Month: August 2013

This year's York Christian Apocrypha Symposium, “Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha in North American Perspectives,” is now only six weeks away (September 26–28, 2013). If you are interested in attending, please register as soon as possible (remember, it's free for students, but you should register if you want to receive the papers ahead of time). For more information, see the Symposium's web page (HERE). 

F. Stanley Jones, “The Distinctive Sayings of Jesus Shared by Justin and the Pseudo-Clementines”

F. Stanley Jones is Professor of Religion at California State University (Long Beach, California). A scholar of Jewish Christianity, his research focuses on the Pseudo-Clementines, writings which purport to relate Clement of Rome’s travels in the Mediterranean and his conversion to Christianity. Jones has suggested a third-century Syrian provenance for the Pseudo-Clementines. His views on the texts are reflected in An Ancient Jewish Christian Source on the History of Christianity: Pseudo-Clementine “Recognitions” 1.27-71 (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars, 1995) and his recently-published collection of essays entitled, Pseudoclementina Elchasaiticaque inter Judaeochristiana: Collected Studies (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 203; Leuven: Peeters, 2012)

“The apocrypha fill in and fill out aspects of the biblical stories in ingenious ways that reflect astonishing depths in ancient Christian imagination and thought,” Jones says. “Once you have read and appreciated these accounts, it is impossible to interact with the Bible again without recalling the details of these writings.” Considered the foremost scholar of the Pseudo-Clementines, Jones received his PhD from …

This year's York Christian Apocrypha Symposium, “Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha in North American Perspectives,” is now only seven weeks away (September 26–28, 2013). If you are interested in attending, please register as soon as possible (remember, it's free for students, but you should register if you want to receive the papers ahead of time). For more information, see the Symposium's spiffy new web page (HERE).

Stephen Shoemaker, “The Tiburtine Sibyl, the Last Emperor, and the Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition”

Stephen Shoemaker is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Oregon. He is the author of The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad’s Life and the Beginnings of Islam (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012) and The Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption (Oxford University Press, 2002), which analyses over 60 Marian narratives, some of which are translated into English here for the first time.

While he is primarily interested in apocryphal traditions of the Virgin Mary, Shoemaker’s current research focuses on non-canonical apocalyptic narratives and their historical contexts. “I’ve recently become interested in certain apocryphal apocalypses from late antiquity that envision eschatology in terms of imperial conquest,” he says, highlighting one text, the Tiburtine Sybil, as an example of this worldview. “This text envisions an impending end of the world that will be accomplished through the triumph of the Roman Empire and the Emperor’s surrender of authority to God in Jerusalem. In the medieval period it was one …