Gospel of Jesus' Wife in New Testament Studies

In April 2014, Harvard Theological Review devoted an issue to the discussion of The Gospel of Jesus' Wife, a fragmentary text thought by many to be a forgery. Regular readers of this blog will know that this fragment has been a hot topic of discussion since the first media reports of its existence in September 2012. (You can find the many NT Blog posts on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife here).

New Testament Studies has now devoted its latest issue to a critical discussion of the authenticity of the fragment. After an editorial by Francis Watson, the following articles expound different elements of the problem:

The Gospel of Jesus' Wife: Constructing a Context

Simon Gathercole

A Lycopolitan Forgery of John's Gospel

Christian Askeland

The Gospel of Jesus' Wife: Textual Evidence of Modern Forgery

Andrew Bernhard

Material Criteria and their Clues for Dating

Myriam Krutzsch and Ira Rabin

The Jesus' Wife Papyrus in the History of Forgery

Christopher Jones

How a Papyrus Fragment Became a Sensation

Gesine Schenke Robinson

Congratulations to the editor and the authors for their fine work on this volume, and thanks to Cambridge University Press for making it available free for all, just as they did just over a year ago with the HTR volume.

See also this video from Simon Gathercole, posted a couple of days ago by CUP in tandem with the release of this issue of the journal:

Latest Journal for the Study of the New Testament - all about Gathercole and Goodacre

The latest Journal for the Study of the New Testament is now out and it's a special edition focused on Simon Gathercole's The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas and my Thomas and the Gospels. It's an absolute privilege to be involved in a journal issue like this, and I'd like to thank JSNT and its editor Catrin Williams for this honour.

Journal for the Study of the New Testament: 36/3 (March 2014)

"A New Synoptic Problem: Mark Goodacre and Simon Gathercole on Thomas" (199-239)
 John S. Kloppenborg

"A New Gnosticism: Why Simon Gathercole and Mark Goodacre on the Gospel of Thomas Change the Field" (240-50)
Nicola Denzey Lewis

"Twice More? Thomas and the Synoptics: A Reply to Simon Gathercole, The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas, and Mark Goodacre, Thomas and the Gospels" (251-61)
Stephen J. Patterson

"Thomas Revisited: A Rejoinder to Denzey Lewis, Kloppenborg and Patterson"
Simon Gathercole (262-81)

"Did Thomas Know the Synoptic Gospels? A Response to Denzey Lewis, Kloppenborg and Patterson" (282-92)
Mark Goodacre

Lost Gospels on All Things Considered

Yesterday's All Things Considered on BBC Wales featured an excellent discussion of "Lost Gospels".  It began with a discussion of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife and goes on to discuss Noncanonical Gospels more broadly.  You can download the podcast here; and this is the main podcast page:

All Things Considered: Lost Gospels

One of the guests is Simon Gathercole, who has recently published The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas.

Simon Gathercole on Sanders

Simon Gathercole comments with respect to recent comments here (Simon Gathercole on the New Perspective on Paul and E. P. Sanders's Relationship to W. D. Davies):

The question of Sanders' legacy as far as Paul himself is concerned is an interesting one.

I suppose I'm of the view that Sanders' Pauline exegesis was much less successful than his treatment of Judaism: as William Horbury put it in his review of PPJ, Paul and his Jewish contemporaries end up - on Sanders' approach - 'passing like ships in the night'. There are some who have nevertheless followed this approach - in his own way, Lou Martyn does. But it seems to me to have been the Dunn-Wright trajectory of Sanders interpretation that has really taken off.

But we're all shaped by our own locations in this. I studied in Durham, so perhaps am bound to think this way. You - being an Oxford and a Duke man - might be just as bound to have a more Sanders-centric view!!!

I want to comment properly on Simon's article in Christianity Today, all the more so as I am currently teaching Paul, and will do so in due course, and bear the above in mind, though I won't be apologizing for my Sanders-centric view!

Simon Gathercole on the New Perspective on Paul

There has been some discussion in the blogosphere about this article already from those who are ahead of the game and have access to the paper version, but for the rest of us, this article from Christianity Today is now available online:

What Did Paul Really Mean?
'New perspective' scholars argue that we need, well, a new perspective on justification by faith.
Simon Gathercole

There is an appended bibliography:

Further Reading on the New Perspective

In my opinion, this reading list is slanted much too heavily towards N. T. Wright and there is nowhere near enough E. P. Sanders. As well as Sanders's Paul and Palestinian Judaism, one must read Paul, the Law and the Jewish People. As far as I am concerned, those two books go at the top and everything else, including Wright and Dunn, is in dialogue with them. Under the "Short Introductions", I would place E. P. Sanders's Paul: A Very Short Introduction at the top, but it is not mentioned.

Books on the Gospel of Judas

April DeConick has recently finished a book on the Gospel of Judas called The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says. In a recent post, Bibliography for the Gospel of Judas (in English), DeConick lists the several studies that have already appeared on Judas, or that are currently in print. A commenter adds another, and I can add one more:

Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Judas: Rewriting Early Christianity (Oxford: OUP, Estimated publication date November 2007)

I have read the book in manuscript and am happy to say that is outstanding.

Expository Times latest

The latest Expository Times is out, details and NT related highlights below:

Expository Times
1 February 2007; Vol. 118, No. 5

The Gospel of Judas
Simon Gathercole
The Expository Times 2007;118 209-215

Three Followers of Jesus
Paul Foster
The Expository Times 2007;118 227

Major Critical Tool for Studying the Nativity
Paul Foster
The Expository Times 2007;118 233

Exegetical Notes on John 12:1-8: The Anointing of Jesus
Susan Miller
The Expository Times 2007;118 240-241

Surveying Lukan Scholarship
Andrew Gregory
The Expository Times 2007;118 241

Book Review: Books on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism
Timothy H. Lim
The Expository Times 2007;118 249-250

Book Review: Disciples as the New Covenant Community in John?
Andrew Lincoln
The Expository Times 2007;118 251

Book Review: The Historical Jesus and the Final Judgment
Paul Foster
The Expository Times 2007;118 252

Book Review: New Loeb Edition of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana
Mary-Rose Wyles
The Expository Times 2007;118 253-254

Book Review: The Thessalonian Epistles
Angus Paddison
The Expository Times 2007;118 254

Book Review: A Fine Commentary on Romans
A. J. M. Wedderburn
The Expository Times 2007;118 254-255

Book Review: Social Memory and Early Christianity
Chris Keith
The Expository Times 2007;118 255

Book Review: Origins of Rabbinic Judaism
Kevin Sullivan
The Expository Times 2007;118 256

Book Review: Keeping it in the Family
Helen K Bond
The Expository Times 2007;118 257-258

Book Review: Index of Books Reviewed
The Expository Times 2007;118 259

SBL Annual Meeting 2006: Synoptics Section

Here are the details of the four sessions of the Synoptic Gospels Section at this year's SBL Annual Meeting. I won't put any of the times of the sessions on here until they are confirmed on the SBL website. I am pleased with this year's programme, I think the strongest we have ever had (if I may be so bold). It is certainly the most we've ever had, at four sessions, two themed and two open. And we had to turn away a lot of very good proposals this year, which we regretted very much.

Session 1: Open Session:

Mark Matson, Milligan College, Presiding

Stephen C. Carlson, Fairfax, VA
Luke’s Panel Technique for his “Orderly” Narration (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)

Turid Karlsen Seim, University of Oslo
The Resurrected Body in Luke-Acts (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)

Gary Gilbert, Claremont McKenna College
Luke-Acts and the Second Sophistic: Roman Imperium and Subordinate Responses (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)

Douglas Sivers, Drew University, Stewart Moore, Drew University and Joshua J.F. Wall,
Losing the Things We Do Not Have: Interpreting the Parable(s) of the Talents and Pounds (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)

Bradley W. Root, University of California, San Diego
Parable and Reality in Jesus' Galilee (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)


Session 2: The Birth Narratives

Loveday Alexander, University of Sheffield, Presiding

Jane D. Schaberg, University of Detroit Mercy
The Illegitimacy of Jesus after Twenty Years (20 min)

Gail Streete, Rhodes College, Respondent (20 min)
Amy-Jill Levine, Vanderbilt University, Respondent (20 min)

David Landry, University of Saint Thomas
Hostile Takeover: An Intertextual Reading of Luke 1-2 (20 min)

Robert Miller, Juniata College, Respondent (20 min)
John Darr, Boston College, Respondent (20 min)

Discussion (30 min)


Session 3: Panel discussion of Simon Gathercole, The Pre-existent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark and Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006)

Mark Goodacre, Duke University, Presiding

James Dunn, Durham University, Panelist (15 min)
Rikki Watts, Regent College, Panelist (15 min)
Deirdre Good, General Theological Seminary, Panelist (15 min)
Maurice Casey, University of Nottingham, Panelist (15 min)
Simon Gathercole, University of Aberdeen, Panelist (25 min)

Break (15 min)

Discussion (50 min)


Session 4: Open session

Greg Carey, Lancaster Theological Seminary, Presiding

Michael F. Bird, Highland Theological College
Sectarian Gospels for Sectarian Communities? The Non-canonical Gospels and Bauckham's "Gospel for All Christians" (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)

Jeffrey B. Gibson, Harry S Truman College
The "Bread Petition in the Lord's Prayer: A Lack of Alas? (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)

Jason Robert Combs, Yale University
"They Thought it was a Ghost:" Understanding an Absurdity in Mark 6:49-50 (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)

Clinton Wahlen, AIIAS Theological Seminary
The Impurity of Spirits in the Synoptic Gospels (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)

Aaron M. Gale, West Virginia University
"A 'Golden' Gospel of Matthew?: Money, Economic Status, and Taxation in the Synoptics" (25 min)
Discussion (5 min)

A link a day

Today's new link continues the Simon Gathercole theme. On the Gospel and Acts: Books and Articles page:

UP: Simon Gathercole, 'The Justification of Wisdom (Mt. 11.19b/Lk 7.35)', New Testament Studies, 49 (2003): 476-488.

DOWN: Michael Lattke, “The Call to Discipleship and Proselytizing”, Harvard Theological Review 92 (1999): 359-62

DOWN: Jerome Murphy O'Connor, “Triumph Over Temptation”, Bible Review August 1999

CORRECTED: Dodd and Heard

A link a day

This should have gone up last night, but for some reason I couldn't communicate with the NTGateway server over in the London docklands; perhaps they were busy watching the fantastic new series of Doctor Who on BBC1, or were celebrating with Chelsea's crowning as Premiership champions. Anyway, it's back on-line again now and here's yesterday's new link. It continues the Aberdeen theme, and is also on the Paul: Books and Articles page:

Simon Gathercole, “After the New Perspective: Works, Justification and Boasting in Early Judaism and Romans 1-5”, Tyndale Bulletin 52.2 (2001): 303-306

Gospel of Judas on Sunday

The lead feature on this morning's Sunday programme on Radio 4 was on the Gospel of Judas. Simon Gathercole, Senior Lecturer in New Testament at the University of Aberdeen, was interviewed by Roger Bolton. You can listen here:

Sunday

The interview with Simon runs from about 9:10 to 13:30.

I can claim a little influence here. I had a long phone-call with the producer about the Gospel on Friday morning, expressed a little reluctance about the thought of driving in to Durham on a Saturday to do an interview, and recommended Simon, who did an excellent job, especially in explaining that the Gospel cannot tell us anything of interest about the historical Jesus and the historical Judas, which is always, of course, the angle the media are inclined to explore. Simon explained that the Gospel was written long after the living memory of the apostles, and that it featured anachronisms equivalent to our writing a document about Queen Victoria in which she comments on The Lord of the Rings and on her CD collection.

Crum available at Wipf and Stock

I was pleased to hear on the Gospel of Thomas e-list recently, from Simon Gathercole, that Walter Crum's Coptic Dictionary is now available from Wipf and Stock -- yet another very useful reprint:

Walter E. Crum, A Coptic Dictionary

At $108, it is not cheap, but it has always been expensive on the second-hand book market and this is a welcome re-issue.

On the Gospel of Thomas list, Judy Redman also posted on forthcoming electronic editions of Crum.

Aberdeen

I'd like to second Jim Davila's congratulations to the University of Aberdeen Department of Divinity and Religious Studies who have just announced two new appointments in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament:

Aberdeen makes two new appointments in Old Testament / Hebrew Bible

Dr Joachim Schaper is to be Reader in Old Testament and Dr Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer will be Lecturer in Old Testament. Lena was a colleague here in Birmingham until quite recently and I am delighted to see the news of her getting this post.

I've been having a look at the Aberdeen department's website and Pete Williams has done a great job here. As someone who was once responsible for our department's website here, I know what a time-consuming job this can be. But it is very encouraging to see their website building, and in particular to see the introduction of links both to published pieces and to work in progress. For the NT, see in particular the following staff web pages:

Francis Watson
Simon Gathercole
Peter Williams

I should also mention Andrew Clarke but his web page is not yet anything like as well populated as the other three.

New Perspective on Paul: Bibliographical Essay

I was lecturing a couple of weeks ago on the recent backlash against the New Perspective on Paul so for the first time had to find time to engage seriously with authors like Stuhlmacher, Das, Westerholm and Gathercole. I began to put together a bibliography on the backlash, or, as one should probably call it, the critique, but discovered that there is a fine one already available on the net. It is by Michael Bird and is a thorough, annotated Bibliographical essay, helpfully divided up into sections on all aspects of the New Perspective, pre and pro, ante, anti and tangential, all you need to know:

The New Perspective on Paul: A Bibliographical Essay
Michael F. Bird

I'd call it an annotated bibliography rather than a bibliographical essay, but that's a very minor quibble. It is located on Mark Mattison's superb Paul Page and is itself regularly updated, most recently yesterday. It also has some useful hyperlinked elements.

Evangelicals debate Steve Chalke on Jesus

Ekklesia has had a couple of pieces on a new book by Steve Chalke on the doctrine of the atonement, questioning how central penal substitution should be. My interest in this has been to see a couple of NT scholars croppting up. Previously it was Lloyd Pietersen, who I know from the British NT Society. This time it is my friend Simon Gathercole, who does not get a good write-up in this story:

Evangelicals debate Chalke's Message of Jesus

Evangelical scholars including James Dunn, Stephen Travis, Nigel Wright, Clark Pinnock, Robert Brow, Mark Baker and Joel Green, had all questioned the biblical basis of penal substitution, and the importance accorded to it in Evangelicalism - a point made by the Evangelical Alliance.

Opponents of Steve Chalke’s position were given equal time to speak and make their case against the book.

It was however difficult at times to work out what Dr Simon Gathercole, a Lecturer in New Testament at the University of Aberdeen and Dr Anna Robbins, a Lecturer in Theology and Contemporary Culture at the London School of Theology, were actually saying.

Review of Biblical Literature Latest

I am going to make up for being late on this last week by noting the latest from the SBL Review of Biblical Literature as soon as it's out. These are just the titles directly related to the NT:

The United Bible Society's New Testament Handbook Series
Reviewed by Susan Lochrie Graham

Bøe, Sverre
Gog and Magog: Ezekiel 38-39 as Pre-Text for Revelation 19, 17-21 and 20, 7-10
Reviewed by Michael Barram

Davis, Stephan K.
The Antithesis of the Ages: Paul's Reconfiguration of Torah
Reviewed by Gary D. Salyer

Gathercole, Simon J.
Where Is Boasting?: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's Response in Romans 1-5 Reviewed by H. H. Drake Williams III

Koester, Craig R.
Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community
Reviewed by Steven A. Hunt

Patte, Daniel and Eugene TeSelle, eds.
Engaging Augustine on Romans: Self, Context, and Theology in Interpretation
Reviewed by Martin Ramey

Theissen, Gerd and Dagmar Winter
Translated by M. Eugene Boring
The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria
Reviewed by John Byron

Witherington, Ben III and Laura M. Ice
The Shadow of the Almighty: Father, Son, and Spirit in Biblical Perspective
Reviewed by Seung-Ai Yang

Review of Biblical Literature Latest

I am a bit late on the latest from the Review of Biblical Literature. Some New Testament reviews:

Gathercole, Simon J.
Where Is Boasting?: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's Response in Romans 1-5
Reviewed by James P. Sweeney

Lapham, F.
Peter: The Myth, the Man, and the Writings
Reviewed by Tobias Nicklas

Lüdemann, Gerd
Paul: The Founder of Christianity
Reviewed by Michael Kaler

Reinhartz, Adele
Befriending the Beloved Disciple: A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John
Reviewed by Jeffrey S. Siker

Witherington, Ben III, and Laura M. Ice
The Shadow of the Almighty: Father, Son, and Spirit in Biblical Perspective
Reviewed by Ronald R. Clark

New Testament Studies

As Jim Davila blogged, the October edition of New Testament Studies is now available on-line, contents and abstracts for all and full text for individual or institutional subscriptions:

New Testament Studies

Vol. 49/4 (October 2003):

‘Christus starb für uns’. Zur Tradition und paulinischen Rezeption der sogenannten ‘Sterbeformeln’.
CILLIERS BREYTENBACH

The Justification of Wisdom (Matt 11.19b/Luke 7.35)
SIMON GATHERCOLE

‘Ungefähr 30’: Anmerkungen zur Altersangabe Jesu im Lukasevangelium (Lk 3.23)
CHRISTOPH G. MÜLLER

Can Everyone be Wrong? A Reading of John 11.1–12.8
FRANCIS J. MOLONEY

Of Cherubim and the Divine Throne: Rev 5.6 in Context
DARRELL D. HANNAH

Recapitulation and Chronological Progression in John's Apocalypse: Towards a New Perspective
MARKO JAUHIAINEN

Does the ‘We’ in Gal 2.15–17 Include Paul's Opponents?
WILLIAM O. WALKER

Rm 1.11–15 (17): Proemium ou Propositio?
LUCIEN LEGRAND

What did Paul mean by ‘Those Who Know the Law’? (Rom 7.1)
PETER J. TOMSON

SBL Sunday

I am not going to be able to remember the rest in order. Saturday sticks in my mind in a big way because of my own involvement. On Sunday I started enjoying myself properly. One of the sections I attended across Sunday and Monday was the Mark Group and the theme this year was Jesus' trial in Mark, the first day specifically focusing on the blasphemy charge and including papers from Adela Yarbro Collins and Jeffrey Gibson. The second of the Synoptics sections was the open session, with four papers, Stephen Moore, Albert Harrill, Alex Damm and Simon Gathercole. Gathercole's paper was excellent -- a defence of a Danielic application of the Son of Man language throughout Mark's Gospel, from the Son of Man has authority statements in Mark 2 through to the vindication of the Son of Man statements in Chapters 13 and 14, from revelation to suffering to vindication. It was a model of how to give an engaging paper -- clear but with a kind of relaxed good humour that engages the audience. I missed Bert Harrill because I wanted to hear Catherine Smith (one of our post-grads in Birmingham) speaking in the Biblical Language and Linguistics section -- a proud moment when one's own students present papers at an international conference. But dashed back to the Synoptics as soon as that was finished and just back in time for Alex Damm on the application of rhetoric to the Synoptic Problem. Damm is a graduate student of John Kloppenborg in Toronto. I was happy to hear him focus on the Mark-Without-Q hypothesis along with the Two Document Hypothesis in his paper, which was essentially an attempt to show that Luke's use of Q is more plausible than Luke's use of Matthew in the Beelzebub Controversy. He looked at rhetorically effective elements that are distinctive to Matthew which one would have expected Luke to have taken over had he known Matthew. I was not convinced by the argument myself and asked a question to the effect that Luke's use of Matthew and Luke's use of Q are not hypotheses competing on a par. We do not have Q, so that thesis functions at an automatic advantage in this kind of discussion. In particular, Luke's order here becomes Q's order, so it is fruitless to compare Luke's order of Q with Matthew's in this kind of context. But I am happy once again to hear the Farrer Theory being taken seriously; this has marked the work of several post graduate students from Toronto including Robert Derrenbacker and Zeba Crook.

Speaking of Derrenbacker, I attended the Q section on the Sunday too and Derrenbacker gave the best and most engaging of the papers there, admitting that Matthew's re-ordering of the Q material could be constituted as a problem for the Two-Source Theory, because it is so different from Q's order, but suggesting that Matthew was able to gain random access to Q by accessing it in notebook or codex format. The theme for the session was Matthew and Q and consisted of five papers, Marco Frenschkowski, Joseph Verheyden, Robert Derrenbacker, Clare Komoroske Rothschild and Linden Youngquist. I am afraid that my tiredness was really kicking in by this stage so I slept through at least some of all of these. (I sleep through at least some of pretty much all academic papers; it has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the papers; it's just a question of tiredness. Recommendation: if you want me to hear all of your paper, ask me to chair it and I might just manage to stay awake.). After the five speakers, Ulrich Luz gave thirty minute response to them all. It was his first SBL and was clearly enjoying the occasion. The chairing of the section was even worse than my chairing of the Synoptics section, though, since Luz finished after the scheduled finish and there was not time for the allotted discussion. I suspect that they were trying to cram too much in to the session to attempt to cover five papers and a major response and still have time for discussion.