Garrow's Flaw

Over on Bart Ehrman's blog, there has been some fun relating to the Synoptic Problem. A commenter promised $1,000 to Prof. Ehrman's blog's charities if he engaged with Alan Garrow's work on the Synoptic Problem. Since I have read and thought about Dr Garrow's work, I thought I'd offer to write a post on it, drawing attention to what I see as one of the flaws in the argument. Prof. Ehrman has posted those comments today, and I am cross-posting them here.

I've enjoyed the social media reaction to this, with comments also on Alan Garrow's blog, The Logos Academic Blog, and no doubt elsewhere.

Please note that I do this to encourage people to visit and subscribe to my friend and colleague's blog, with the hope that others will support these great causes, including one local to us, The Urban Ministries of Durham.

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In a recent comment on Bart Ehrman's blog, "Evan" suggested that Alan Garrow's arguments are so compelling that he effectively "proves beyond any doubt that Matthew used both Mark and Luke". He says that it is "virtually impossible to believe in the Q theory once you’ve seen this data". The same commenter goes on to offer $1,000 for the charities on the blog in return for an assessment of Garrow's case, asking in particular for "holes in his arguments." As a self-confessed synoptic nerd, and as one who has spent some time with Garrow's work, I thought I would offer this critique by way of response. Since "Evan" is particularly interested in holes in Garrow's case, I thought I would focus on one particular flaw that places a major question mark over this model.

I should point out that while Bart and I are on different sides on the Synoptic Problem, he a staunch supporter of the Two-Source Theory and I an advocate of the Farrer Theory, we are both agreed that Matthew did not know Luke, which is what is under discussion here. I have enjoyed reading Bart's recent blog entries (and the multiple comments!) on these issues, and I hope to find a moment to respond, even if just to provide an excerpt from something I have written. But back to the immediately pressing issue.

Alan Garrow has made his case in a series of videos on his blog, Streeter's 'Other' Synoptic Solution: The Matthew Conflator Hypothesis and An Extant Instance of Q, and it is these videos that "Evan" is referring to. Garrow's more detailed, scholarly argument is laid out in two articles by the same names recently published in the premier journal in the field, New Testament Studies. The fact that one of Garrow's articles is entitled "An Extant Instance of Q" illustrates that it can hardly be the case that "Alan Garrow has compiled an extremely compelling argument that Q never existed" (so "Evan", on Bart's blog). Garrow is actually arguing that Matthew and Luke did use Q, and that we can see exactly how they used Q, because Q has not been lost. Q is, in fact, the Didache! The Didache is a fascinating early Christian work, first published in 1883, but Garrow is the first -- to my knowledge -- to identify it with the hypothetical Q.

Garrow's synoptic model works with Marcan Priority (something shared by Bart and me) but he adds a couple of further elements: (1) Matthew and Luke both know and use Q, which is now unveiled as the Didache; and (2) Matthew also knows Luke's Gospel. In his videos and articles, he works with the analogy of a multiple vehicle car crash. All the data, he says, need to be explained. He then pays special attention to a key element in the car crash -- the variation in rates of verbatim (word for word) agreement between Matthew and Luke in the double tradition (i.e. in passages found only in Matthew and Luke). He points out, quite correctly, that sometimes Matthew and Luke have very high verbatim agreement with one another, and sometimes they have rather low verbatim agreement with one another. This variation in verbatim agreement, he says, demands an explanation.

Garrow argues that his model provides a good explanation of both the high verbatim and the low verbatim passages. High verbatim passages are the result of Matthew directly copying from Luke. They are places where Matthew has just Luke in front of him. Here, Matthew is copying Luke "without distraction." Low verbatim passages are the result of Matthew conflating Luke with Q (=the Didache), i.e. places where Matthew does not agree as much with Luke because he is distracted by one of Luke's sources, Q (=the Didache). As he expresses it, "High DT [double tradition] passages are best explained by Matthew’s copying of Luke without interference from any other entity.”

Garrow is right that the spectrum of agreement in Matthew's and Luke's double tradition requires an explanation. Anyone studying the Synoptic Problem should certainly make sure that they have a good account of why Matthew and Luke sometimes agree very closely and why they sometimes provide the same material in very different words. But is Garrow's diagnosis correct? I don't think so. The difficulty is that it is contradicted by his own model. Several of the passages with very high verbatim agreement in Matthew and Luke are passages where Matthew, on Garrow's own theory, is also copying from Mark, passages like John's messianic preaching (Matt. 3.12 // Luke 3.17), the Beelzebub Controversy (Matt. 12.22-30 // Luke 11.14-23), and the Sign of Jonah (Matt. 12.38-42 // Luke 11.16, 29-32). In passages like these, Matthew and Luke can be remarkably close in wording, and yet these are passages where there are also parallels in Mark.

In other words, Garrow has constructed a model where Matthew is supposed to be agreeing very closely with Luke when there is no distraction, in places where only Luke has the passage in question. And he is supposed to agree with Luke much less when he is distracted by another source, the Didache (or Q). But this is sometimes manifestly not the case. We can test Garrow's thesis by asking how Matthew behaves when the evangelist is copying from both Luke and Mark. And since these passages (usually called "Mark Q Overlap passages") feature a lot of very high verbatim agreement between Matthew and Luke, it is clear that "distraction" has nothing to do with it.

Garrow summarizes his own argument by saying that, "[W]hen Matthew copies Luke without distraction he produces High DT passages. When, however, Matthew knows differing versions of the same event he conflates them – resulting in a Low DT passage." But on Garrow's own thesis, Matthew is quite capable of producing high verbatim agreement when he "knows differing versions of the same event." It may be worth adding that there are plenty of low verbatim passages in Matthew and Luke where there is no parallel in Mark or the Didache, i.e. Matthew is perfectly capable of producing a low verbatim passage on his own with just one source. Whatever we might make of the wisdom of comparing one's synoptic model to a car crash, it has to be said that high verbatim agreement is simply not diagnostic of an author working from only one source, just as low verbatim agreement is not diagnostic of an author working from more than one.
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Early Christianity Position at Duke

I am happy to be able to post the following announcement of a position in Early Christianity in our department at Duke:

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The Department of Religious Studies within Trinity College of Arts & Sciences at Duke University invites applications and nominations for a position in the study of Early Christianity, at the rank of (tenure-track) Assistant or (tenured) Associate Professor. Candidates with expertise in any aspect of Early Christianity in the late ancient world (ca. 3rd to 10th century) are encouraged to apply.  The successful candidate will be familiar with critical methods in Religious Studies and will combine excellence in undergraduate instruction with teaching and mentoring in the Graduate Program in Religion. Collaboration with other programs and departments at Duke as well as with colleagues at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill is expected.

Interested candidates should send a letter of application, a curriculum vitae, evidence of innovation and expertise in teaching (e.g. teaching evaluations, a teaching statement, a list of proposed courses), and the names and contact information (email, phone, and postal address) of three references to http://academicjobsonline.org. Initial review of applications will begin November 1, 2017. Informal queries should be addressed to Professor Marc Brettler, chair of the search committee, at MZB3@duke.edu.  Consideration will continue until the position is filled.  Start date is August 2018.

Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, is an Equal Employment Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer committed to providing employment opportunity without regard to an individual's age, color, disability, genetic information, gender, gender identity, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status.

Mark Mattison's Gospels.net

I am grateful to Andrew Bernhard for sending over news of a change in his website Gospels.net. He posted the following message on Labor Day:

Thank you to all who have visited my site during the past twenty years. I am humbled by the attention it has received and grateful for the opportunities it has provided me to connect with interesting people around the world. I am now pleased to pass gospels.net on to Mark Mattison. I have been impressed by his dedication, as an independent scholar, to preparing public domain translations of ancient gospels not included in the New Testament. I regard Mark's work in making these gospels available online and usable by all as invaluable. I wish Mark only the best in continuing his work of making these texts easily accessible (without either sensationalizing or denigrating them). Gospels.net is his website now.

Andrew's website has been online since the early days, and I have happy memories of finding it, enthusing about it, and linking to it on the NT Gateway. I've just taken a look at the NT Gateway from seventeen years ago, and there it is on the Non-canonicals page, then titled "Jesus of Nazareth in Early Christian Gospels". I must admit that I do miss those simpler times when it was possible to be almost exhaustive in one's coverage of the area, and I miss the fun of hand-coding my web pages.

Going back a little further, it's a "Featured Link" in July 1999, with the comment "This fine web resource by Andrew Bernhard is the new version of the web site formerly known as The Quest of the Historical Jesus. This is a first class resource, featuring introductions, fresh translations, bibliography and links on canonical, non-canonical and hypothetical gospels. Its most notable new feature is The Greek Fragments of the Gospel of Thomas, an on-line edition of the Oxyrhynchus fragments of Thomas with translation."

But that is quite enough reminiscing. Andrew has now handed on his site to Mark Mattison, who is well known for his The Paul Page. The new gospels.net includes Mark's translations of The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Mary, The Gospel of Judas, and other ancient gospels.

When I asked Andrew why he decided to transfer gospels.net to Mark, he replied:

Over the last five years or so, there have been a lot of changes in my life. As a result, my interests have changed pretty drastically, and I just realized that I personally wasn’t going to be devoting much more time or energy to the study of ‘lost gospels.’ I actually retired the site back in January, but then I changed my mind and decided it would be better to pass it on to somebody else. Mark seemed like the perfect fit, and I have no doubt he’ll make great use of the site. He’ll probably make it better than I ever did! Regardless, as far as my own scholarship on early Christianity is concerned, I am done.”

So this post is in part to say a big thank you to Andrew for his fine website, and the work he has put into it over the last two decades, and in part to thank Mark Mattison for taking it on and taking it forward.

"Say it with awe!" The Apocryphal John Wayne

Twelve years ago (Say it with awe; Say it with awe update), I blogged about the legendary John Wayne story, in which the Duke, playing the role of the centurion at the cross in The Greatest Story Ever Told, delivers the line "Truly, this was the Son of God," only to be told by director George Stevens, "Say it with awe, John!" He responds, "Awww, truly this was the son of God!".

 Here's the clip in context. Wayne comes on at the 2:30 mark:

I noted at the time that the story certainly appears to be apocryphal, and I have been meaning to take a little more time to look into it ever since. I am currently teaching my Jesus in Film course at Duke, and this week we all watched The Greatest Story Ever Told, and it prompted me to revisit the story.

It is always difficult to chase down the authenticity of stories like this. Demonstrating that something did not happen is tough. But after a little searching, I found a lovely confirmation that in fact it never happened, in an interview that fills in some background and context in Greatest Story.

The source is Michael Munn, John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth (New York: New American Library, 2003): 248-9. Munn begins by retelling the famous story:

There is a famous but untrue story concerning Wayne’s only line of dialogue in the Crucifixion scene, and this is the time to put the record straight. According to legend, Wayne said his line “Truly this was the Son of God” three times, none of them to Stevens’s satisfaction. So Stevens said, “Can you give it a little more awe, Duke?” and Duke said, “Aw, this was truly the Son of God.” Very funny. But not true.

He goes on with an account of a 1977 interview he conducted with Roddy McDowall, who played Matthew in the film:

When I interviewed Roddy McDowall on the set of The Thief of Baghdad at Shepperton Studios in 1977, he talked about his work on The Greatest Story Ever Told, in which he played the disciple Matthew, and about John Wayne’s brief appearance as the centurion. Said McDowall, “We shot the Crucifixion on a soundstage in the studio. It was a marvelous set. There was hardly any dialogue except between the actors playing the two thieves and Max as Jesus. I promise you, John Wayne as the centurion did not say a word. If you watch the film closely, when you hear his voice saying, ‘Truly this was the Son of God,’ you don’t see his lips move, and that’s because George Stevens had decided he wasn’t going to let the audience hear Wayne. In fact, he shot the scenes of Jesus carrying his cross and the Crucifixion in such a way that you hardly knew it was John Wayne. George was embarrassed that he’d been made to bring in so many stars as extras. After filming, George decided he needed the centurion to say the line after all, and he got Wayne into a sound studio, and he wasn’t in costume and he just had a microphone, and George asked him to deliver the line. Wayne told him, ‘I can’t do this.’ George said, ‘You’re an actor, aren’t you? That’s what you’ve been trying to prove all these years.’ And Wayne said, ‘I’ve got nothing to react to, so if I screw this up, don’t blame me.’ And he was right. He couldn’t give the line what it needed. You can’t blame Wayne, you can’t blame George; you can only blame the assholes who made the decision to use Wayne—and all the other actors who were in that scene just so the names would bring in the crowds—which they didn’t.”

Munn's account ends with this enjoyable comment:

Playing John the Baptist was Charlton Heston, Hollywood’s most prolific star of epics. He said, “There are actors who can do period parts and there are actors who can’t. God knows Duke Wayne couldn’t play a first-century Roman.”

McDowall, as reported by Munn, is right -- Wayne's lips are not moving in the scene.

Although it never happened, it is, of course, a lovely story, and like all good myths, it tells the hearer something important about its subject matter. In this case, it names the director of the film, it tells you that Hollywood bigwigs played key cameos, and it tells you that the film erred by casting famous Hollywood stars at the expense of realism. And, of course, it makes you chuckle.

Favourite Jesus Film

It's the beginning of a new academic year at Duke and this semester I am teaching my undergraduate course on Jesus in Film for a second time. I am hoping to blog about the course as I did last time.

For a first post on the topic, I have pulled up the results of a poll I took after teaching the course in Spring 2015. I simply asked the students in the class, after they had watched over twenty Jesus films, "Which is your favourite?" Here's how the vote came out:

1. Jesus of Nazareth (8 votes)
2. Passion of the Christ (6 votes)
3. Jesus Christ Superstar (5 votes)
4. Last Temptation of Christ (4 votes)

5= The Nativity (BBC) (3 votes)
5= The Miracle Maker (3 votes)
5= Jesus (CBS, 2000) (3 votes)
5= Jesus of Montreal (3 votes)

9= The Bible / Son of God (2 votes)
9= The Passion (BBC / HBO) (2 votes)

11= Life of Brian (1 vote)
11= Gospel of John (Visual Bible) (1 vote)
11= The Nativity Story (2006) (1 vote)
11= Son of Man (2006) (1 vote)
11= King of Kings (1961) (1 vote)

The following received no votes at all:

Greatest Story Ever Told
The Gospel According to St Matthew
Godspell
Killing Jesus

Apocalypse of Peter (Greek text)

Back in 2005, I transcribed a Greek text of the Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim fragment, from Erich Klostermann's edition) and uploaded to the web. I updated the files in 2007 and 2009 and for a couple of years I have been meaning to make some corrections to the text in the files. I am very grateful to Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Schütt for pointing out several typos in the original files. They are now all corrected and I think we have a pretty accurate version, but please let me know if you spot anything else that's in need of correction. They are found in the same spot here:

The Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim Fragment) [MS Word]

Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim Fragment) [PDF]

Update (5 July 2017): Please see comments (below) for some helpful updates and bibliography on the Apocalypse of Peter from Wolfgang Grünstäudl.

Who Was Jesus? (1977) is Now Online

I have blogged my fascination with the 1977 BBC documentary Who Was Jesus? on a couple of occasions (Caird, Flusser and Cupitt on Who Was Jesus? (1977) and Who Was Jesus? (1977)) and I've been really keen to see it for many years. I remember listening to my mum's audio recording of the series as a youngster; I have always been intrigued by Don Cupitt, whose views were something of a cause célèbre when I began theological study; my interest in the history of documentaries on the Bible is always growing; and perhaps more than anything I was very excited about the possibility of seeing one of my beloved teachers, John Fenton, on film. So when Peter Armstrong released a twenty minute clip back in 2013, there was some hope that there might be more on the way. Now that has happened!

Peter Armstrong, the producer of Who Was Jesus?, has now put all two hours of the documentary online for all to view for free. It's in two parts and it's fascinating in all sorts of ways:

Who Was Jesus?







Part 1 is in many senses the documentary proper. It includes the earlier released clip of the conversations with George Caird and David Flusser, but it also features an enjoyable exchange with Anthony Birley about the existence of Jesus, and the conversation with John Fenton I mentioned above.

Part 2 is largely Cupitt's reflections on what he has discovered in part 1, along with exchanges with Michael Green (including a great shot of him putting a board outside St Aldate's Church in Oxford, with Christ Church in the background), Christopher Butler, and Brian Hebblethwaite, all three of whom had recently contributed to The Truth of God Incarnate, the book written to counter The Myth of God Incarnate, to which Cupitt had contributed along with John Hick, Michael Goulder, Dennis Nineham, Frances Young and others.

In some respects the documentary appears rather dated. The scholars are almost all British white males of a certain age, and the interviews with them go on for long segments -- they are nothing like the twenty-second soundbites we get now. But in other respects, the documentary covers a lot of ground, and I can't help thinking that today's fast-paced documentaries lose something of the grace and space that Cupitt is given to develop his thoughts. Cupitt is a charming and compelling guide -- intrigued, troubled and personally engaged in the subject matter he is exploring.

Summer Seminar with Prof. Robert Cargill and me in Minnesota

There is still time to book for the Biblical Archaeology Society's Summer Seminar event with Prof. Robert Cargill and me at St Olaf College in July. Here are the details:

St Olaf College Summer Seminar with Robert Cargill and Mark Goodacre

St. Olaf College
Northfield, Minnesota
July 16 – July 22, 2017

The Biblical Archaeology Society invites you to join us this summer at our ever-popular St. Olaf program on the beautiful campus of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Our featured speakers are BAR’s new associate editor, Dr. Robert Cargill of the University of Iowa as well as Dr. Mark Goodacre of Duke University, one of our most popular and engaging speakers. These two dynamic presenters will be our scholars-in-residence for the week, and their 20-lecture program promises to be an exciting window into the latest research in the field of Biblical archaeology . . .

Read more . . .

I am taking as my topic "Gospel Truth? A Historical Investigation of the Gospels" (lecture titles and abstracts here).  I am very much looking forward to spending time with Prof. Cargill as well as those of you who are planning to join us! 

Paul of Tarsus (1960) clips in The TV That Made Me

Almost ten years ago, I blogged about the forgotten BBC TV Series, Paul of Tarsus (1960), starring Patrick Troughton (Paul of Tarsus (1960); More on Paul of Tarsus (BBC, 1960); Paul of Tarsus (1960): More details). In the intervening years, I have never had any success in viewing this, but at last we can actually now see some brief clips.

In an episode of The TV That Made Me, Brian Conley interviews Anne Widdecombe about her favourite television, and she cites Paul of Tarsus as her earliest TV memory. I've excerpted the relevant section of the episode and uploaded to Youtube here:





The clips are tantalizingly brief, but what we see of Troughton playing Paul suggests that his performance was marvellous. It's also nice that The Passion (BBC / HBO, 2008) gets a mention at the end.

Many thanks to Tony Bellows for alerting me to this episode of The TV That Made Me. It was recently repeated, but the original broadcast was on BBC1 on 20 August 2015.

Speaker's Lectures in Biblical Studies: John's Knowledge of the Synoptic Gospels

I'm giving the Speaker's Lectures in Biblical Studies in Oxford this year, beginning tomorrow (Tuesday). Full details below:


John's Knowledge of the Synoptic Gospels

Mark Goodacre
Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, Duke University
12 noon in the Pusey Room, Keble College
The Graduate Workshop will take place between 2pm and 4pm in the Gibbs Room, Keble College

The Lectures are open to the public

A series of four lectures delivered as follows:

Tuesday, 2nd May
"I believe in Dodd": John, Jesus and Historical Tradition

Wednesday, 3rd May
John's Dramatic Transformation of the Synoptics

Tuesday, 9th May
The Beloved Disciple for Readers of the Synoptics

Wednesday, 10th May
John's Christological Transformation of the Synoptics + Graduate Workshop (2pm-4pm)

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I look forward to seeing some of you there! Link to this information on the University of Oxford Faculty of Theology and Religion website is here. PDF poster here. 

Gospel of Jesus' Wife Updates

It would be easy to think that there would be nothing new to say about the Gospel of Jesus' Wife after the dramatic events of last June (chronicled here under the headings The Owner of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife is Unmasked and Gospel of Jesus' Wife: Last Chapter Round-up), but as I was preparing to teach the topic today in my Non-Canonical Gospels class, I came across several elements that are worth noting.

First, New Testament Studies has just published a follow-up to Andrew Bernhard's earlier article that showed how the Gospel of Jesus' Wife was dependent on Michael Grondin's online Gospel of Thomas Interlinear. Bernhard's latest article develops material first posted here (The End of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife Forgery Debate; The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: “Patchwork Forgery” in Coptic . . . and English (Recap); The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: “Patchwork” Forgery in Coptic . . . and English) and it's great to see this material now developed and published in NTS:

Postscript: A Final Note about the Origin of the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife
Andrew Bernhard
NTS 63/2 (April 2017): 305-17
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0028688516000370  Published online: 06 March 2017

The owner of the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife provided Karen King with an interlinear translation of the text. Like the Coptic of the papyrus fragment, the English of this interlinear translation appears dependent on ‘Grondin's Interlinear Coptic/English Translation of the Gospel of Thomas’. It shares a series of distinctive textual features with Grondin's work and even appears to translate two Coptic words found in the Gospel of Thomas but not in the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. Consequently, the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife seems undeniably to be a ‘patchwork’ of brief excerpts from the Gospel of Thomas created after November 2002.

Congratulations to Andrew on the publication.

While I was preparing my class, I wanted to update my powerpoint to incorporate the key developments of the last eighteen months since I last taught it -- Walter Fritz, the Owner's Interlinear, and of course the utterly compelling article by Ariel Sabar. A lot has happened! In checking the official Harvard Divinity School website about the Gospel of Jesus' Wife to grab a copy of the Owner's Interlinear, I was surprised to see that it (the Interlinear) had been removed. But also the site has been significantly stripped down, and the statement conceding forgery has been removed. Here's the link to the revised version of the site:

Gospel of Jesus's Wife

To elaborate: back in June, Harvard Divinity School had updated the site to include a formal statement by its dean, David N. Hempton (reproduced here), in which he noted the article by Ariel Sabar, and the comments on it by Karen King, that the investigation "tips the balance towards forgery." I wonder why the decision was made to remove that statement and the other material?

The site retains an error. The "Imaging" page mentions that digital images of the Gospel of John fragment are available on the site, but they are not; that's why we had to extract the images from the PDFs of the scientific reports in order to see them.

I would also like to draw attention to two further elements of interest. The first is a short introduction to the text for a useful site called E-Clavis, posted as part of NASSCAL (North American Society for the Study of the Christian Apocryphal Literature):

Gospel of Jesus' Wife
Ian Brown

The entry includes a good bibliography, with lots of the major publications and posts on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife included.

The second is a a new summary by Andrew Bernhard of the case for forgery just posted:

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: Summary of Coptic and English Evidence of Forgery (March 8, 2017)

Thanks to Andrew for letting me know about this. Note: this is different from the formal NTS post listed above.

For previous posts on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife, please see this link: Gospel of Jesus' Wife. That's fifty-one posts in total!

Update (2.36pm): Although the images of Lycopolitan John are still not found on the official Gospel of Jesus Wife page (see above), they do appear in a really superb HD version now on the Harvard Library website:

MS Coptic 12. Houghton Library, Harvard University. Gospel of John fragment : manuscript, undated

The same site also provides the same kind of HD images for the Gospel of Jesus' Wife Fragment here:

MS Coptic 11. Houghton Library, Harvard University. Gospel of Jesus’s Wife : manuscript, circa 741

Note, however, that the date of "circa 741" is the date of the papyrus it was written on; the date of the text is, of course, twenty-first century.

Finding Jesus Season Two

Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact, Forgery returns tonight for its second season. Tune in to CNN at 9pm ET/PT. Here's the trailer:




The first episode deals with Pontius Pilate and focuses on the Pilate stone. There's a clip here (featuring Candida Moss, Robert Cargill and me):





I've been doing some publicity for the series over the last few days including multiple radio interviews, but it was a special pleasure to talk to our own Duke Today:

The Historical Jesus: Separating Fact from Fiction

It's worth keeping an eye out on CNN this weekend too for interviews with Obery Hendricks and Robert Cargill.

There are several other things I could list, but I'll try to add more in the coming days and weeks as the episodes go out. One thing worth mentioning is a companion website for pastors available here:

CNN Finding Jesus Resources

Number of the Beast on Bible Mysteries

I get to the last lecture in my Introduction to the New Testament course tomorrow, and it provides the opportunity to talk about Revelation. I generally find that the subject matter is so interesting that I ask myself why I don't try to teach a whole course on Apocalyptic and the Apocalypse. 

One issue that has to be on the agenda is the number of the beast, something I have occasionally blogged on. On one of those occasions, I linked to a video in which Ian Boxall, sitting on Patmos, explains how it works, using pieces of pottery. Alas, that video long since disappeared. The clip was from a BBC series, Bible Mysteries (2003), which has never been commercially released. I am happy to have found a copy recently from which I have extracted the relevant clip. 

 

As well as Prof. Ian Boxall (now of Catholic University of America), we see Prof. David Parker, OBE, of the University of Birmingham.

How to email your students

I have just come across this delightful piece of advice to students about how to email their professors (HT: Laura Lieber, with thanks!):

How to Email Your Professor (without being annoying AF)
Laura Portwood-Stacer

There is some great advice there, but I couldn't help thinking of those professors out there who do not know how to email their students. So here are some of my thoughts on this problem that occasionally rears its head:

How to Email Your Students (without being annoying)

(1) Don’t ignore your students' emails. One of the most frequent complaints that advisors hear is “The professor did not respond to my email.” This is rude and unprofessional, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

(2) Commit to responding as quickly as possible. Your students will love it if you respond in a timely fashion, and it will create a good vibe, which will improve the classroom relationship too.

(3) Actually read your students' emails. Don’t just toss off a hasty response that does not take their concern seriously. If you write a hasty, unhelpful response, you place them in the difficult situation of having to email you back again. This can make them feel awkward and embarrassed and it wastes their time and yours.

(4) Write as full a response as is necessary. Not too much; not too little. Don’t go over the top or you may come across as a wordy, head-in-the-clouds professor with no understanding of the issue at hand.

(5) Be encouraging. If the email asks a good question or makes a great point, congratulate your student on the intellectual stimulation that they have provided.

(6) Conclude the email by asking if this been helpful and if it has resolved their issue. Suggest that you would be happy to meet with them in person to discuss things further. Remember that many students are intimidated by their professors and are reticent to speak to them after class, or to come to office hours.

(7) Treat your student emails as part of an intellectual conversation. It is a wonderful privilege to be a professor in a university, and we are here to teach our students. We are engaged in an intellectual journey together in higher education. There are lots of people who would give their right arm to do what we are doing. Treat it as the privilege that it is.

(8) Try your best not to be pompous. Your students will not respond well to arrogance and condescension. You were a student once too. Try to remember what that was like!

Gospel of Jesus' Wife: Last Chapter Round-Up

Since the remarkable piece of investigative journalism from Ariel Sabar was published last Wednesday (The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus' Wife), in which the owner of the fragment, Walter Fritz, was unmasked, the discussion in the media has taken off at a pretty pace. In this post, I'd like to draw together several of the key developments. 

On Thursday, Christian Askeland filled in some further details on Walter Fritz in the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog:

More on the Gospel of Jesus Wife and Walter Fritz

And then on Friday, Owen Jarus of Live Science explained the key role he played in following leads on the text's provenance and finding his way to Fritz:

Gospel of Jesus's Wife Likely a Fake, Bizarre Backstory Suggests

Meanwhile, Karen King herself responded to Ariel Sabar's article and called him to say that she found it "fascinating" and "very helpful". In a short follow-up, Sabar explained that for Prof. King, the new information "presses in the direction of forgery":

Karen King Responds to ‘The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus’s Wife’
The Harvard scholar says papyrus is probably a forgery

These reported comments led to further media reaction as more read and digested Sabar's compelling story. One of the three original journalists to cover the story on 12 September 2012, Lisa Wangsness, author also of a fine piece entitled "Is the 'Gospel of Jesus' Wife a Revelation or a Hoax?" last November, returned again to the story in the Boston Globe:

‘Jesus’s wife’ papyrus likely fake, scholar says

Wangsness featured more comments from Karen King, as well as a tidbit from me. One of the questions in the article was whether there ought perhaps to be some kind of comment on the latest news from Harvard. A comment was soon forthcoming. Today (Monday 20th June), they added an update to the Gospel of Jesus wife website:

Update: June 20, 2016
Statement from HDS Dean David N. Hempton on the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife”

The June 15, 2016 issue of The Atlantic Monthly published an article entitled The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus's Wife. The article called into question the provenance and authenticity of a papyrus fragment, purportedly stating "Jesus said to them, My wife" that is the subject of research by Professor Karen King of Harvard Divinity School. 

Reached for comment by The Boston Globe after publication of the Atlantic article, Professor King was quoted as stating that "It appears now that all the material [owner Walter] Fritz gave to me concerning the provenance of the papyrus ... were fabrications." 

On June 16, 2016, The Atlantic published an interview with Professor King by the same author, in which Professor King stated that the Atlantic's investigation "tips the balance towards forgery” and that the preponderance of the evidence now presses in that direction. 

The mission of Harvard Divinity School, its faculty, and higher education more generally is to pursue truth through scholarship, investigation, and vigorous debate. HDS is therefore grateful to the many scholars, scientists, technicians, and journalists who have devoted their expertise to understanding the background and meaning of the papyrus fragment. HDS welcomes these contributions and will continue to treat the questions raised by them with all the seriousness they deserve. 

David N. Hempton
Dean, Harvard Divinity School

Over the weekend and today there have been more and more articles on the story. Most of them simply repeat, summarize and comment on The Atlantic, Boston Globe and Live Science pieces, though there is a fresh piece from the Associated Press that is finding its way into several places, including The Guardian:

Jesus' Wife Papyrus Probably Fake, Say Experts
New evidence indicates the fragment in which Jesus refers to ‘my wife’ is likely to be a modern forgery

They interviewed me for this piece too, just after a Skype interview on CBN that is available here:




Debunking the Myth: Did Jesus Really Have a Wife?

Also today, the Boston Globe followed up its earlier article with a comment from Harvard Theological Review:

Harvard Theological Review won’t retract ‘Jesus’s Wife’ paper

. . . . Jon D. Levenson and Kevin J. Madigan, editors of the Harvard Theological Review, said in a statement Monday that their journal “has scrupulously and consistently avoided committing itself on the issue of the authenticity of the papyrus fragment.” 

The editors say King’s article and the articles on scientific tests King commissioned on the fragment “were represented or misrepresented in some circles as establishing the authenticity of the fragment.” . . . . 

There have also been several comments in the blogs that are worth viewing. As well as Christian Askeland and Peter Gurry on Evangelical Textual Criticism, there is interesting commentary from Roberta Mazza on Faces & Voices, Carrie Schroeder on Early Christian Monasticism in the Digital Age (Provenance, Provenance, Provenance, More on Social Networks and Provenance, and On Kindness and Critique), Jim Davila on Paleojudaica, and Malcolm Choat on Markers of Authenticity. I have certainly missed others; please let me have any links that I should add.

I don't have much fresh to add, at this point, to what I've already said. Perhaps I will say more in due course. My overwhelming feeling at this point is a profound sadness about the whole affair. Yes, it's been fantastic to see scholars like Christian Askeland and Andrew Bernhard exposing the hoax so skilfully. And it is true that the twists and turns of the story over the last four years have made fascinating reading. But at the same time it's very sad that we have all spent so much time and energy on what, in the end, is someone's attempt to dupe the academy. We are all victims of this appalling episode.

The Owner of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife is Unmasked

In September 2012, four journalists were granted special interviews on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife, published the day that Karen King revealed the manuscript in Rome. One of them, Lisa Wangsness, returned to the topic last November in a follow-up article in the Boston Globe. Now another of them, Ariel Sabar, who wrote a compelling and lengthy article for The Smithsonian, has also returned to the topic in a quite brilliant piece of investigative journalism, published this time in The Atlantic:

The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus' Wife

A hotly contested, supposedly ancient manuscript suggests Christ was married. But believing its origin story requires a big leap of faith.
Ariel Sabar

Karen King has always protected the anonymity of the owner of the papyrus but his identity is now no longer in doubt. Quite simply, this is a superb piece of investigative journalism. Sabar unmasks Walter Fritz in a detailed and compelling story that is the result of intelligent and detailed research. It will take you a while to read, but it will be worth it.

I could excerpt pieces of the article, but I'd rather not spoil it by doing that, especially as it is structured so beautifully. I will, however, say that I am delighted that Walter Fritz has such confidence in the scholarship of those who exposed the forgery, whom he describes as "'county level' scholars from the 'University of Eastern Pee-Pee Land'”.

Update (Thursday 16 June, 5.08pm): Christian Askeland helpfully fills in some further details on Walter Fritz in the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog:

More on the Gospel of Jesus Wife and Walter Fritz

Update (Thursday 16 June, 11.30pm): Only twenty-four hours after Sabar's article, he has this follow-up:

Karen King Responds to ‘The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus’s Wife’
The Harvard scholar says papyrus is probably a forgery

And so we have reached the final chapter of this affair, after almost four years of discussion. 

St Thomas Basilica

Following on from my recent posts about St Thomas Mount and Little Mount, this one explores another key Thomas location, St Thomas Basilica in Mylapore, Chennai, India. This is the place where Thomas's tomb is allegedly located and an impressive neo-Gothic cathedral is on the site.

Once again, I recorded my thoughts and edited them in the latest episode of the NT Pod:

NT Pod 79: Santhome Basilica

The magnificent white church building was built by the British in the late nineteenth century but the basilica was built by the Portuguese in the 16th century (cf. the church at Little Mount). I decided to make the journey by bus, which is something of a challenge, not least because the buses in Chennai are so unbelievably crowded. But they are also unbelievably cheap. A one-way journey lasting an hour (over about 17 km) cost me just 12 rupees (about 12p or 18c).

There is one huge advantage that this site has over the previous two that I visited -- it has a museum dedicated to the Apostle Thomas. And the museum features several items of interest. Unlike St Thomas Mount, it is not just about John 20 and "My Lord and My God". There is much more by way of the apocryphal Thomas traditions, perhaps most interestingly this relic of the lancehead that supposedly killed Thomas.

There is also a double-sided pedestal that references King Gondophores and the legend of the log on the one side (a legend also illustrated in a relief that is on the wall of the museum), and Thomas in teaching mode on the other side.

Somewhat frustratingly, a lot of the other material in the museum is labelled only in the most vague way imaginable. So there is an entire display of ancient pottery apparently discovered at the site, with dating only to "the olden days"! So too another display of bones is said to be from that same period.

The museum itself is situated above Thomas's tomb. The tomb is at the front of a chapel with pews where people pray and reflect. There is not a lot to see -- it's a colourful, relatively modern representation of Thomas in glass casing.

Although in the podcast I say that I could not take a photograph in there, I later managed to return to the site when it was empty and I took a quick pic while no one was looking.

I should also mention the large golden "pole of St Thomas" which stands tall to the side of the cathedral. It is reminiscent of the similar poll at St Thomas' Mount, although this one is taller and has a much smaller cross at the top.

Inside the cathedral itself, I should mention a nice statue of Thomas that sits to the left of the altar. Thomas is holding the legend "Deus Meus" (My God), so here, for once, we do not get the whole Johannine confession. Again, we were not supposed to be taking photographs, but my visit happened to coincide with a coachload of pilgrims from Nagaland, all of whom were snapping away with gay abandon (and rather bizarrely, they also all wanted to get pictures with me! I sat with various members of the group outside the cathedral for a good ten or fifteen photos!).

I was a touch disappointed that the promised twenty minute film about Thomas, which is very proudly advertised just outside the museum, was nowhere in evidence. At least I found it impossible to find anyone who could tell me any more about it.

Another curiosity of my visit, and this is partly reflected in the podcast, is the pursuit (one might say harassment) by several auto rickshaw drivers. One of them followed me around the entire site, usually on foot, but sometimes in his auto. At first, he made out that he was connected with the site and I foolishly engaged him in conversation. But soon it became clear that he wanted my business.

Once I'd shaken him, I got another, who even sat next to me in the cathedral. Once rid of him, and after the photographing session with the people from Nagaland, a third one began to pursue me. This one was the worst, and pursued me down the road after I left the site, even driving ahead of me, hiding behind a tree and jumping out in front of me.

Gandhi, on the beach at Mylapore, Chennai

A fourth auto driver was honest enough to tell me why they were so keen for business -- a group of four local shops selling hand-crafted goods were offering a 5kg bag of rice to any auto driver who brought them a new customer. Much later in the day, after my Veg Maharaja Mac at McDonald's, I happened to meet this guy again at the beach, where I was heading in the direction of the bus-stop for my journey back, and I rewarded his honesty by going on the little shop-tour so that he could pick up his bag of rice. But of course no good deed goes unpunished. We parted on bad terms because I would not also pay his rent for the next month.

Little Mount

Following on from my recent post about St Thomas Mount, this one explores another key Thomas location, Little Mount (Chinnamalai), also in Chennai.

It's the place where Thomas allegedly faced his death, and the church is built over the cave where he hid from persecution.

As before, I recorded my impressions of the site as I visited it, and I have released it as an episode of the NT Pod:

NT Pod 78: Little Mount

The site itself is tucked away down a side street (the "L.D.G. Road") with no sign-posts in sight. It caused my driver some degree of stress, to the point where I eventually got out of the car and walked. I could see where it was on my Sat Nav on my phone, but he was not inclined to trust it.

"Little Mount" really is only a few steps up from the road, and is nothing like the climb up to St Thomas Mount. Although it is the large round twentieth century church that makes the big impression, it's the old chapel built by the Portuguese in 1551 that houses Thomas's cave.

The chapel is small, but pleasantly cool if you are visiting on a hot day. A few pews look up towards a shrine of the Virgin Mary, but down to the left is St Thomas's cave.

I did not try recording in the chapel or the cave, not least because a gentleman hovered around me looking anxious when I had my phone out. But I did manage to grab a couple of quick pics.

There's a nice old explanatory placard before you go down to the cave. It's just the kind of thing one wants to see on these occasions.

The old marble placard reads, as best I can decipher it, as follows:

The cave where lay hid persecuted just before being martyred by Rajah Mahadevan, king of Mylapore, A.D. 68, Thomas, one of the twelve, the great Apostle of India, the very one who put his finger into the wounds of his Lord and God. Drop your penny for this great historical and archaeological monument.

While I was there, a woman went down into the cave to do some sweeping (I have seen a lot of women sweeping in India) and to collect up the pennies that had been dropped.

The cave itself is not for the claustrophobic. It has a proper bend-down-low entrance. There is a small shrine inside the cave, and a red circle marks the spot where Thomas was allegedly martyred.

The cave is without doubt the major attraction. I wondered whether it gets horribly crowded at busy times. I was happy to have it to all to myself. There were several praying in the chapel while I was there but none went down to the cave. I think I may have been the only tourist type there. 

While I was sitting outside the chapel, by this sign pointing to "St. Thomas Cave", a gentleman approached me and pointed to "water". I thought he was worried that I was overheating, but in retrospect, I think he may have been directing my attention to the miraculous spring. 

On the way there, one sees a rocky feature that draws attention to Thomas's footprint.

Up a few steps, one enters a separate chamber that has two key features. This is one -- a fountain with water that "cures diseases". The water is now behind bars and presumably inaccessible to present-day pilgrims.

The other is also a rocky crag, and it features a cross that is cut out of the rock.

This cross is behind glass and has the header "cross made by St. Thomas". Above it is a sign that says that the cross bled for many years in the 16th and 17th centuries.

There was a lady hovering around me the whole time that I was looking at these things, and I realized after a while that she was waiting for a contribution. It was rather a formal process -- she wrote it all down in her book and handed me a receipt. But once given, she allowed me to take my pics and do my recordings without hassle.

Little Mount also has a park it labels "Holy Land", accessible through some large pink gates. The idea of the park is that it imitates Jerusalem, and features colourfully represented elements from the Passion Narrative.

The most striking of these is a trial scene featuring Jesus (with a red robe and a green crown of thorns),  a centurion and two black elephants!

St Thomas Mount

The NT Pod and the NT Blog go on the road! It's long been an ambition of mine to visit the sites connected with the Apostle Thomas out in Chennai (formerly Madras) in India. I decided to photograph my visit and also to record my reflections.

You can listen to my first ever "on the road" episode of the NT Pod here:

NT Pod 77: St Thomas Mount

It is about 14 minutes long. The audio quality is of course much worse than usual. I was recording on my iPhone and I am a bit breathless as I climb the steps early the episode. And the wind at the top of the mount also interferes with the recording, as do the sounds of the planes above. But I hope that you enjoy a bit of the Chennai ambience, especially all those honking cars.

I arrived at the mount by taxi after a getting stuck in a very long traffic jam. Chennai traffic can be choc-a-bloc. I must admit that there is no way that I would want to drive here. It can be pretty terrifying to see how India drivers drive, and it's amazing that there are not more accidents. It's a question of experience, I suppose.

St Thomas Mount is in Chennai and is pretty close to the airport. There's a enjoyably battered old sign that greets you on entry (right), with a "tiffin" stall just underneath.

Beyond the battered old sign, to the left as we look, is the facade at the bottom of the mount that marks the beginning of the journey to the top. This nicely white-washed appearance is characteristic of the whole, including the walls either side of the steps on the way to the top, and the chapel building on top of the mount.

As one walks up the steps, the stations of the cross appear at regular intervals.

I visited the site on a Monday afternoon in February and there were only a few people around. And few of those were real tourists. The small shop selling religious artefacts was hardly doing any business at all.

Most of the visitors appeared to be there to pray. I think I saw more people inside the chapel than anywhere else.

It is striking to see how strongly the Thomas tradition has taken hold in the region. The tradition is at least as old as the Acts of Thomas which tells the story of the apostle's pilgrimage to India, at first with great reluctance.

St Thomas Mount itself offers very little by way of explanatory history. I didn't see a single placard giving anything of the apostle's story. His connection with the location is simply taken for granted.

A colourful statue of Thomas, with a gold, red and pink garment greets the pilgrim towards the top of the steps. He holds in his hand a book open to the words "My Lord, My God" (John 20.28). This is the first time we see these words, but then they appear again and again all over the shrine.

Once at the top of the mount, one of the more striking features is a tall, golden crucifix, on the far side of the mount, overlooking the city.

Just below it, as one looks down towards the city, the words "My Lord, My God" are spelled out in white stones.

The central piece is the church itself, which stands with a bronze relief of the Last Supper above its door. Once again, "My Lord, My God" are repeated here.








The chapel has an entrance called "the door of mercy", again with "My Lord and My God" over it, and a recent (2011) statue of Jesus and Thomas several feet in front of it.

Inside the chapel, there are individual pictures of the twelve apostles, right down to Thaddaeus, surely the more overlooked of the twelve!

I was perhaps a touch disappointed that the mount was so thoroughly focused on the one passage in John 20 and that there was so little influence from texts like the Acts of Thomas, and remarkably little on the apostle's connection with India.

One of the only depictions of Thomas not taken from John 20 is this scene of the apostle praying. It appears after the door of mercy on the entry into the chapel, opposite a depiction of Thomas and Jesus drawn from John 20. of the only depictions of Thomas not taken from John 20 is this scene of the apostle praying. It appears after the door of mercy on the entry into the chapel, opposite a depiction of Thomas and Jesus drawn from John 20.

There is also a convent on top of the mount. It speaks rather invitingly of "cool drinks" but nothing was on offer when I entered, and although there were several people in there, they appeared to be deep in their own conversations.

Elsewhere on the mount there is a stall that sells souvenirs but they were not really to my taste -- the kinds of garish mini-statues of Thomas and of Jesus that one would only buy to prove that one has visited the site.

There are loos just around the corner from the convent but it has to be said that they are a touch on the primitive side, perhaps dating back in time to when Thomas first visited India.

Overall, though, St Thomas Mount is well worth a visit. If you're anywhere near Chennai airport, it's a pretty short journey. Unless I missed it, disability access is poor to non-existent, so it is sadly only for those who can tackle the walk.

Although there are not that many steps, you may find yourself puffing and panting a bit (as you hear on my podcast), especially if you go along, as I did, during the heat of the day.

2016 Clark Lectures with Loveday Alexander

One of the great traditions at Duke is the annual series of Clark Lectures. Duke has hosted many fine scholars and some great lectures, and this year is no exception. This year's Clark Lectures feature Dr Loveday Alexander:

2016 Clark Lectures with Loveday Alexander

Duke Divinity School will hold the 2016 annual Clark Lectures with guest speaker Loveday Alexander, emeritus professor of Biblical studies at Sheffield University in England. Alexander will lecture on "Is Luke a Historian? Writing the History of the Early Church," and will give a second lecture on the topic on March 2 from 12:20 to 1:20 p.m. in 0012 Westbrook. The lectures are free and open to the public.

More at the link above.