We are into the second week of a junior / senior seminar on the Non-canonical Gospels here at Duke. It's the first time I have taught a course like this at the undergraduate level and it is already proving really stimulating. We took as our first text the Protevangelium of James and we are now moving on to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. It gives me the opportunity to share one of my favourite Youtube clips, an animated version of Infancy Thomas 9:
There is another short video of interest on Youtube that relates to the Infancy Gospel. It is about four minutes long and is clearly a clip from a longer documentary. From the look of it, it is an American (Discovery Channel? History Channel?) piece surveying non-canonical Gospels. Of particular interest in this clip are the comments from John Dominic Crossan, who is as engaging as ever. He comments on Jesus as a "divine brat" in the text, "Dennis the Menace as god", but adds that Jesus learns ultimately that "The function of great power and great wisdom is to do good":
Update (Friday, 9.55): In comments, Tony Burke mentions that the clip above is from Banned from the Bible (History Channel, 2003).
4 comments:
I think that Crossan's summary of the infancy gospel as a play in 3 acts is quite nice. I have no idea if that was the intent of the author, but Crossan has a reasonable summary of it.
Cheers! webulite.com
I believe the clip is from Banned From the Bible by the History Channel (2003).
Sorry, just so you know, that last comment was from me, Tony Burke (York University).
Thanks, Tony. First saw the animated clip on your blog. My students have been reading your article in the Foster (ed.) volume this week -- an excellent piece. Hope to blog some more about the course, and to cross-refer to some of your materials.
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