The Gnostics, 1987, more clips

I blogged recently about a 1987 Channel 4 documentary called The Gnostics (video and comments; further comments). A little more time spent on Youtube has revealed a couple more clips of this documentary. The first mainly features a white-haired, white-garmented Jesus reciting bits of the Gospel of Thomas to himself in the open air. But there is also a little more of Gilles Quispel and also Hans Jonas:



This clip has lots of Elaine Pagels and Gilles Quispel being interviewed, and a little of Hans Jonas too. They are talking about Gnostics and Gnosis and specifically "the divine within", and then Thomas as Jesus's twin in the Gospel of Thomas. There is also some of the white-haired, white-garmented Jesus again:

The Growing Jar at Nag Hammadi

How large was the jar in which twelve codices (including tractates like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, the Apocryphon of John and more) were found at Nag Hammadi in late 1945? The question might sound like a simple one, but the jar itself is no longer in existence. Although the bowl that was used as a lid survived, nothing of the pottery itself survived the discovery. According to James Robinson's interviews with those who discovered the documents, Muhammad Ali smashed into the jar with his mattock, taking the volumes and leaving the broken shards of pottery behind. They were never retrieved. Robinson therefore estimates the size of the jar on the basis of his interviews in the 1970s as follows:

The pottery was red slip ware, distinguishing it from the creamy color of the modern Qina ware common in the region, and had four small handles near the opening. The jar was also large, with dimensions roughly illustrated by Muhammad 'All as 60 cm or more in height and an opening of some 15 to 20 cm widening to some 30 cm in the flank. The jar had been closed by fitting a bowl into its mouth. Khallfah had taken this bowl with him to the home in al-Qasr where he was a servant for the Copt, Salib 'Abd al-Maslh, who preserved the bowl intact. It is Coptic red slip ware of the 4th or 5th century with a rim decorated with four fields of stripes. The diameter at the outer edge is 23.3-24.0 cm, with a diameter inside the bowl of 18.2-18.7 cm, adequate to close a mouth large enough to admit the codices, whose broadest leaves, in Codex VII, measure up to 17.5 cm. There are a few black tarlike stains about 2.0 cm from the outer edge on the under side of the rim, perhaps vestiges of a bitumen used to seal the bowl into the jar. Thus, the jar probably could not be opened readily to investigate its contents, which would explain why it was broken by its discoverers." (Biblical Archaeologist (1979), 213-4).

So it was 60 centimetres tall, which is just under two feet.

However, in Elaine Pagels's The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1979), Pagels says that the jar was "almost a meter high" (xiii), which is already a lot bigger than Robinson's estimate of "60 cm or more". One meter is 3.28ft. So the jar has grown from just under two feet to well over three feet.

Subsequently, the jar almost doubled in size. In repeated interviews and at least one publication, Elaine Pagels has stated that it was a "six-foot jar". The first example of this that I am aware of is in the 1987 video I linked to recently, a clip of Elaine Pagels teaching. It is "six feet" again in the PBS From Jesus to Christ documentary I linked to recently, from 1998. It features also in written interviews and then in print, in Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (New York: Random House, 2003), 97.

A six foot jar would be huge, and is far larger than the 1.97 foot jar of the earliest accounts. I don't know where the six foot measurement came from but my guess would be that Pagels simply forgot the measurements and then, having said "six-foot jar" once, made it part of the repeated story. That can happen in story-telling. We introduce an error inadvertently, but then re-tell it and embed it in our story until we forget the origin.

I am grateful to Mike Grondin over on the Gospel of Thomas e-list for first pointing out and questioning the "six foot jar" motif from the 1987 video mentioned above, which led me to explore the different measurements of this growing jar in these other publications.

The Gnostics, 1987

I blogged yesterday on an old Youtube video about the Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices. The video features James Robinson, Gilles Quispel, Elaine Pagels and Muhammad Ali, the man who discovered the codices. At that point, I was unsure about the origin of the video and guessed that it dated from the early 1980s. Some further research has yielded some more information, and I can see now why I was hitting a brick wall before. I worked out that the series was called The Gnostics from a notice in Alexandria: The Journal of Western Cosmological Traditions 1995, 459, in its "Books in Brief" section, where it describes the series from which the clip had to have been taken. But it erroneously gives it as a BBC series, and that threw me off.

A trip to the British Film Institute archive reveals that this was a Channel 4 series which aired in four parts in 1987, and that it was made by Border. So my guess about the dating was in the ball park but, as so often with dating guesses, it was a little too early.

A comment on my previous post from Brent helped to confirm the identification. See too the discussion on the Gospel of Thomas e-list.

More about this programme later.

Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices -- Old Video

I've been digging around for materials on the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices and found this remarkable piece. It is pretty terrible quality, pulled from a VHS of an old documentary, and with Dutch subtitles. But the interest is in showing footage of Muhammad Ali al Samman, who discovered the Nag Hammadi codices in 1945, alongside the late Gilles Quispel. There is a long Pasolini-style camera gaze at Muhammad Ali for several seconds after Quispel says that his discovery will "change the mind of millions".

This short video clip features also a young Elaine Pagels in the classroom, a younger James Robinson in his office, the scene of the discovery, and the type of oven used by Ali's mother to burn several of the texts:



So what is this video? The uploader tags it as "The Discovery of the Nag hammadi Library", but a little digging has suggested to me that this is a clip of a BBC documentary called The Gnostics. I can't find out the date of the documentary but I am guessing that it must be early 1980s. Clearly it has to post-date Robinson's narrative of the discovery, which first appeared in 1979, and the appearance of Pagels would suggest that it also post-dates her Gnostic Gospels, also published in 1979. Ali clearly looks a bit older than his (mid 70s?) photograph in Robinson's 1979 article. My guess would be that this documentary dates from about 1983-4. I am struggling to find much more than this, though.

Pagels on Colbert

Ever on top of things, Dr Jim West mentions the appearance of Elaine Pagels on The Colbert Report last night. You can watch the segment online from the previous link. Pagels is pretty impressive given the difficulty of coping with Colbert's Biblical inerrantist persona; most of the time she just ploughs on regardless, but remains good humoured. And I must have been in the USA long enough now to be getting the sense of humour here. On the several occasions that I've watched the programme previously, I have found it pretty loud and irritating. When Bart Ehrman was on, I felt really uncomfortable. But on this occasion, I laughed out loud several times. The funniest line:

Pagels: Bishop Irenaeus mentioned it [the Gospel of Judas] nearly 2,000 years ago
Colbert (shaking his head and waving his finger): Bishop Irenaeus mentioned a lot of things. That guy [hand making mouth movements] was a chatty ?Cathy? [Didn't know the last word].

On the question of content, there's been an interesting thread on Xtalk, including raising the question about the lumping together of the Gospel of Judas with other Gospels when no one dates it in the first century. In this interview, Pagels dates it to "2,000 years ago".

Gospel of Judas documentary

The documentary on The Gospel of Judas is airing at the moment on National Geographic. So far: enormously enjoyable. Standard ancient history documentary fare, with lots of close-ups of the documents, a couple of soundbites from scholars involved, nice bits of reconstruction drama, and over-dramatic narration. The first three minutes were identical with the trailer that you can view on the web site. Only ten minutes in and the first commercial break: this is going to be a long evening.

Second ad break 20 minutes in. Those of you who are videoing this to watch later: good on you. So far, a nicely done documentary. I am pleased to see actual coverage of the way that the document was reconstructed, with interviews with those concerned. It is interspersed with some discussion about Judas in the Canonical Gospels, including an interview with Bart Ehrman. The dramatic reconstructions are clearly influenced by The Passion of the Christ: they have found a James Caviezel lookalike for Jesus, and the colouring is very similar, though of course much cheaper.

Third ad break 33 minutes in. An enjoyable section in which Marvin Meyer goes to Egypt and finds a cave like the one in with the Gospel of Judas might have been discovered. There was some explanation of the related Nag Hammadi finds, and shots of both the Apocryphon of John and the Gospel of Thomas. Minor gripe: Irenaeus was shown writing at a desk, as always in these documentaries. I have one minor source of pride here, in that the BBC / Discovery Channel documentary on the Apostle Paul, on which I was consultant, did not have anachronistic desks and scribes.

Fourth ad break 47 minutes in. This section was primarily an introduction to the variety of early Christian gospels, and to Gnostics and Gnosticism in general, with comments from Elaine Pagels, Bart Ehrman, Craig Evans and others. The highlight here was the reconstruction of an early ?Gnostic preacher reading out some of the Gospel of Thomas in Greek, in a kind of modern Greek tongue, with English subtitles. There were the fairly standard comments too on "Why did the Church reject these other dozens of Gospels?" and so on. Just before each ad break, the Gospel manuscript's title in Coptic morphs nicely into "The Gospel of Judas".

Fifth ad break, 57 minutes in. This section focused on Stephen Emmel from Müster. O, a short break. Back to the programme.

Sixth ad break, 21.06: more on how the four gospels became dominant, with Elaine Pagels suggesting that their narrative format made them more popular and Bart Ehrman commenting on Irenaeus's four corners of the world and the four Gospels. On the previous section, what I was going to say was that Emmel was dramatized in a meeting sixteen years ago along with the Egyptian dealer who had the manuscript and who kept it in a bank vault in New York. Emmel the scholar commented as the drama was played out. He talked about how the price quoted by the dealer was $3 million, and how after examining the manuscript, he got into the toilet to make notes about what it contained, and this too was dramatized.

Seventh ad break, 21.07: primarily focusing on the carbon-dating of the text, confirming its date to c. 280 CE, give or take. I would say here that there needs to be more distinction made between the one extant manuscript we have and the original text; I'm not sure that viewers unfamiliar with the subject matter would have been able to distinguish clearly between authentic manuscript and authentic text.

Eighth ad break, 21.34: extensive discussion of Judas in the Gospels, explaining how he has been used as a symbol of anti-Semitism, and especially in Nazi Germany, the Oberamagau Passion plays, and the holocaust. I am hoping that we actually get to the text of the Gospel of Judas soon.

Ninth ad break, 21.50: the section that deals at some length with what the Gospel actually says, at least with respect to the Jesus-Judas exchange. A lot of this was done in the obvious legacy of The Passion of the Christ, with reconstructed Aramaic and English subtitles. There were more comments from Bart Erhman, Elaine Pagels and Craig Evans. For some reasons, Craig Evans seems to be sitting in a graveyard.

Finish, 10.00: As the programme loops around and starts again, my concluding reflections. This last section asked the question about the historical Jesus and the historical Judas. Craig Evans says: it tells you nothing at all about the historical Jesus or the historical Judas. Elaine Pagels respons with "How does he know?" Of course Pagels's comments may have been taken out of context, but it is surprising that she does not also make it quite clear that the Gospel has nothing to tell us about the historical Jesus.

A good documentary, a little drawn out at points, as is the norm, and with the standard American style unseen narrator (I rather like the British style seen narrator, walking you through and presenting a point of view). Nice reconstructions, some good interviews with Evans, Pagels, Meyer and Ehrman, and not over-sensationalized. For those of us interested in early Christianity and its development, we might have appreciated less of the introductory material about the Gospels and the formation of the canon, but that's inevitable and it's right to include it. What I would have liked to have seen more of would have been proper distinctions made between document and text, and much more of the oddities of the text, which in the end the viewer does not know as well as s/he might have done after two hours. But a good achievement overall, and a compelling enough narrative, and pointers throughout to the website so that the viewer can explore further should s/he be so inclined.

Gospel of Judas megapost

TV Documentary airs:

USA: National Geographic Channel, 8 pm Eastern Time.
UK: National Geographic Channel, 9 pm.

Thanks, of course, to the bloggers who have announced the many and various elements in the story of the publishing of the Gospel of Judas over the last couple of days. As ever, Jim West has tended to be the first with the latest news; Stephen Carlson has on Hypotyposeis the all important announcement of publication, Jim Davila has lots of useful links on Paleojudaica, Ed Cook comments on the text in Ralph the Sacred River, Michael Pahl on The Stuff of Earth and Lesa Bellevie on The Magdalene Review. On Sansblogue , Tim Bulkeley is as impressed as I am with the BBC coverage. On Novum Testamentum blog Brandon Wason notes that "Everywhere I go I hear something about the Gospel of Judas", and he links to a pretty useful Wikipedia article featuring the headline that it contains a current event. On RogueClassicism, David Meadows offers several links and promises more on Explorator this weekend. About Ancient / Classical History also has a post. On Jesus Creed Scot McKnight has a post with a remarkable 44 comments since yesterday (and counting). But the prize for the most extensive comment so far goes to Ben Witherington who has two posts, Gospel of Judas et al Part One (with 44 comments) and The Gospel of Judas Part Two. And thanks to Jeremy Pierce in comments (below) for mentioning Mark Roberts's lengthy post.

Pride of place in ongoing internet coverage of the Gospel of Judas goes to Roger Pearse's site, and he has kept it up to date with the latest -- and keep watching for further updates:

The Coptic Ps.Gospel of Judas (Iscariot)

Tonight is the big night for The Gospel of Judas -- the TV documentary airs on National Geographic tonight in the USA, at 8 pm Eastern Time (and there is no Desperate Housewives on ABC tonight, so no need to worry about setting the video). See the page on it here:

Gospel of Judas

You can watch a three-four minute preview of it here:

Gospel of Judas Preview

You can catch Bart Ehrman's face on there, and there are a couple of others whose faces I don't know, one of whom says that the Gospel tells us nothing about the historical Jesus. There is some nice looking drama, of a James Caviezel-style Jesus, presumably filmed specially for the programme. The Gallery includes a rather modern-looking Irenaeus writing at a desk, unfortunately. Not surprisingly, the essential publicity for the TV programme focuses on the historical Jesus / historical Judas angle, but my guess is that most will be able to distinguish the hook from the substance.

But the great news is that National Geographic Channel have put together a superb website on the Gospel:

The Lost Gospel of Judas -- Photos, Time Line, Maps

Included on the site is a thirteen minute video of the press announcement:

Webcast: Press Announcement

And there are bags of other useful pieces, including some fabulous pictures and most importantly -- and remarkably -- they have made available the entire text in Coptic and an English translation:

Explore the Document

English Translation (PDF)

Coptic Text (PDF)

I will not hide for the reader my own delight that they have done this on the web, with free access to all. Warm commendations to National Geographic! Just in case this is only temporary, make sure you download your own copies now -- you don't want to regret missing the opportunity later. Also on the Explore the Document page are some excellent manuscript facsimiles with zoom in facility.

The National Geographic Magazine site also has extensive materials:

The Judas Gospel @ National Geographic Magazine

See here in particular this section:

Experts on the Gospel of Judas

This features six nice quality video clips each (i.e. 24 in total) of Marvin Meyer, Craig Evans, Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels.

So what about the press? On occasions like this, I like to turn to The Guardian first (who doesn't?):

Judas: this is what really happened
Julian Borger and Stephen Bates
Friday April 7, 2006

After being reviled for almost 2,000 years as the embodiment of treachery, Judas Iscariot's side of the story was finally published yesterday. Thanks to a newly discovered gospel in Judas's name, we now know what his excuse was: Jesus made me do it.

The Gospel of Judas, a fragile clutch of a leather-bound papyrus thought to have been inscribed in about AD300, was unveiled yesterday in Washington by the National Geographic Society, and it represents a radical makeover for one of the worst reputations in history . . . .

. . . . It is unlikely, however, that the documents are about to trigger a total rehabilitation for the Iscariot name, with shrines in his name and readings from his gospel at church services, let alone a film treatment by Mel Gibson.

The initial reaction from Christian scholars was wary. Even if the gospel is authentic, they said, it appears to be the work of a particular 2nd-century sect, the gnostics, who had different beliefs from the mainstream church and who were long ago declared heretical.

The leading biblical scholar and translator of the dead sea scrolls, Professor Geza Vermes of Oxford University, said: "The document is of interest for the ideas of the gnostics but it almost certainly adds nothing to our understanding of what happened 150 years before it was written."

Speaking of Vermes, he had an article in yesterday's Times:

Iscariot and the dark path to the Field of Blood
By Geza Vermes
Our correspondent takes issue with recent attempts to portray Judas in a sympathetic light

It's a useful article on the evidence from the canonical Gospels about Judas' role in Jesus' arrest.

Here's the Daily Telegraph's angle:

Is it really the Gospel truth?
By Damian Thompson

Prof Bart Ehrman, the scholar employed by National Geographic Society for the publication of the Gospel, believes that the document could be the product of an obscure sect called the Cainites.

He writes: "These people believed that the world had been created not by the One, True God, but by a lesser, ignorant deity - the God of the Old Testament, who was not to be trusted or followed …According to the Cainites, what Judas had done was not evil. He alone understood the mysteries of Jesus and did Jesus's will. All the other disciples, who worshipped the false Jewish God, failed to understand the truth of Jesus." . . . .

. . . . Meanwhile, vitriolic messages are shooting across the internet, as participants in the discovery process accuse each other of conspiracy and carelessness. The Gospel fragments are papyri of such fragility that they should be handled only with tweezers in temperature-controlled laboratories. Yet at one stage, according to reports, a girlfriend of one of the dodgy art dealers stuffed pages of them into her handbag.

That's an interesting tidbit, rather like the story of Muhammad Ali's mother throwing some of the pages of the Nag Hammadi codices on the fire. But the key quotation in the Telegraph article is this one:

The unearthing of the Gospel of Judas is indeed remarkable, but not, perhaps, as remarkable as National Geographic is making out. For the truth is that many heretical Christian sects wrote their own Gospels. Many of these have survived, but were consigned to library annexes by the Trinitarian variety of Christianity that, by winning the ideological battles of the first millennium, established itself as orthodox.

This is where I think one has to distinguish between the hook that National Geographic are using to get everyone's attention and the substance that is reported once the attention has been grasped. And to be fair to National Geographic, their website is exemplary in what it provides (see above).

What about the American papers? This article appeared in the New York Times:

In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD and LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Though some theologians have hypothesized the "good Judas" before, scholars who have translated and studied the text said this was the first time an ancient document lent specific support to a revised image of the man whose name in history has been synonymous with treachery.

Scholars say the release of the document will set off years of study and debate. The debate is not over whether the manuscript is genuine — on this the scholars agree. Instead, the controversy is over its relevance . . . .

. . . . "These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion and demonstrating how diverse — and fascinating — the early Christian movement really was," said Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics.

Mr. Garcia said, "The codex has been authenticated as a genuine work of ancient Christian apocryphal literature," citing extensive tests of radiocarbon dating, ink analysis and multispectral imaging and studies of the script and linguistic style. The ink, for example, was consistent with ink of that era, and there was no evidence of multiple rewriting.

"This is absolutely typical of ancient Coptic manuscripts," said Stephen Emmel, professor of Coptic studies at the University of Münster in Germany. "I am completely convinced."

Elaine Pagels, who features in the National Geographic documentary and also features in many of the news reports has an op-ed piece in the New York Times (you will need to register, but it is free):

The Gospel Truth
By ELAINE PAGELS
Published: April 8, 2006

There has been a good thread of discussion over the last day or so, since it appeared, on the Crosstalk email list. Begin with the message here:

Pagels on the Gospel of Judas

and then work through the replies at the bottom of that post, where you will find the continuing discussion. There are other threads on Xtalk on the same topic, and they will be worth exploring too.

Time Magazine has a brief article today:

Judas: Foe or Friend?
By DAVID VAN BIEMA

And this is one you really can't miss, from The Spoof:

Gospel of Judas: Selections

Vatican spokesman Archbishop Heiko Vitali wasted no time in dismissing the discovery as yet another example of how scholars are willing to believe "proven heresies."

"What do we know about Judas? That he was a liar. So even if this gospel came from his hand--as I'm sure it did not--it would be just another big lie," said Vitali.

Beliefnet also has its fair share of information available:

Will the Real Judas Please Stand Up?
The 'Gospel of Judas' makes the case that Judas wasn't so bad. Is the text reliable? The devil is in the details.
By Darrell Bock

And they have some audio available, with Karen King:

Was Judas Doing God's Will?
The 'Gospel of Judas' helps us understand early Christian arguments about whether God willed the crucifixion.
Interview with Karen King

And for beginners:

FAQs: Judas Iscariot
What the four canonical gospels say about the notorious apostle.
Compiled by Sherry Huang

Update (20 April, 10.23): thanks to lingamish for giving this post an "honorable mention" as a "Baloney Buster", with the top award going to Ben Witherington (Part One, Part Two, NPR discussion, Sad Truth about Judas).

Bart Ehrman on The Daily Show

I heard about this but forgot to mention it; Jim West notes on Xtalk and Biblical Studies that Bart Ehrman appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central last night and that you should be able to catch repeats during the day today. And those in the UK: you can get The Daily Show on More 4, but you already knew that, right?

Update (15 March, 21.06): caught the 8 pm repeat. It was good stuff, ten minutes or so, Bart Ehrman looking smart in a grey suit and a purple-ish tie, in good humour, pretty relaxed. Jon Stewart clearly loved the book and sang its praises at the end of the interview and held it up to camera. Stewart asked at one stage which the authentic version of the Bible was; was it the one in the hotel rooms? He also asked why God revealed the Bible in Greek, to which Ehrman replied (to the effect of) to keep the Greek professors in jobs. There was some talk about the Woman Taken in Adultery, and Stewart asked whether this got added in order to sex up the New Testament a bit. But Stewart also asked a really interesting and perceptive question, pointing out that he thought that what Ehrman was describing was in fact a kind of living, organic text, and that there was a dynamism there that showed it was not the static text assumed by some literalists. It got to the heart of where I think many Christians would disagree with Ehrman. For Ehrman, the discovery of the texts and textual tradition of the New Testament was something that ultimately undermined rather than enhanced his faith; for others of us, that has not been our experience. Overall, I was delighted to see a top NT Scholar talking about serious stuff in a popular show. All strength to his elbow.

So is Ehrman now more popular than Crossan? I think so. In fact, dare we say that he is now even more popular than Pagels?

Update (21.07): Joe Weaks comments on the Macintosh Biblioblog.

Update (Thursday, 00.56): Viola comments on The Americanization of Emily.

Update (Thursday, 08.40): David Ritsema notes, on Xtalk, that the video is now available on-line. Go to The Daily Shows Videos -- Most Recent and click on Bart Ehrman.

N. T. Wright podcast

It's not every day that you can get a podcast featuring a prominent N. T. scholar, but the N. T. Wright Page alerts us to this:

N. T. Wright and New Insights on Paul
What did the phrase 'Son of God' mean to a first century Jew? What did it mean to a first century Roman? Bishop N.T. Wright, the most inflential New Testament scholar in the English-speaking world, talks with Jerry about his new book, "Paul."

To recieve [sic] this Podcast, click here.

It is an interview with a certain Jerry Bowyer. I've not listened to it myself yet, not having caught up with more leisurely, non NT podcasts that remind me of England, but I'm sure this will be of interest to many.

So who will be the next NT scholar to podcast, or be interviewed on a podcast? Ehrman? Pagels? Crossan?

Ehrman on Thomas

0n Hypotyposeis, Stephen Carlson comments on Bart Ehrman on the Da Vinci Code:

I think that the Gospel of Thomas was written about 20 years after John; my opinion on this is the majority opinion; almost everybody who studies Thomas thinks of it as later than John with a few notable exceptions, including Elaine Pagels. She's the main one, but most people think Thomas was written in the early second century.

Ehrman's take on the majority opinion is somewhat different from the impression I have garnered from reading the scholarship of the most vocal (generally North American) investigators of Thomas, but, if Ehrman is right (and he has a better sense of the field than I do), it is a helpful reminder that the majority of scholars are not necessarily the loudest voices.

I think that Ehrman is right about where the majority opinion lies, and Stephen's comment that this is a useful reminder is apposite. I was interested by the same paragraph in the Ehrman interview, not least because I find myself in the minority group on this one (nothing new for me there!). The notion that John may post-date Thomas or something very like Thomas seems to me more likely than the reverse given John's too-perfect characterisation of Thomas as coming to belief in the way of the cross and ultimately the resurrection of Jesus' flesh, with the latter the very occasion for the confession of belief in Jesus as Lord and God. This is a powerful and effective counter to the kind of Jesus movement (if you can even call it that) witnessed by the Gospel of Thomas. The full case takes longer to make, and it is in my forthcoming book on Thomas, if I ever get it finished.

Beyond Belief: Gnosticism

I am on Beyond Belief today, BBC Radio 4, 4.30--5.00 pm GMT, with Timothy Freke and Michael Green, talking about Gnosticism. Elaine Pagels also has a short piece half-way through the programme. If you're not a regular Radio 4 listener, it's at 92-95 FM and 198 LW in the UK, or you can listen on-line or, after the programme, visit the archive. Here's the main link:

Beyond Belief

Beyond Belief

I went up to Manchester on Thursday to take part in a recording for a Beyond Belief on Radio 4. The topic was Gnosticism and the other two taking part in the discussion were Timothy Freke and Michael Green, with an interview with Elaine Pagels on tape to be broadcast at the half-way point. Ernie Rea was in the chair as usual. I'd met both Timothy Freke and Michael Green before, though in very different contexts. Tim I met in 2001 on the Channel 4 programme Right to Reply. I was on with Michael Wakelin to defend the BBC1 series Son of God against Tim's critique, a short film and then an in-studio discussion. This time it was good to get to know Tim a little better. On that occasion they kept us apart until we met on set. On this occasion, we shared lunch together first and, as it happened, a train journey afterwards. We disagreed profoundly, and I especially disagreed with Tim's Jesus-myth approach, on top of what I would call a kind of popular philosophical approach rather than an historical approach to Gnosticism, but Tim's company I enjoyed very much -- and we had a few laughs.

Michael Green I had met before in Oxford when I was a fresher. He was rector of St Aldate's Church at the time and used to invite the freshers to tea in the rectory on a rolling college by college basis each Sunday tea-time. Goodness only knows how they managed to keep up with this across the weeks and years, but we appreciated it. I remember their asking us if we would like to pray together after we had had our tea and cakes, and I remember getting a special prayer because I would be studying Theology, so would need additional strength! I also recall the dog sniffing around us while we were praying.

That was almost twenty years ago. This time Michael Green was in a studio in Oxford and the other three of us were in Manchester. I've done Beyond Belief several times and just once in a lonely studio in Birmingham down the line -- I don't recommend it. It is much easier to do when you can see Ernie and your fellow guests. And on this occasion we lost Michael Green for a good ten minutes or so during the recording.

The discussion was quite enjoyable. I felt like I spoke less than the other two, both of whom got pretty passionate, the one for how wonderful Gnostic texts were and how much they can lead to inner enlightenment today, the other for how far they were in thought from orthodox Christian texts in the canon. Happily, I was not asked to define Gnosticism, something that I would not find easy after having read Michael Allen Williams and Karen King. Also happily, we tended to focus most often on the Gospel of Thomas which I know better than any of the other Nag Hammadi texts, though it was a shame that we did not get into some of the really interesting funkier bits of the Apocryphon of John and the like. Ernie asked me to tell the story of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts too. But as usual on such occasions, I cannot now remember a great deal of the rest of what I said, so I hope that none of it was daft. (I do remember sharing my first impression of reading the Gospel of Thomas, that I wondered whether the author of it was on drugs).

The programme goes out on Monday 7 March at 4.30 pm on Radio 4.

Real Da Vinci Code

I have completely avoided The Da Vinci Code in this blog; I'm afraid I'm interested in neither the book nor the refutations of it. It just seems like a horrible waste of time to me. Nevertheless, I am a sucker for a good Channel 4 documentary (I've been in a couple myself) and tonight we have a two hour one called The Real Da Vinci Code presented by Tony Robinson, one of my favourite people, the guru of Time Team, Baldrick in Blackadder, member of the Labour Party's National Executive and so on. In fact, he once did an ITV documentary on Jesus, featuring Ed Sanders, Jerome Murphy O'Connor and others, called The Jesus Files -- quite entertaining as I recall.

Channel 4 have some web pages on this, set up as part of their Weird Worlds presents.

I am watching the documentary as I write. Robinson has the tone exactly right -- he is utterly sceptical but has obviously decided to enjoy himself and not to sneer or mock. So you find yourself entering into the enjoyment with him. He began by looking for the "Research Institute for Systematic Theology" at Kings College, London, which is apparently mentioned in the book as a place where you can get hold of the best and biggest electronic database on the holy grail. Robinson asked someone at Kings College for this institute and is led to Prof. Oliver Davies, who is sitting happily in a library ready to tell Robinson that while there is such an institute, it has nothing to do with the grail and no such great database.

Robinson explores and debunks some grail theories, including one British one where the grail is the size of an egg cup, and then moves on to the Cathars and the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail stories.

Good to have some clips of Monty Python's Holy Grail in the mix, and an enjoyable exposé of the hoax behind something called the "Priory of Sion", which is apparently at the heart of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and so too at the basis of the Da Vinci Code. Indeed apparently the latter actually speaks of the latter as "fact". (You see how ignorant I am about the whole thing, but it's nice to hear that the very basis of the book is not just, say, mediaeval myth or legend, but actually a modern hoax.

Biblical scholar alert: Elaine Pagels spotted, and she has talked about the Gospel of Thomas, Nag Hammadi, the Gospel of Philip and so on. There was also a woman with the surname Brock whose first names I didn't catch. She mentioned that the kissing of Mary Magdalene "on the lips" is a modern scholarly construct and that the lacuna in the Gospel of Philip text could be filled with nose, ear, anything else, and that it is not necessarily sexual.

I have finished watching the documentary now and I've found it enjoyable stuff, and enough to immunise me against spending any more time on it. Good to be educated about it. Tony Robinson used the word "rubbish" of the book towards the end.

Princeton Colloquium on Heresy

This notice was sent in by Holger Zellentin:
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Making Selves and Marking Others: Heresy and Self-Definition in Late Antiquity

Colloquium at Princeton University, Department of Religion, January 16-18, 2005

Organized by Peter Schäfer, Holger Zellentin, and Eduard Iricinschi, hosted by the Department of Religion

http://www.princeton.edu/~heresy/

(Please check for updates)

Participants: William Arnal (University of Regina), Averil Cameron (Oxford University), John Gager (Princeton University), Michelle Garceau (Princeton University), Gregg Gardner (Princeton University), Martha Himmelfarb (Princeton University), Caroline Humfress (University of London), Eduard Iricinschi (Princeton University), Karen L. King (Harvard Divinity School), Richard Lim (Smith College), Kevin Osterloh (Princeton University), Elaine Pagels (Princeton University), Yannis Papadoyannakis (Princeton University), Annette Yoshiko Reed (McMaster University), David Satran (Hebrew University), Peter Schäfer (Princeton University) Philippa Townsend (Princeton University), Burton L. Visotzky (Jewish Theological Seminary), Israel Yuval (Hebrew University), Holger Zellentin (Princeton University)

For the full program, please go to http://www.princeton.edu/~heresy/program.html

If you plan to attend, or if you have further questions, please contact Holger Zellentin (hzellent@princeton.edu) or Eduard Iricinschi (eiricins@princeton.edu)
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Elaine Pagels interviews

The Memphis Flyer has this interview with Elaine Pagels:

The Gospel Truth
Elaine Pagels: writer on the Word.
LEONARD GILL

It's a short piece in which Pagels reveals that she is now working on Revelation. The article concludes with this interesting exchange:

I asked my teacher, Krister Stendahl, why, when he'd studied the Dead Sea Scrolls, he never wrote about them for a popular audience. Krister, a Lutheran bishop, looked at me and said, "Well, we and the clergy were afraid it would upset people if they learned that Jesus wasn't who they wanted to think he was." Krister and others thought they were being protective. But I said to him, "That's condescending -- to think that people shouldn't know." So we went to work on the Nag Hammadi manuscripts. Hundreds of people still are. "

Pagels answers Witherington on Thomas

The sixth and final intalment of the Scholarly Smackdown on beliefnet between Elaine Pagels and Ben Witherington III, "Did Paul Distort Christianity", has now been published:

Scholarly Smackdown Round 3: Elaine Pagels

Pagels's post is (at the very least) a useful summary of her thinking on The Gospel of Thomas, on which she clearly thinks that Ben Witherington III's thinking is out of date since she refers repeatedly and disparagingly to what they learned in graduate school, e.g. here:

A further indication that Thomas is not "Gnostic," by your own definition, is that it does use the Old Testament in a very positive way—just as the Gospel of John does. Both frame their views of the gospel with midrashic interpretations of Genesis 1. Recognizing this has led scholars far beyond what you learned as a graduate student from Bruce Metzger, and what I learned in graduate school. That's why those of us working in this field—including Birger Pearson—have come to recognize these texts not as "Gnostic"—whatever that fuzzy term meant—but as early Christian, and immersed, like all the early Christian sources we know, in the Hebrew Bible.

Final reflection on the two Beliefnet Scholarly Smackdowns: so far they are a useful but flawed experiment. What they have been good at has been giving the reader a flavour of each of the author's views. They are useful mini-articles. What they have been less good at has been the (unfortunately titled) "smackdown" of the title, which I am told is a wrestling analogy. There is precious little wrestling here! Because the scholars concerned (Crossan, Pagels and Witherington) have been encouraged to write relatively lengthy, self-contained emails, the actual critical engagement has been too limited. There has been too much talking past one another. If you want a good quality of interaction, I still think you have to go a long way to beat Xtalk at its best. It's not always at its best, of course, but when it is it's the most stimulating around.

Elaine Pagels on The Spirit of Things

Following on from my previous blog entry, a quick look around that Spirit of Things web site shows up some other interesting things too. You can read presenter Rachel Kohn's essay Who is a Fundamentalist? And why does it Matter?, which features some critical comments on The Passion of the Christ, and there is the entire transcript, again, for this episode of the programme:

The Suppressed Christian Tradition

In the late 1970s Elaine Pagels published The Gnostic Gospels, putting into the public domain a suppressed Christian tradition, which the church regarded as 'heretical'. They were the Gospels of Mary, Philip and Thomas, found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. Now a world-famous scholar, Pagels argues against the term "Gnostic," which was a term of reproach, and reflects on the gospels' similarities to Kabbalistic and Buddhist thought.

Like the Lüdemann programme, it is very interesting reading. Just one excerpt touching on her recent work on the Gospel of Thomas and its relationship to John:

what I realised as I was reading the Gospel of Thomas, is that there is teaching there, that is shared with the author of the Gospel of John. Other scholars have pointed out the strong similarities between John and Thomas. They’re both written for someone who already knows the basic story, they’re both written as supplemental and advanced teaching, they’re both written speaking about the Kingdom of God not as something coming at the end of time, but as the present spiritual reality, and they both have what you might call mystical elements to them.

But as I read that, and looked at the work of those scholars who’ve observed the enormous similarities between the two, I came to the conclusion, and to me it was a surprise, and it was unwelcome and it seemed very strange, but I realised that the only way one can make sense of the relationship between these Gospels is to see that whoever wrote the Gospel of John knows the kind of teaching you find in Thomas, and thinks that it’s been taken there in the wrong direction.

Text of AAR letter on-line

There have been comments here and elsewhere on the AAR decision to hold stand-alone meetings. The AAR web site have now made available the text of the response from the AAR board on this issue in relation to the petition organised by Karen King and Elaine Pagels:

A Message from the AAR Board

Scholarly Smackdown Witherington latest

The latest email from Ben Witherington III has been added to beliefnet's Scholarly Smackdown on Jesus and Paul conducted between Elaine Pagels and Ben Witherington III. This time the order is reversed and Ben Witherington contributes first:

Scholarly Smackdown Round 3: Ben Witherington III

His topic is Gnosticism and the canon. Was there any fully-fledged Gnosticism in the first century? Witherington says no. There's one useful bit of bibliography, something I had missed: Craig Evans, "Thomas, Gospel of" in R. P. Martin and P. H. Davids (eds.), Dictionary of the Later New Testament and its Development (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1997): 1176.

I'm still not sure if this format is conducive to really decent critical engagement. The problem I mentioned before is exacerbated by reversing the order of engagement in this round so that here Witherington if effectively starting afresh. There's not enough actual conversation here.

AAR stands firm on stand-alone meetings

Also on Deinde, news of a response to the AAR Joint Meetings Petition headed by Karen King and Elaine Pagels. It seems that the petition has been unsuccessful. Deinde references Ryan's Lair for a copy of the announcement, which has it under the heading Excellent news from the AAR. The gist of it is that there is no change about the fundamental decision to discontinue joint meetings with the Society of Biblical Literature from 2008, but that a "task force" will be set up to look at the "implementation" of the decision. Additionally, "the Board instructed the executive director to begin exploring the possibility of holding periodic concurrent meetings with other relevant associations" including the SBL.

There is no report from this meeting yet on the AAR Web Site, though I was interested to read the AAR's FAQ about the decision, including answers to the questions "What was the AAR Board's process for making this decision, and why didn't you seek the opinions of members?" and "Is it accurate that the AAR did not consult with the SBL before making this decision?". Both of these FAQs date back to last July. Effectively their answer to the second question is "No".

Update: Jim Davila comments in Paleojudaica and concludes that "The response of the Board of Directors is not satisfactory. With respect, this is not over yet." It certainly seems extraordinary to me that the membership of AAR were not consulted about this major decision.