Book Note: Thomas Wayment, The Text of the New Testament Apocrypha

January 18, 2014 by Tony

One of the titles I mentioned in my SBL Diary back in November (and deserving of more attention) is Thomas A. Wayment’s The Text of the New Testament Apocrypha (100-400 CE) (London: T&T Clark, 2013). Wayment, an Associate Professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, has assembled here a collection of the earliest Christian Apocrypha extant on papyrus and parchment from the first five centuries. Note, however, that only Greek manuscripts are featured in the volume.

Each chapter of the book focuses on a single text (e.g., the Didache, the Gospel of Mary) or a group of texts (Acts of the Apostles, Sayings Gospels) and provides a bibliography, orthographic notes, and critical editions (not merely transcriptions) of each manuscript. The back half of the volume contains photographs of each manuscript, the majority in colour. The images vary in quality—P. Bodmer V and X, for example, are clear and gorgeous to look at, but P. Oxy 840 is reproduced too small and the reverse side of each page bleeds through the papyrus, making the text difficult to read.

The full list of texts included in the volume is: Acts of the Apostles (John, Paul, Peter), the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Peter, the Infancy Gospel of James (including a complete edition of P. Bodmer 5 and two recently published manuscripts: P. Ashmolean inv. 9 and Cairo Greek Papyrus JE 85643), the Shepherd of Hermas (with …

A Tribute to M. R. James

July 25, 2013 by Tony

Philip Jenkins has contributed a post ("James the Great") to the blog The Anxious Bench on his appreciation of CA scholar Montague Rhodes James, known for, among other things, his collection The Apocryphal New Testament (1924; corrected edition in 1953 and completed updated by J. K. Elliott in 1993) as well as the editing of a number of apocryphal texts in the volumes of Apocrypha anecdota (vol. 1; vol. 2). Jenkins notes several of his other important works in his post. Via Paleojudaica.

A Very Small Book on the Christian Apocrypha

December 28, 2009 by Tony

It just came to my attention that Paul Foster (editor and contributor to the fine volume The Non-Canonical Gospels, mentioned HERE) has published a volume in the Very Short Introduction series on The Apocryphal Gospels. More information can be found on Amazon.

New Apocrypha Collection from Oxford

December 20, 2009 by Tony

Oxford University Press is releasing in June a new collection of Christian Apocrypha, The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations, compiled by Bart Ehrman and Zlatko Plese. It is touted as a multi-lingual collection–i.e., it features the texts in their original languages as well as in English. The table of contents shows that it features the typical texts one finds in such collections, though the Acts of Pilate material is unusually extensive. The contents also lists the curious item of "Infancy Gospel of Thomas C." You can read more about it HERE.

New Apocrypha Collection

March 9, 2007 by Tony

Andrew Bernhard, administrator of the site Jesus of Nazareth in Early Christian Gospels, has moved into print publishing with Other Early Christian Gospels: A Critical Edition of the Surviving Greek Manuscripts. A short review of the book is available HERE (subscription required). The publisher’s description reads:

Other Early Christian Gospels is a sourcebook containing new editions and translations of all the extant Greek manuscripts of extracanonical gospels written during the first hundred years of the Christian movement (ca. 30-130 C.E.) The completely new translations are in contemporary idiomatic English so that readers will not have to struggle with antiquated language, as they must with many of the English editions presently available.

The collection focuses on texts describing Jesus' adult exploits (so no Infancy Gospel of Thomas or James) and avoids the vast majority of the Nag Hammadi texts. The texts are presented in Greek and English.