Month: December 2014

Day 3: November 24

The last of four Christian Apocrypha sessions began at 9 am. This was another “open” session, without any particular guiding theme, though we gave it the title “The Cultural Context(s) of the Christian Apocrypha.”

The first paper was read by Petri Luomanen (University of Helsinki): “Judaism and anti-Judaism in the Protoevangelium of James, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew.” As often happens, Luomanen’s paper was somewhat changed from his proposal: he eliminated Infancy Thomas from his study. He contrasted the overall positive portrayal of Jewish people and culture in Prot. Jas. (e.g., Salome the midwife doubts the virgin birth but she is instrumental for its proof; the “two people” of Mary’s vision in 17:2 are believers and non-believers) with its parallel material in Ps.-Matt. 11-16, where Judaism is seen negatively or simply removed from the narrative (e.g., the “two people” are Jews and Christians). Overall, Luomanen’s paper did not add much to the discussion of Judaism in Prot. Jas., a connection which is becoming increasingly acknowledged by scholars of the text.

The second paper was presented by Eugenia Constantinou (University of San Diego): “Holy of Holies! The Amazing and Impossible Life of Mary as told in the Apocrypha of the Christian East.” To the surprise of several of us in the room, Constantinou came across as somewhat hostile to apocryphal literature. Her aim was to show that the elements from Prot. Jas. incorporated into the Greek Orthodox liturgy, hymns, and iconography …

(With apologies for the protracted delay in posting. End-of-term marking and meetings are really cramping my style.)

Day 2: November 23

The second day of the annual meeting was somewhat lighter for me than the first. I began the day with a session on the Gospel of Luke held in memory of François Bovon. It was a joint session of the Gospel of Luke Section and Christian Apocrypha with the aim of looking at Bovon’s two principle scholarly passions. The session began with David Warren’s (Faulkner University) “A Biographical Sketch of François Bovon,” a candid and affectionate look back at Bovon’s personal and professional life. This was followed by Brent Landau (University of Texas at Austin), who was a student of Bovon’s at Harvard. His paper, “Blurred Lines: Apocryphal Additions to New Testament Manuscripts,” examined several interesting readings in gospel manuscripts often overlooked in CA collections. These readings include the well-known Freer Logion (Mark 16:14 in Codex Washingtonianus), Luke 6:5 in Codex Bezae, and a few variants to Matthew from the so-called “Zion Gospel Edition.” Lesser known, however, are several variants found in Latin manuscripts: Mark 16:3 in the fourth-century Codex Bobbiensis (“But suddenly at the third hour of the day there was darkness over the whole circle of the earth, and angels descended from the heavens, and as he was rising in glory of the living God, at the same time they ascended with him, and immediately it was light”) and some variants to Luke 23:1-5 in Old Latin …

I realize the internet and blogging is all about immediacy, but intermittent Wifi access at the SBL sites, my own desire to extend my trip to San Diego, and end-of-term teaching obligations has meant a lengthy delay in posting anything about my conference activities at SBL this year. Hopefully you’ll agree that reading this account late is better than not at all.

Day 1: November 22

When I left Toronto Friday night, the temperature was around -5 C, up from -15 the day before. For the entire week in San Diego the weather was fabulous: sunny and 20-26 C. My wife Laura kept remarking “Can you believe this?!” I had trouble getting her to board the flight home. I vote to have SBL at San Diego every year (or at least somewhere on equal latitude). We stayed at the Marriott Marquis & Marina, and looked out at a panoramic view of the San Diego Bay (Laura: “Can you believe this view?!”). The last time I was in San Diego, for SBL 2007, I shared a room with three other guys. My fortunes have certainly improved over the years.

I rose early to chair the first of our four Christian Apocrypha sessions: “‘Canonical/Apocryphal’ and Other Troublesome Binaries.” The first paper was delivered by Matthew Crawford (University of Durham): “The Diatessaron, Canonical or Non-canonical? Rereading the Dura Fragment.” Crawford, who has written previously on the Diatessaron (e.g., “Diatessaron: A Misnomer? The Evidence of Ephrem’s Commentary,” Early Christianity 4.3 [2013]: 362-85), advocates …