More doubts surface on the Jesus Wife Fragment

Live Science has been doing some digging in connection with the story associated with the Jesus Wife Fragment and this interesting article was published today:

'Gospel of Jesus's Wife': Doubts Raised About Ancient Text
By Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor

I'm impressed that Live Science has followed leads actually to investigate the back story to the alleged discovery.  Given the owner's apparent insistence on anonymity, and given Harvard's apparent reluctance (so far at least) to publish the documents that are associated with the  fragment, one of the only avenues available in tracing the fragment's back story is to investigate the names associated with it.  The Live Science article centres on the most mysterious of the three, Hans-Ulrich Laukamp.  This is the crucial passage in the article, but it's all worth reading:

Our findings indicate that Laukamp was a co-owner of the now-defunct ACMB-American Corporation for Milling and Boreworks in Venice, Fla. Documents filed in Sarasota County, Fla., show that Laukamp was based in Germany at the time of his death in 2002 and that a man named René Ernest was named as the representative of his estate in Sarasota County. 

In an exchange of emails in German, Ernest said that Laukamp did not collect antiquities, did not own this papyrus and, in fact, was living in West Berlin in 1963, so he couldn't have crossed the Berlin Wall into Potsdam. Laukamp, he said, was a toolmaker and had no interest in old things. In fact, Ernest was astonished to hear that Laukamp's name had been linked to this papyrus . . . .

Read the whole article here.

Update (10.18pm): Alin Suciu makes the good point that Laukamp would not have had trouble, if he had West German papers, in travelling to East Germany, so it may be that this aspect of the story requires revision.

Update (Wednesday, 12.56pm): Commenter lizw notes:

"West Berliners were treated differently from other West Germans by the East German authorities. In 1963/64, the only period when an ordinary West Berliner would have been able to cross to the East was over the Christmas period, from 17 December 1963 to 5 January 1964. (Detailed chronology in the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Berlin#Traffic_between_East_and_West_Berlin). So while it is not impossible that Laukamp obtained the papyrus in Potsdam that year, it seems unlikely for someone with no prior interest in such material." 

Moreover, Owen Jarus, author of the above article in Live Science writes:

This link discusses pass agreements between west-east Berlin.
http://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=916

Border crossing only started December 17, 1963 and the crosser had to
have a pass, a relative in Berlin and the pass appears to be valid
only for Berlin only. Things improved in 1972 with the passing of the
Basic Treaty.
http://www.germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=172&language=english

So it appears that indeed it is the case that a 1963 purchase of the fragment by Hans-Ulrich Laukamp in Potsdam is problematic.

Karen King is interviewed about the Jesus Wife Fragment

As far as I am aware, Prof. Karen King has not been interviewed about the Jesus Wife Fragment in public since the story first broke in September 2012.  But now WGBH has interviewed Prof. King about the fragment (broadcast yesterday).  I am delighted that Prof. King is now discussing this in public, something that will definitely contribute to the broader discussion about the fragment:





The interview is typical of the grace and clarity with which Prof. King approaches this subject as well as all her scholarship.  Although I am inclined to disagree with her on the subject matter, I, for one, am delighted that the dialogue genuinely appears to have opened up.

HT: Mike Grondin on the Gospel of Thomas e-list.

Jesus' Wife Fragment Latest: Leo Depuydt responds to Karen King

It's now almost a week since Harvard Theological Review published its issue focusing on the Jesus' Wife Fragment (The Jesus' Wife Fragment is Back).  I have enjoyed spending time reading and studying the issue over the last week and I am planning to offer some of my responses to it in due course.

Francis Watson composed an initial response last week, Jesus' Wife Attempts a Comeback: Initial Response, and I would also draw attention to Christian Askeland's helpful comments, Jesus' Wife Resurrected from the Dead, alongside his fascinating post drawing attention to an element in Leo Depuydt's article, Demotic Gospel of Thomas.

Leo Depuydt's article in HTR is entitled The Alleged Gospel of Jesus's Wife: Assessment and Evaluation of Authenticity, and it is followed by a response from Karen King.

Depuydt has now responded to Karen King's article, and I am happy to post that response here, with his permission:

The Papyrus Fragment and the Crocodile: When Discerning a Blunder Is Itself a . . .

Leo Depuydt

Update (Thursday, 8.50am): Jim Davila criticizes the sarcastic tone of Depuydt's response on Paleojudaica, concluding with the comment "I am still quite skeptical that the Gospel of Jesus' Wife is an ancient artifact, but King has made a real effort to keep the tone high and the skeptics should do the same."

The Jesus Mysteries, National Geographic Channel

Mary Magdalene (Alice Marshall), The Jesus Mysteries
(Juniper TV; National Geographic)

This weekend, National Geographic Channel are showing a two hour documentary entitled The Jesus Mysteries.  It is written and directed by David Caldwell Evans for Juniper TV and it is being shown internationally, including Australia (Friday 18th), the UK (Easter Day, 20th; Radio Times), Sub-Saharan Africa (Easter Day, 20th), and the USA (Saturday, 19th).  Here's the series blurb:

Jesus Christ is one of the most famous names in the history of mankind. But Gospel writers left out crucial details about pivotal events in Christ's life - historical moments that have been adapted, embellished and rewritten over the course of hundreds of years. This special re-examines elements of Christ's life and ministry, such as the nativity, the miracles and the crucifixion - questioning basic modern assumptions to reveal some surprising and often shocking details.

There are a couple of clips available.  The first focuses on "Rabble Rousing" and discusses the temple incident and features Bart Ehrman, Helen Bond, Larry Hurtado and me:

The second discusses Mary Magdalene, "Prostitute or Disciple", and features Kate Cooper and Helen Bond, alongside Alice Marshall as Mary Magdalene:





I was interviewed for this in July in St Andrews, Scotland, just before Helen Bond was interviewed too.  Although I have not seen it yet, I like the look of the mix of drama and CGI reconstructions with scholars' interviews.  And the handsome Jesus figure is played by Nick Simmons, son of Gene Simmons from the legendary rock band Kiss.  Here he is in the boat with Joseph of Arimathea:

Nick Simmons as Jesus in The Jesus Mysteries, National Geographic

This and other photographs suggest that there will be some idiosyncratic elements covered, including legends like Jesus in England.

Jesus' Wife Attempts a Comeback: Initial Response, Francis Watson

I am grateful to Prof. Francis Watson, Research Chair of Biblical Interpretation, Durham University, for permission to post here his initial response to the recent re-emergence of discussion on the Jesus' Wife Fragment (see The Jesus' Wife Fragment is Back):

Jesus' Wife Attempts a Comeback: Initial Response

Francis Watson

Earlier pieces by Prof. Watson on the fragment are gathered here.

The Jesus' Wife Fragment is Back

Regular readers of the NT Blog will know of my interest in the so-called Gospel of Jesus' Wife and after several months without news, a whole raft of news, features, interviews and -- most importantly -- articles in the Harvard Theological Review, all emerged today.  The media reaction to the news is often predictably over-simplified and over-stated, but the key resources for study are the following:

The Gospel of Jesus' Wife 2014 Update

Here, Harvard Divinity School provide a major update and revision of their earlier (September 2012) website on the fragment, with a new press release, an introduction, a revised Q & A, new digital photographs and scientific reports. Much of this is new material and repays careful reading.

The Harvard Magazine also has an article today:

The Jesus Wife Fragment: The Scientific Evidence

Most important, though, is the latest edition of HTR, which is dominated by materials on the fragment:

Harvard Theological Review

There are several articles on the fragment, including a massively revised version of Karen King's “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife . . .'”: A New Coptic Papyrus Fragment, several scientific analyses of the papyrus and ink, a paleographical discussion by Malcolm Choat, an article arguing for forgery by Leo Depuydt, and a brief rejoinder from Karen King.

Media coverage has included pieces in the Boston Globe and the New York Times.

There has already been some strong discussion of the latest news in the blogs.  I would particularly recommend the pieces by Jim Davila, Larry Hurtado, Christopher Rollston and Bob Cargill, as well as the typically helpful round-up from James McGrath.

I have been in meetings all day, and at an enjoyable dinner for a retiring colleague this evening, so I have not had time to analyze the fresh evidence with the kind of care necessary to blog about it today, so I will wait until I have a moment to make some observations.  I have now had the chance to read almost everything, but I need to take some time to digest everything properly before adding my own additional comments.

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

Bible Secrets Revealed: DVD out today

Regular readers will remember the Bible Secrets Revealed TV show that was recently on History Channel in the USA.  Across six hour long episodes, several themes in recent Biblical scholarship were explored for a popular audience, in a pacey documentary that featured, among many others, Robert Cargill (who was also consulting producer), Candida Moss, Bart Ehrman, Chris Keith, Jodi Magnes and me.

Today, the DVD was released and I must admit to rather liking the cover art (and is that Bob Cargill reading the Bible?!).  At around $13-$14, it's a good buy.  I'll definitely be buying.  Links:

Bible Secrets Revealed (Amazon)

Bible Secrets Revealed (History Channel)

Son of God Movie

Goodacre goes to the movies!

Regular readers of the NT Blog will know of my love of Bible films.  There was a time back in the 1990s when it seemed like there would never be another Jesus film.  It was a bit like the wilderness years for Doctor Who fans, when we wondered if the show would ever come back.

Recent years have been kind to us.  First there was The Miracle Maker (2000), the Welsh-Russian claymation masterpiece, followed not long afterwards by  the Visual Bible's Gospel of John (2003), a surprisingly compelling walk through John's Gospel verse-by-verse, starring British actor Henry Ian Cusick as Jesus.  Both films employed academic consultants, and were all the better for it.

The major event was, of course, Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ (2004), a traumatic, troubling, haunting piece that surprised everyone by becoming a massive box-office hit.  Academics hated it, often for good reason.  Its nasty, unreflective depiction of the Jewish leaders, especially Caiaphas, almost made it unbearable.  Yet, there were elements that made connoisseurs come back for more -- Caviezel's remarkable performance as Jesus, the use of flashbacks and point of view shots that humanized Jesus more than any previous Jesus film, and the audacious attempt to put all the dialogue in Aramiac and Latin.

Since The Passion of the Christ, there have been other landmarks.  Son of Man (2006) "reclaimed" the Jesus story as African fable while The Nativity Story (2006), directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who went onto great fame with Twilight, showed that a conventional retelling of gospel story could still work.   Meanwhile, BBC's The Passion (2008) succeeded where Gibson's film failed, offering an outstanding drama in which the human motivations of the protagonists, not only Jesus, Mary, Mary Magdalene and Judas but also Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas, were explored in a way so compelling that the viewer shook with emotion throughout.

Now comes Son of God.  The publicity rightly points out that this is the first "full" Jesus film in the cinemas for many years.  TV has been the chosen genre for recent films and miniseries, including The Bible  (2013), from which the new film is largely culled.  Mark Burnett and Roma Downey executive produced the ten hour TV series that went out last year on History Channel.  The huge success of the project, with massive ratings, gave birth to this new departure, which reframes and edits the Jesus material from that broader project and releases it, this weekend, already to massive cinema audiences.

In case you are unfamiliar with the Son of God film, or The Bible series that preceded it, here is the trailer:



I went to see the new film, along with almost ten million other Americans, on Friday evening.  For me, there is something rather exciting about going to see a Jesus film in the local cinema.  It was exciting to me too because of my familiarity with The Bible project on which I acted as a consultant, alongside several others including Craig Evans, Candida Moss, Helen Bond and Paula Gooder.

I had no idea, though, how they would reframe, repackage it and re-edit the series to produce a full cinematic 138 minutes.

I recorded my reflections, both before and after seeing the film, on the latest episode of the NT Pod:

NT Pod 72: Son of God Movie

You can also catch the NT Pod on iTunes, or you can find the NT Pod on Facebook, or follow the NT Pod on Twitter.

I have read several reviews this weekend since recording the episode that already make me want to comment further, so I am guessing that there will be some more blogging about this film in the coming days, perhaps even as much as there was over Passion of the Christ and the BBC Passion!

Another retelling of the Nag Hammadi discovery story

Jeff Rose tells the story of the Nag Hammadi discoveries

A year or so ago, I published an article in which I asked questions about the oft-told story of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices in1945 ("How reliable is the story of the Nag Hammadi discovery?", Journal for the Study of the New Testament 35/4 (2013): 303-22).  It emerged from some thoughts and ruminations here on the NT Blog.

One of the elements that is intriguing about the repetition of the story in the scholarship is that it continues to morph and change, ever accreting and losing details, with characters appearing and disappearing, the jar growing every larger, and a corpse mysteriously vanishing.

While I was watching the second part of the recent BBC series, Bible Hunters, reviewed here by Larry Hurtado, I was interested to hear yet another divergent version of this story.  I have transcribed it from the documentary below.  It's in the 43rd minute or so, and Jeff Rose has arrived at Nag Hammadi to tell the story of the discovery.  He crouches down and has a small pot just next to him:

Mohammad Ali's account led the investigators to the edge of the Nile Valley, to the cliffs that separate the fertile land from the desert. And it's here that the story began. Mohammad and his brothers were out looking for fertilizer. They made an amazing discovery.  Underneath a boulder, they found a sealed clay pot.  Now, the other guys, they didn't want to touch it because they were afraid there might be a genie inside.  But Mohammad was more interested in money, so he picks up a rock, smashes the thing.  You can imagine his surprise when he saw what was really inside.  He found the manuscripts that would become the famous thirteen Nag Hammadi codices.

Several common elements from the story are present here, including the brothers and the fertilizer, the genie and the gold (here "money"), but they are configured differently.  There is no version of the story in which it is only the brothers who are afraid of the genie, or in which Mohammad is more interested than them in money.  Moreover, it is an almost universal feature in the story that the pot was broken with a "mattock", something that is given added poignancy because of the subsequent murder also using "mattocks".  Contrast, for example, Elaine Pagels's version of the story from Gnostic Gospels (xiii):

Shortly before he and his brothers avenged their father’s murder in a blood feud, they had saddled their camels and gone out to the Jabal to dig for sabakh, a soft soil they used to fertilize their crops. Digging around a massive boulder, they hit a red earthenware jar, almost a meter high. Muhammad ‘Ali hesitated to break the jar, considering that a jinn, or spirit, might live inside. But realizing that it might also contain gold, he raised his mattock, smashed the jar, and discovered inside thirteen papyrus books, bound in leather. Returning to his home in al-Qasr, Muhammad ‘Ali dumped the books and loose papyrus leaves on the straw piled on the ground next to the oven. Muhammad’s mother, ‘Umm-Ahmad, admits that she burned much of the papyrus in the oven along with the straw she used to kindle the fire.

One of the delightful things about these different versions of the Nag Hammadi find story is that they provide us with a nice contemporary analogy concerning the transmission of tradition.  As with the Synoptics, there are  demonstrable literary links, as when Werner Kelber quotes one of James Robinson's versions.  There are variant versions by the same author, so that Robinson has three different versions of the story just as Luke has three different versions of the conversion of Paul.  There are oral retellings of the written tales, as when Pagels tells the story in TV documentaries from 1987 and 1999, and here, when Jeff Rose tells the story, presumably from memory, of what he has previously read.

Latest NT Pod on the ending of Mark

I've been pleased to get back to a regular schedule of releases again on the NT Pod. I've been meaning to record one for a while on the question of the ending of Mark, and this is the topic of the latest episode:

NT Pod 71: Was the ending of Mark's Gospel lost?

Towards the end of the episode, I couldn't resist chatting about one of my favourite adverts from the 1970s, in which Schubert is unable to complete his unfinished symphony because he is down the pub with his mates.  Sadly, the only version of it that I can find online is a bit grainy and has terrible sound quality, but it's good enough:



If anyone knows of a better version, please let me know.

You can listen to the NT Pod online or subscribe in your preferred reader or subscribe via iTunes.  You can also find the NT Pod on Facebook, or follow the NT Pod on Twitter.

Historical Jesus Criteria Podcasts

I commented here the other day (Snow and Podcasts) on the latest episodes of the NT Pod, which is finally back after a hiatus of several months.

I have released a couple more episodes since then (NT Pod 69 and NT Pod 70), also both on the discussion about historical Jesus criteria.

Now seems like a good time to gather the links together on all of these:


NT Pod 59: Historical Jesus Criteria
NT Pod 60: The Criterion of Embarrassment
NT Pod 61: The Criterion of Multiple Attestation
NT Pod 69: The Criterion of Discontinuity
NT Pod 70: Views Common to Friend and Foe

Or, if it is easier, I have them together under one label: Historical Jesus Criteria.

I'm a bit bored with the discussion about criteria now, so I'll leave it for a while, perhaps until I teach Historical Jesus again next year.  Episode 71 will be about something different.  I have a couple of ideas and I'll make my mind up over the next day or so.

You can listen to the NT Pod online or subscribe in your preferred reader or subscribe via iTunes.  You can also find the NT Pod on Facebook, or follow the NT Pod on Twitter.

Snow and Podcasts

I have been meaning to get back to the podcast for a long time and finally, this week, it happened. First, I recorded a new episode, NT Pod 67, on John's Gospel and the Historical Jesus. I've been teaching the Historical Jesus here at Duke this semester and the topics are often conducive to podcasting, and this one ran alongside one of my classes on materials for Jesus research (including Paul, the Synoptics, Thomas, John). Then yesterday, Duke cancelled afternoon classes because of the snow, and for the second time this semester, this affected my Historical Jesus class. Instead of just trying to re-jig the syllabus, I decided to use the occasion to record another podcast.

Traffic at a standstill on my four hour
commute home yesterday!

NT Pod 68 asks "Where do we begin Historical Jesus Research?" The topic was less congenial to podcasting because I was planning, in class, to introduce several different approaches to the Historical Jesus, contrasting the starting points of E. P. Sanders, John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright.  But I had a go anyway and recorded a kind of hybrid episode, going to twenty minutes rather than the usual 10-12 minutes.

The second half of yesterday's class was going to begin looking at Historical Jesus criteria.  This is something I began podcasting on last time I taught the course, in 2012 (see NT Pod 59: Historical Jesus Criteria, NT Pod 60: the Criterion of Embarrassment and NT Pod 61: the Criterion of Multiple Attestation).  I am planning to continue this series now with an episode on the Criterion of Dissimilarity.  I hope to have that episode online by this evening.

You can listen to the NT Pod online or subscribe in your preferred reader or subscribe via iTunes.  You can also find the NT Pod on Facebook, or follow the NT Pod on Twitter.

Gospel of Jesus' Wife - Smithsonian documentary in French

Back in September 2012, Smithsonian Channel were planning to air a documentary on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife. Once it became clear that there were several in the academic community who were uncertain about the authenticity of the piece, Smithsonian postponed the documentary and to this day it has not been broadcast in the USA.

However, it seems that it was in fact broadcast in France under the title Révélations sur la femme de Jésus and the film has found its way onto Youtube here:



The film has French commentary rather than subtitles, so you will need competent French to be able to follow it.  I must admit to enjoying watching the documentary.  It is beautifully produced, it largely avoids sensationalism, and gives lots of screen time to the three key players in the story, Karen King, Roger Bagnall and AnneMarie Luijendijk.  Luijendijk is even flown to Cairo for the documentary and discusses the Gospel of Philip there.  She also visits Nag Hammadi and gives the story of the find (genie and all) over against a new dramatization of the find in a one-person version.

The only other academics who appear in the piece are Dom. Henry Wansbrough, in Ampleforth, Robin Griffith-Jones, Master of the Temple in London, and Alberto Camplani, who speaks to the issue of the authenticity of the fragment.

It looks like the documentary added in some footage after scholars began to question the authenticity of the piece, and Francis Watson's piece even gets a screenshot:

Francis Watson's essay appears on-screen in Révélations sur la femme de Jésus

This is around the 32 minute mark.  The only scholar brought on to discuss the authenticity of the piece is Camplani, and there are several shots of this article:

Alberto Camplani's article appears on-screen in Révélations sur la femme de Jésus

The documentary goes to King and Bagnall after the authenticity issues are raised, but the footage of them appears to be drawn from the same filming some time before September 2012.

It will be interesting to see if the documentary does eventually appear on screen elsewhere, and it will be interesting to see also if the articles about the fragment appear in the Harvard Theological Review this year.

Thanks to Andre Gagne for the link to the Youtube version of the film.

A Short Film on Luke's Genealogy

I have always been fascinated by the genealogies of Matthew and Luke (Matt. 1.1-17, Luke 3.23-28) and have even recorded podcasts on them (e.g. NT Pod 9). Yet they get so little exposure and discussion in popular circles. So it's a pleasure to see this quirky little film that illustrates Luke 3.23-28:

  

The work is by Aaron Soldner and it is hosted at Spark and Echo Arts.  Thanks to Nathan Sherrer for letting me know about it.  Nathan tells me that anyone who would like more information or would like to connect with Aaron can write to him (jonathon@sparkandecho.org)  or to executive director Jonathon Roberts (jonathon@sparkandecho.org).

My interview with Robert Orlando, director of A Polite Bribe

Last Thursday, we held a screening at Duke University of Robert Orlando's film about Paul, A Polite Bribe. I was privileged to get the chance to talk to Robert before the screening of the film, and the conversation was captured on video and is now available here:


APB Prescreening Interview Duke-720 from A Polite Bribe on Vimeo.

See this link for my posts on: A Polite Bribe.

Q or not Q? Is there any shift?

Michael Goulder

Chris Keith asked earlier today whether I was still in the minority about Q.  His post generated a decent comments thread as well as a monster comments thread on Facebook (which is so often now the more lively place for conversation on these things).  I don't doubt for a moment that the Farrer theory is still the minority position, but I have been glad to see a good number of people coming over to the side of the angels as time has gone on.

I certainly feel much less lonely than I did fifteen or twenty years or so ago when it was automatically assumed in the USA that anyone who denied the existence of Q must also, of necessity, deny the existence of Marcan Priority too.  Indeed, Q sceptics probably thought the earth was flat too, and that Elvis was still alive.  I well remember Stephen Patterson describing the view as even more obscure than Griesbach.

It was something of a shock to me to discover just how deeply embedded belief in Q seemed to be, especially after I was cocooned by my Oxford education, where, in the 1980s, everyone seemed to be sceptical about Q (E. P. Sanders, N. T. Wright, John Fenton, Eric Franklin and later, John Muddiman).

Michael Goulder (above) always used to feel that he was "contra mundum" on Q and he was delighted when Ed Sanders declared his (moderated) support for his theory in the book he co-authored with Margaret Davies in 1990.  I have been lucky to have found myself a little less isolated, but even if that were not so, I would not be ashamed to find myself in the same camp as two of the finest minds (I would say the two finest minds) in NT studies in recent decades.

But now, Anthony Le Donne wants to know just how popular the Q theory is these days -- and you can vote over on the blog he shares with Chris Keith -- Do You Q?  So who do you side with?

Memories are short in the blogosphere, but a handful of regular readers may remember that back in 2007 there was a similar poll run by Brandon Wason.  The poll itself has now gone, but my post on it survives.

Update: revised link.  Already interesting results. If you have not done so already, go and vote now!

The Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe comes to Duke this week

I have talked on a couple of previous occasions about Robert Orlando's film about Paul (The Apostle Paul - A Polite Bribe in New York).  Here's the website:

A Polite Bribe

It includes trailers and lots more information about the film, including excerpts of the featured scholars, including local stars Douglas Campbell and Bart Ehrman.

This week the film comes to Duke.  On Thursday 23 January, at 7.30pm, please come along to the free screening at the Full Frame Theater on the Tobacco Campus (pictured below).

There are also two bonus events.  First, at 6pm, I will be interviewing the director Robert Orlando.  If you can make it for this event, please be there in good time because the event is being recorded and we will close the doors at six.  There will be a 30 minute break between the interview and the film's screening at 7.30.

After the screening, there will be a panel discussion featuring director Robert Orlando and participant Douglas Campbell.

This event is free and open to the public, but space is limited, so please get there early.  Don't worry if you can't make it for for the pre-film interview at 6pm; we are expecting the largest audience for the film screening itself.

Full Frame Theater, Tobacco Campus, Duke University

The timetable looks like this:

6pm: Mark Goodacre interviews Robert Orlando

7.30pm: The Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe (free screening)

8.50pm: Panel discussion featuring Robert Orlando and Douglas Campbell

If you have any questions, please be in touch.  I look forward to seeing you there.

Beyond Belief: Archaeology and Religion

I have always enjoyed listening to Beyond Belief on Radio 4, especially since they started releasing it as a podcast.  Back in the day I used to guest on the programme myself, but these days one of the plusses is that I often know (or know of) other contributors to the programme.   This week's episode featured renowned Hebrew Bible scholar Francesca Stravrakopoulou in a thoroughly enjoyable discussion of "Religion and Archaeology".  Listen here:

Beyond Belief: Archaeology and Religion

Or do what I do and download the podcast version here:

Podcasts and Downloads: Beyond Belief

A couple of highlights: some discussion of a "Christian Zionist" viewpoint at the mid-point of the episode, and a reference towards the end to Dr Stavrakopoulou's hate mail.

Before posting this, I thought to myself, "I bet Jim West has already posted on this," so I took a look and I was not wrong!

Biblical Studies Online Website

Several have already publicized this great new resource from James Crossley and Deane Galbraith, both friends of the bibliobloggers:

Biblical Studies Online

It uses a blog format, with individual tagged posts, to create a nice series of topics that can expand as time goes on, covering a good, full range of topics of interest to scholars and students of the NT.  I particularly like the stress on audio and video resources, and I've already found all sorts of things I did not know existed (like Chris Rowland lecturing on William Blake).  

I am looking forward to watching this site develop and to discovering lots of new resources.  I've added a link over on the NT Gateway, on the Biblical Resource Index Pages page.

Francis Watson discusses Gospel Writing

Eerdmans has posted a new interview, this time with Francis Watson, all about his excellent Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective. It's about 25 minutes long, and is in black and white for added gravitas:


HT: Matthew Montonini.

Library of New Testament Studies Latest

Here's the latest from the Library of New Testament Studies. Interested in making a proposal to the series? Please get in touch with me, or see the further information and proposal forms.

Bloomsbury Highlights The Library of New Testament Studies Series

The Library of New Testament Studies explores the many aspects of New Testament study including historical perspectives, social-scientific and literary theory, and theological, cultural and contextual approaches.

Attitudes to Gentiles in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity Edited by David C. Sim & James S McClaren Explores the attitudes to Gentiles in ancient Jewish literature and in many of the New Testament texts. More info » The Throne Motif in the Book of Revelation Laszlo Gallusz This volume argues that the throne motif constitutes the major interpretive key to the complex structure and theology of the book of Revelation. More info » The Elijah-Elisha Narrative in the Composition of Luke Edited by John S. Kloppenborg & Joseph Verheyden An examination of the composition of the gospel of Luke with reference to the Elijah-Elisha narrative. More info » The Earliest Christian Meeting Places Almost Exclusively Houses? Edward Adams Adams examines the evidence surrounding house churches in Early Christianity. More info »

Paul's Financial Policy A Socio-Theological Approach David E. Briones Investigates the reason for Paul's seemingly inconsistent financial policy, insofar as he accepts monetary aid from the Philippians but refuses it from the Corinthians. More info » A Scriptural Theology of Eucharistic Blessings Susan I. Bubbers This study shows the scriptural justification for the expectation that the Eucharist is a place where God will bless believers with freedom and formation. More info » 'God is One' The Function of 'Eis ho Theos' as a Ground for Gentile Inclusion in Paul's Letters Christopher R. Bruno Examines the two key Pauline texts that link the confession of God as one with the inclusion of the Gentiles. More info » Incorporated Servanthood Commitment and Discipleship in the Gospel of Matthew Ben Cooper Cooper argues the Gospel of Matthew was composed in part to evoke a commitment to God through which 'compliant' readers are made disciples of Jesus. More info »

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The Apostle Paul - A Polite Bribe in New York

SVA Theater advertises A Polite Bribe, 19 December 2013

I have previously mentioned Robert Orlando's film A Polite Bribe, a documentary that uses animation and interviews with top New Testament scholars to tell a compelling narrative about Paul's life.  On 19th December, I was invited to the the New York City premiere of the film, and so I got a chance to see it on the big screen, to meet Robert Orlando and others involved with the film, and to witness a fascinating post-film discussion.

The screening took place in the SVA Theater in West 23rd Street in Manhattan which was, as it happens, just a short walk from my hotel.

Gerd Luedemann

It was great to see a film about the New Testament getting this kind of billing, and to see a New Testament scholar's name up in lights!  Gerd Luedemann, who features prominently in the film, was the guest of honour, and he gave a short lecture as a kind of pre-screening extra.  Prof. Luedemann's style is old-fashioned but authoritative -- he held open his book and read radical statements with a calmness that belied content that would be surprising to many in the audience.

Luedemann really came alive in the question and answer session, though, and when it was time to pause ahead of the pre-screening break, the questions from the audience were still coming thick and fast.

The film itself is quite original.  As regular readers will know, I am something of a consumer of documentaries about the New Testament, and I can't recall having seen anything quite like this.  Its chief focus is on Paul's collection for the saints in Jerusalem.  It tells the story of Paul's troubled relations with James, Peter and the other apostles in Jerusalem, and explains how he became fixated on what it calls his "polite bribe".

The film uses an unseen narrator and a unique animation style that somehow manages to capture the
sense of this as another world.  Orlando avoids usual documentary distractions of shots of present day Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, and so on.  But most strikingly, the story is told primarily by means of multiple modern-day Biblical scholars.

Many of the top shots are there.  They include documentary regulars like Bart Ehrman and Tom Wright, new documentary stars like Candida Moss, and many I have not seen before on film, Philip Esler, Douglas Campbell, Amy-Jill Levine.  Orlando seems to get the best out of them all.  Ben Witherington III appears often and is surprisingly amusing.  Indeed, many of them appear relaxed and even humorous, perhaps because they all get a little more than the usual twenty second soundbites.

I was impressed by the way that the film manages to weave a story that scholars know well into a narrative that would be comprehensible and compelling to those with no knowledge of the field.  It's certainly something I would enjoy using in the classroom, but I suspect that those who will enjoy it most will be those who are unaccustomed to reflecting critically on Paul's biography.

Although the film occasionally utilizes the Acts narrative, it tells its story primarily by means of an epistles-based chronology, and it is this angle that will prove refreshing to scholars who try so hard to underline the importance of beginning with the letters.  And from a scholarly perspective, perhaps the most surprising thing -- and something I asked Orlando about in the Q&A that followed the screening -- is its integration of scholars from a variety of different perspectives who end up telling a continuous story, from Luedemann to Witherington, from Ehrman to Wright.

A Polite Bribe is not perfect, of course, and students and scholars of Paul will have their niggles.  I felt that it telescoped the separate Jerusalem visits of Galatians 1 and 2 in such a way as to make it a little confusing for those unfamiliar with the text, and I shared James McGrath's puzzlement over the conflation of the terms Nazarene and Nazirite.  Paul also becomes a more lonely and isolated figure in the film than I think is likely to have been the case given the friends and partners in mission that we repeatedly witness in the letters, but this is, I suppose, a necessity of effective story-telling.  Overall, though, the film does a great job of illuminating Paul's life by focusing on a key issue, the "polite bribe" of the title, that is little known outside of academic circles.

Gerd Luedemann, Robert Orlando & Dave Gibson

After the screening, there was a Q&A chaired by Dave Gibson of the Religion News Service in which Robert Orlando responded to questions about the film and how he put it together.  There was some (but much less) response also from Gerd Luedemann.

I'd recommend the film to anyone interested in Christian origins.  Several screenings have been advertised for the coming weeks, and we have one at Duke on 23 January, which I'll discuss further in due course.

Update (10.10pm): Joshua Paul Smith has an interview with Robert Orlando about the film on the Near Emmaus blog.

Skepticism about Jesus' Wife Papyrus in the Chronicle of Higher Education

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife.  The news is that there is no news:

Skepticism About 'Jesus' Wife' Papyrus Grows as Test Results Lag
Tom Bartlett

I checked again this week with Jonathan Beasley, assistant director of communications at the Harvard Divinity School. He wrote in an email that "we are waiting for final reports to come in on some of the testing, and, depending on the results, for a decision about whether to do further testing."

He couldn't provide an estimate of when testing might be completed. Ms. King declined to comment, writing in an email that she had nothing to add to Mr. Beasley's statement.

There are quotations from this blog and from Larry Hurtado's blog, and a mention of Andrew Bernhard.  Bartlett's conclusion is that:

Such a flashy discovery won't just fade away. At some point we'll find out whether or not it was a hoax. In the meantime it's fair to ask why it's taking so long.

Two quick comments:

(1) It is still not clear to me if Harvard themselves are arranging for these tests or whether the owner of the fragment is arranging for these tests.  A comment in January suggested the latter.  There is clearly a major difference between the one and the other.  Does the owner currently have the fragment or does Harvard have it?

(2) Bartlett mentions that "the papyrus had already been tested".  I have heard this mentioned on several occasions but I am not sure of the source of it.  Karen King's article does not confirm this; she writes:

Given the content of this text, we took into serious consideration whether this was a genuine ancient text or a modern forgery. It would be very difficult to reproduce the kind the damage from insects or moisture that the fragment indicates, but it could have been penned on a blank piece of ancient papyrus, which are available for purchase on the antiquities market. Such a papyrus would pass a Carbon 14 dating test.

In other words, she suggests that the fragment could pass a Carbon 14 dating test even if the text itself was composed in modernity; she does not confirm that such a test was undertaken.

Defining an Apocalypse and Making Toast

We have recently come to the end of the semester here at Duke and in my New Testament Introduction, we reached the Book of Revelation right at the end, just as one should.  One of the things I always like to stress to introductory students is that "Revelation" is the same word as "Apocalypse" and that understanding apocalyptic is not simply about eschatology but is also, more importantly, about the open heaven and the revelation of divine secrets.

While I was retailing the SBL Apocalypse Group definition from 1979, I couldn't help finding myself amused by an element in it.  Take a look:

"Apocalypse" is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated  by an otherworldly being  to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world."

I've seen this and thought about this many times over the last twenty years or so, but what struck me on this occasion is that it contains the word being defined within the definition!  Since "revelation" is another way of saying "apocalypse", I can't help thinking that this is a bit like one of the recipes in a book I used to use as a student, The Gourmet Vegan by Heather Lamont.  In a section headed "Eating to Survive", the book helpfully explains how to make "toast" lest anyone is unfamiliar with the concept:

Toast
Used sliced wholemeal bread or bread buns, halved.  Toast until golden. Spread with vegan margarine, and any vegan jams, preserves, marmalades or Marmite . . ."

This used to strike me as hilarious.  The implied reader is a hypothetical (one might say non-existent) person who does does not know what "toast" is.  Should there be such an unlikely person who has purchased The Gourmet Vegan, they would hardly be helped in their ignorance of what "toast" is by invoking the verb "to toast".

It's worrying the kind of links that your mind makes when you are in the middle of teaching.  Perhaps it's just me.

The Apostle Paul - A Polite Bribe

Robert Orlando's documentary film about Paul, A Polite Bribe, premieres in New York City next Thursday, 19 December, at 8.10pm (poster to the left), where there will be a Q&A with the director as well as Gerd Luedemann.  The discussion will be moderated by David Gibson (Religious News Service).

I have not seen the film yet myself so I am looking forward to doing so.  There are trailers available here and lots of scholar clips available here (featuring, among others, Amy-Jill Levine, Bart Ehrman, Douglas Campbell, N. T. Wright and Daniel Boyarin).

There is more on the Polite Bribe website, and James McGrath has reviewed the film on his blog.

There is a screening planned in Durham, North Carolina on 23 January next year, more of which anon.

Whatever happened to the Gospel of Jesus' Wife?

Larry Hurtado ("Jesus Wife" Fragment: A Continuing Puzzle) has been raising questions about the Jesus' Wife Fragment, which was  announced with a great fanfare in September 2012 but which has now largely gone to ground.

The key issue here is that several scholars raised serious questions about the authenticity of the fragment, after which Karen King, Harvard Divinity School and the Harvard Theological Review all appeared to go quiet.  Nor has there been any public comment from the two other prominent scholars who originally supported the authenticity of the fragment, Roger Bagnall and AnneMarie  Luijendijk.

I won't repeat what Prof. Hurtado says in his blog post except to agree with his comments and to add some additional reflections of my own, born in part from continuing to think about this over the last year and more.

One of the issues here is that Harvard used the internet in a savvy way to publicize the claims, with excellent hi-def pictures published, a draft article, Q&As, video clips and so on. So we are not talking here about contrasting media.  This is not a case of blog-responses to published work. We are talking about responses within the same medium, responses, moreover, that were carefully considered, fair, detailed and rhetorically sensitive. If there are good answers to the critiques of Francis Watson, Andrew Bernhard, Leo Depuydt, Christian Askeland, Alin Suciu and others, then they need to be heard (see further: NT Blog: Gospel of Jesus' Wife).

As readers of those posts will know, I think the case for forgery is overwhelming.  But this does not mean that there is any shame in the early advocates of its authenticity explaining now that the case may not be as strong as they had originally thought. The internet brings something new and really valuable to scholarship, the availability of many eyes to look at something together in collaborative scholarship of a kind that was not available when, for example, Coleman Norton published his Jesus agraphon hoax.  (See further The Jesus' Wife Fragment and the Transformation of Peer Review?)

One concern that I would like to raise, though, is the following.  Where is the fragment now?  Is it still in the possession of Harvard Divinity School or not?  The report that I find troubling dates to January this year.  It is the most recent public comment about which I am aware:

"The owner of the fragment has been making arrangements for further testing and analysis of the fragment, including testing by independent laboratories with the resources and specific expertise necessary to produce and interpret reliable results. This testing is still underway," Kathyrn Dodgson, director of communications for the Harvard Divinity School, said in a email to CNN." (Still no news on the Jesus' Wife Fragment; emphasis added).

If the anonymous owner of the fragment is the one "making arrangements", is there any guarantee that we will ever see the results of these tests?  My question, therefore, is simple: where is the fragment now?