christian literature. Here Brown builds on earlier scholarship in denying that Ignatius uses the term of, or is dependent on (a) written Gospel(s) ; while acknowledging Ignatius' use of pre-formed traditions, he emphasises the oral, preached nature of ' Gospel ' in the letters, and its particular focus on the passion and resurrection of Jesus (as in Paul). The second part develops his argument that in Ignatius, as in other early Christian literature, the term regularly defines the limits of acceptable belief and practice : in contemporary jargon, it is to do with identity and boundaries, binding insiders together and excluding outsiders. In effect, this results in an exegetically based study of Ignatius' thought, particularly his Christology, with rather less of an ecclesiological focus than in many analyses. There is little here that is startling, and the approach is expository and sympathetic, inclined to affirm Ignatius' view of the unity of the Church and of heresy. As such it does serve as an accessible introduction to Ignatius ' thought, if not to recent more critical analyses of his rhetoric. It is well-produced, if somewhat expensive for its length. K' C, J L L Pneuma. Funktionen des theologischen Begriffs in fruW hchristlicher Literatur.
Journal of Theological Studies, 2021
This volume develops the argument that the manuscript-asartifact was of paramount importance for earliest Christians and for the development of their public identity. After a brief introduction that lays out the foundational assumptions of the argument, the book proceeds in three sections. The first is entitled 'The Gospel as Manuscript', and consists of two chapters. Chapter One begins by challenging the notion that ancient reading was exclusively aloud. Using the work of William Johnson as a launching point, Keith aims to demonstrate that 'Early Christianity … had an extreme text-centeredness of its own' (p. 26). Against this backdrop he introduces two of Jan Assmann's concepts that will reappear throughout the book: zerdehnte Situation ('extended situation') and entourage matériel ('accompanying material'). Applied to Keith's argument, the former concept raises the question, what does a manuscript contribute to the transmission process that orality does not? The latter concept recognizes that material objects-even those that might be considered mundane-are capable of reflecting group identity. Chapter Two, entitled 'Sociologies of the Book', is one of the longest and most substantive chapters in the book. Here Keith's argument begins to develop in earnest. Responding to the recent work of Eva Mroczek (2016) and Matthew Larsen (2017, 2018)-and particularly their shared emphasis on notions of Jewish and Christian literature 'before the book'-Keith stakes out his own ground, emphasizing both the role of bound book as material artifact and its influence in shaping identity. Having established his own understanding of the book-as-artifact, Keith proceeds to his second section, 'The Gospel as Gospels', which consists of three chapters. Chapter Three is devoted to examining the textualization of Mark's Gospel, with specific focus on the question of why Mark created a shift in the transmission of the gospel material from oral to written, especially since this shift does not appear to have been inevitable. Backing off from the assertion in a previous essay in which he claimed that Mark moved to textuality with the intent of creating a zerdehnte Situation, Keith is more circumspect here, acknowledging that we cannot know what Mark intended, even if his move toward textuality inevitably resulted in numerous zerdehnten Situationen. Chapters Four and Five deal
The Second Century Reception of John: A Survey of Methodologies | CBR 10.3 (2012)
Currents in Biblical Research 10.3 (2012) 396-409.
The last sixty years have witnessed quite different results on the topic of the reception of the Fourth Gospel in the second century. It is however at hand to notice that these significantly differing results are indebted to the dissimilar methodological approaches assumed by each scholar. The main aim of this paper is to reassess methodologically the bibliography on the reception of John in the second century. Given that we are far from having a consensus on the question of how to seek for John in the earliest Christian texts, some concluding considerations are offered on future possible development of the topic.
Reception of the Fourth Gospel in the Second Century
2010
the earliest communities to receive and use the Gospel of John from 100 to 200 CE. The thesis begins by journeying through the traditional and New School positions on Christian history and presenting the issues each have in the face of criticism. Following this, a more specific look at both the earliest proto-orthodox readership of the Gospel of John serves to lead into a discussion of the early gnostic commentaries on the Gospel. Finally, the last discussion is on the relationship between heretical and proto-orthodox readers in the 2 nd century under the influence of 1 John 2:19-20. The relationship between heretical and orthodox readers are evaluated in light of the material from 1 John, which provides a more believable timeline for the reception of John amongst the diverse groups using in the 2 nd century.
Journal of Theological Studies, 2024
More than at any time in perhaps the past 125 years, New Testament scholarship has been returning to serious questions about the nature of the canonical gospels and the processes behind gospel writing. Questions of early gospel reception (Watson, 2013), gospel genre (Bond, 2020), the role of the gospels within early Christian book culture (Larsen, 2018; Keith, 2020; Gathercole 2022), the performative and narratological milieus in which the canonical gospels emerged (e.g. Rüggemeier, 2017; Iverson, 2021), and the relationship between our gospels and early Christian memory (Kirk, 2023) have all been subjects of serious discussion over the past decade. 1 And while these are only some of the important conversations taking place at this critical moment in gospels research, the aforementioned publications each make constructive arguments with serious implications for our understanding of both the gospels as texts and the ways in which those texts emerged. Robyn Walsh's monograph enters into this fraught space with a bold and compellingly argued thesis that demands to be taken seriously: the gospels emerged, not from literate spokespersons who derived from specific 'gospel communities' , but rather from elite cultural producers (by which she does not mean, those who were part of the ruling elite).
the cambridge companion to THE GOSPELS
The four gospels are a central part of the Christian canon of scripture. This volume treats the gospels not just as historical sources, but also as crucial testimony to the life of God made known in Jesus Christ. This approach helps to overcome the sometimes damaging split between critical gospel study and questions of theology, ethics and the life of faith. The essays are by acknowledged experts in a range of theological disciplines. The first section considers what are appropriate ways of reading the gospels given the kinds of texts they are. The second, central section covers the contents of the gospels. The third section looks at the impact of the gospels in church and society across history and up to the present day. stephen c. barton is Reader in New Testament in the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Durham, England, and a nonstipendiary minister at St John's Church, Neville's Cross. His books include Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library isbn-13 978-0-521-80766-1 hardback isbn-10 0-521-80766-2 hardback isbn-13 978-0-521-00261-5 paperback isbn-10 0-521-00261-3 paperback
Early Christian Gospels: Their Production and Transmission
Papyrological Florentina 47, 2016
Early Christian Gospels: their Production and Transmission greatly increases our understanding of the historical circumstances in which early (i.e., c. 150 to the early fourth century) canonical and non-canonical gospels were produced and transmitted. Prior analysis of non-canonical gospels in relation to the canonical gospels has usually been conducted solely from a theological perspective. In addition, early gospels are often treated simply as texts printed in a critical edition. In the process, their essential nature, the fact that they are ancient manuscripts with individual characteristics, has been overlooked. By comparing canonical and non-canonical gospels holistically—in terms of their codicology (or, in a few cases, ‘voluminology’), production characteristics, scribal tendencies, and textual transmission—Early Christian Gospels represents a major advance in methodology. Its conclusions are compelling, not only by virtue of the exhaustive comparison, but also because several lines of analysis coalesce to confirm the overall findings of the book. (See http://www.gonnelli.it/uk/papyrologica-florentina/vol-47-early-christian-gospels-their-production-.asp)
"During the Middle Byzantine period (8th-11th century) the Gospel lectionary emerged as one of the most venerated liturgical codices of the Byzantine Church. However, the lectionary has been a neglected primary source in New Testament textual criticism. In this thesis I assess the textual value of the lectionary tradition as a witness to the Greek New Testament and in the process develop a multi-disciplinary methodology for lectionary research. My textual analysis is based on the examination of 126 Greek Gospel lectionaries at 44 selected test passages from the Gospel of John, the data of which appears in the appendix. I places the lectionaries in their Byzantine context, analyse the lectionary evidence as documents, outline the textual and paratextual variation that the lectionary tradition exhibits, arrange the lectionaries into genealogical groups, and investigate the relationship between the lectionary tradition and the continuous text manuscript tradition.” Comments of PhD Examiners “Jordan’s thesis presents, after decades of an almost neglect of lectionary evidence in textual criticism of the New Testament, an all-encompassing new methodical approach to this field of study.” “...apart from textual data, we find a wealth of manuscript data (from palaeography, codicology, art history and the history of liturgy) geared at integrated reflections on the life-cycle and historic embedding (production and use) of the objects that are studied.” "
The Gospels in Early Christian Literature
M.J. Smith, "The Gospels in Early Christian Literature", in M. Harding and A.M. Nobbs (eds.), The Content and Setting of the Gospel Traditions, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010, 181-208., 2010
This chapter examines the important—but complicated—role played by gospel traditions in early Christian literature down to the beginning of the third century. Section A offers a survey of the historical processes by which gospel traditions were transmitted in the early church, and thereby delineates the forms in which “the gospel” was known to early Christian writers. Section B then explores some of the ways in which early Christian authors used the gospel materials available to them, and offers a case study in the Apostolic Fathers.