CA Web Site of the Week

As I work through my web site (tonyburke.ca) and update various materials (including my links to sites focusing on the Christian Apocrypha), I thought it would be useful to offer more expansive descriptions of sites of interest in a series of “CA Web Site[s] of the Week” (cue applause). The first is Andrew Bernhard’s gospels.net.

Bernhard, an Oxford Graduate, is the author of Other Early Christian Gospels (London: T & T Clark, 2006) a study of the CA texts preserved in early papyri (e.g., P.Oxy. 840, The Egerton Gospel, the Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of Thomas, and others). These particular texts were the focus of the previous incarnation of this site, Jesus of Nazareth in Early Christian Gospels.

The current site contains resources for the study of twelve texts: the Gospels of Thomas (which receives the most attention), Judas, Mary, Peter, Egerton, P. Oxy. 840, the Jewish-Christian gospels, Secret Mark, and the Infancy Gospels of James and Thomas. For each gospel, Bernhard provides a list (and sometimes images) of the extant manuscripts, a select bibliography, scans of secondary sources (where available), and links to on-line resources.  The site features also a blog (which has been quite active of late with discussions of Secret Mark and the Gospel of Thomas) and a page of supplementary resources (e.g., links to texts from the Church Fathers, lexicons, etc.).

Gospels.net’s greatest contribution is the images of the manuscripts which, though available from host institutions, sites, and print resources, are found here in a useful, one-stop location. Bernhard’s blog, one of few dedicated to the CA, also promises to be a valuable new voice in online discussions of the CA.