Infancy Gospel of Thomas Edition Wins Book Prize

May 27, 2012 by Tony

My critical edition of the Greek manuscript tradition of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, De infantia Iesu Evangelium Thomae Graecae (CCSA 17; Turnhout: Brepols, 2010) has been awarded the F. W. Beare Prize at this year’s Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies. This award recognizes an outstanding book in the areas of Christian Origins, Post-Biblical Judaism and/or Graeco-Roman Religions written by a member of the CSBS and published during the previous two years. The award was established in honour of Francis (Frank) Wright Beare, one of Canada’s most reknowned New Testament scholars. My thanks to the anonymous jurors of the award and my fellow members of CSBS who helped me drink away the award money tonight.

Anne Rice’s Jesus Biography Film Adaptation Update

May 24, 2012 by Tony

The first installment of Anne Rice's Jesus trilogy, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, is set to be made into a film. I commented on this development a few years ago (HERE), but there seems to have been some development in the project. Chris Columbus is now attached to the film. Since the book covers Jesus' early years, a time in his life documented in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and other infancy gospels, Columbus seems an ideal choice–his earlier work, including Home Alone and several Harry Potter films, similarly features precocious youngsters, some of whom have superhuman abilities (not you Caulkin). For more on this, see the interview at the Comic Book Resources site. Despite its heavy reliance on apocryphal texts, Rice thinks the film (and the book, I assume) are "completely biblically correct." Here is an excerpt:

Last question I wanted to ask to wrap all this up — recently, we learned that Chris Columbus and his team are working on an adaptation of "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt." That is — obviously when a book comes out like that and obviously discussions around a book, even when it is very respectful of the Christ story, there's one level of discussion and it seems like when a movie gets made, there's going to be another crazy huge level. Do you feel prepared for that after all the other books you've written and everything else that's happened and whatever happens with that?

Well, "Christ the …

Hill Museum and Manuscript Library in Syria

May 19, 2012 by Tony

The SCTimes has an interesting article on the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library and their efforts to photograph collections in Syria before the unrest there in recent months.

Secret Mark on Euangelion Kata Markon

May 7, 2012 by Tony

Michael Kok, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Sheffield, has begun a series of posts on the Secret Gospel of Mark on his blog, Euangelion Kata Markon. So far, he has posted an introduction and the clip of Morton Smith discussing the text on the documentary Jesus the Evidence.