What is the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha? How are they to be Read and Studied?

What is the difference between the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha? Why are these rejected by most?

http://evidenceforchristianity.org/what-is-the-difference-between-the-old-testament-apocrypha-and-pseudepigrapha-why-are-these-rejected-by-most/

by John Oakes

November 25, 2013

Question:

I can’t find any solid information on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and why these books are not considered inspired scripture. I know they are considered false writings, but why? Are the Old Testament pseudepigrapha and the Old Testament apocrypha consideredto be the same thing? Is the OT Pseudepigrapha just a branch of the OT apocryphal writings? Are therefore the same principles are applied to the OT Pseudepigrapha about their rejection as the OT apocrypha? I’m not sure if you have any lectures on this subject already. Any thing would help at this point.

Answer:

The Old Testament Apocrypha and the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha are not the same thing. The contents of the OT Apocrypha is pretty much fixed. The Apocrypha is, by definition, those extra books beyond the canonical 39 which are accepted by all Christians and Jews as part of the Old Testament canon. These extra books are found, for example, in Roman Catholic Bibles. The Old Testament Apocrypha includes Judith, Tobit, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Susannah and the additions to Daniel. The Ethiopian Coptic Church also includes 1 Enoch in its canon.

The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha is a loosely-defined set of Jewish writings from about 250 BC to about 150 AD which are characterized by the fact that they are credited as being authored by an important Old Testament character who almost certainly did not write that book. With this definition, 1 Enoch and perhaps Baruch could be included as part of the “Pseudepigrapha,” so there is some overlap between the OT Apocrypha and the OT Pseudepigrapha. There are many books which fit the second category, but which were never included in any Christian or Jewish canon. These would include Odes of Solomon, 1, 2, 3, and 4th Esdras, Revelation of Moses, 2 and 3 Baruch, The Book of Adam and many more.

Neither the OT Apocrypha nor the OT Pseudepigrapha is accepted as inspired scripture by the majority of Christian (or by any Jews for that matter) for a few reasons. The principle reason is that the Jews themselves did not ever accept these as canonical. Even if they did (for which we have no evidence) they certainly are not accepted today. God gave to the Jewish scribes and teacher the job of collecting the list of inspired writings. By faith, I conclude that the books they chose are in fact inspired. Whether other books are in fact inspired is really not all that important if we accept, again by faith, that God chose to act to make sure that the accepted Jewish canon contained what he wanted it to contain.

Another reason these books ought to be rejected is found from the content of the books themselves. Please check it out for yourself. If you read Bel and the Dragon or 3 Baruch or 1 Enoch you will discover for yourself that there are clear marks that these are not inspired. The author of 2 Maccabees apologizes for the poor quality of his work at the end of the letter. Can you imagine John or Isaiah saying that? Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus contain wise sayings, but also blatant false doctrines, such as the claim that by deeds ones sins are atoned for.

A third reason these books are to be rejected is that, without exception, they were written hundreds of years after the Old Testament was complete. One can make a strong argument that God brought to an end prophetic utterance through the Jews from the time of Nehemiah or Malachi until the coming of the Messiah. This is the opinion of virtually all Jews, which is a significant reason they reject all of these apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books.

Another reason that these are rejected by virtually all is that they were not even written in Hebrew in the first place, but in Aramaic (in some cases) or in Greek (in most cases). This is not as strong a reason as the other three, but can be taken in mind in judging these writings. It is one reason Jerome rejected these writings at the end of the 4th century AD.

If you want more information on this topic, there is a fairly detailed appendix in my book “Daniel, Prophet to the Nations” available at www.ipibooks.com

John Oakes

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Challenges for the Study of Pseudepigrapha

link to article

by Phillip J. Long

May 18, 2016

Amazon Link

Since I intended to spend the summer reviewing the apocalyptic literature in the Pseudepigrapha, this would be a good to time think about some of the challenges reading this material. I will be using the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited James Charlesworth (originally Doubleday, 1983; not Yale University Press). Theabbreviation OTP throughout this series refers to the 1983 print edition of these two volumes. It is important to point out the obvious: there was no collection of “Old Testament Pseudepigrapha” in the ancient world. Although a few were considered sacred by some elements of the early church, these books were never collected as an alternate canon nor were they suppressed by orthodox Christians. There was no grand conspiracy of women-hating priests who systematically suppressed the free-thinking writers of this material. That sort of wild-eyed story telling makes for a good Hollywood movie or a wacky conspiracy theory blog, but it is simply not the case.

There are two problems with using the Pseudepigrapha as a source for studying first century Judaism. The first is the problem of the date of the documents. Some texts come to us in translations dated centuries later than the period under investigation. For example, 2 Enoch (The Slavonic Apocalypse of Enoch) may date to the late first century A.D., but there are no manuscripts which date earlier than the fourteenth century and any “supposed Greek composition need not have been produced before A.D. 1000” (F. I. Anderson, “2 Enoch” in OTP, 1:94 ). Because of this, scholars date the original composition of 2 Enoch from pre-Christian times into the late medieval period. Given this ambiguity, it is probably best not to use 2 Enoch as the centerpiece of a description of first century theology or common second Temple period Jewish theology.

A second problem is that of influence on the theology of “common Judaism” of the first century. We may confidently date a book such as the Psalms of Solomon to “about 50 B.C.” and even posit a Pharisaical context for the book, but how we know with any measure of confidence the book was read in the first century widely enough to change way people really thought? Or to put it another way, how do we know the book reflects a broad consensus of opinion of first century thinking? The book may have been written and circulated in among a very small community and was virtually unknown to readers outside of that community. Similarly, the book may have been the work of an individual maverick thinker who was out of touch with the rest of Judaism and received virtually no recognition until Christians began to use the text in the second or third centuries.

There are some methods to gauge the date and popularity of a text in the first century. If the text appears among the Dead Sea Scrolls we can at least know the Qumran community valued the text, especially if it appears in multiple copies. For example, Aramaic portions of First Enoch were present at Qumran. These fragments are not precisely the same text as the later Ethiopic version and some are too small to translate. The Dead Sea Scrolls at least confirm the book was known well before the first century and was popular enough to appear in the library of the Qumran community.

A second possible way to measure the potential influence of a text is by way of citation. If other first century works allude to a work there is at least an implication of influence. Using 1 Enoch as an example, we can find echoes of themes in other first century writings, not the least of which is the New Testament. The Epistle of Jude clearly alludes to 1 Enoch 60:8, confirming a date for at least that line to the late first century and a certain popularity in Jewish Christian circles.

The use of 1 Enoch in the book of Revelation is also possible. This evidence is potentially dangerous, since the New Testament reflects Christian popularity, but perhaps not Jewish popularity. In addition, the two sources just mentioned date to the post-70 period. The popularity of 1 Enoch may have increased after the fall of Jerusalem and not accurately reflect the pre-70 worldview.

An additional measure of popularity is the amount additional material created based on an earlier text. 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra seem to have sparked a whole series of books which are based on the earlier versions (i.e., 2 Enoch, 3 Enoch the various other books of Ezra). That Enoch was being read and re-created to reflect a later historical context is a witness to the influence the book may have had in the first century. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs refer to the 1 Enochseveral times, indicating the influence of the apocalyptic text on later Jewish writings (T.Rub. 5:6, T.Sim 5:4, T.Levi 14:1, T.Jud 18:1, T. Dan 5:6, T.Naph 4:1,T.Ben 9:1).

It is also possible a source is dated post-70 A.D. but still reflects something of Jewish expectations before the watershed event of the fall of Jerusalem. 2 Baruchand 4 Ezra are examples of books normally dated at the end of the first century because they refer to the fall of Jerusalem as a past event. Can these books be useful for constructing Jewish expectations in the pre-70 period?

Possibly, but the evidence ought to be handled especially carefully. That some sort of messianic hope is reflected in these books is certain, but to what extent that same messianic hope was present in Palestine in the late 20’s is a more difficult problem. It is possible there was a messianic hope in the 20’s but it was entirely reworked after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra may be an example of this reworking. The difficulty, then, is sorting out the early material from the re-working.

- Phillip J. Long

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Jewish or Christian Pseudepigrapha?

link to article

by Phillip J. Long

May 18, 2016

In the previous post I made a few comments on common problems confronting those who study the Pseudepigrapha. A serious problem is that even though a particular book originated among Jewish thinkers of the Second Temple period, most of this literature was preserved by Christians. It is therefore possible Christian scribes made additions or modifications as they copied to make them more appealing to Christians. One of the better examples of this is 4 Ezra, a Jewish apocalypse written at the end of the first century A.D. At some point an introduction and conclusion was added to the book (sometimes called 2 Ezra and 5 Ezra). These additions include Christian elements (the messiah figure places crowns on the heads of the resurrected martyrs is “is the Son of God, whom they confessed in the world.” (4 Ezra2:47).

In a recent essay, Robert Kraft gives us reason to be cautious by asking “can we be sure we are able to separate the Jewish from the Christian?” (Robert A. Kraft, “Setting the Stage and Framing Some Central Questions,” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 32 [2001]:371-395). All this literature comes to us as preserved by Christians, therefore we have to assume it was of interest to Christians and is always subject to interpolation and adaptation.

We are often warned about using the Mishnah to develop a “background” for New Testament studies because we cannot be sure what elements date to the pre-70 A.D. period. Why not heed the same warning for using the Pseudepigrapha? It seems easy enough to remember this warning when reading the Apocalypse of Daniel, a book clearly written in the ninth century about current events of the ninth century, but should a book like 1 Enoch or 2 Baruch be read with as much caution? Scholars such as Kraft would think so.

It is not appropriate however to throw out anything that looks too “Christian” or create a false dichotomy of either Jewish or Christian literature. The earliest of this material comes from a theological environment when the categories were not quite fully developed. 1 Enoch and 2 Baruch have both Jewish and Christian elements which may be so intertwined that we can neither sort them out, nor should we try since the intertwining is a part of the environment in which they were written.

Perhaps it is best to think of these books in terms of a trajectory. We know the Old Testament is the foundation for all of the Jewish literature we will encounter in the Pseudepigrapha and is highly influential in the Christian material as well. From this starting point we can track how ideas moved from the Old Testament base through the early apocalyptic and Pseudepigraphal literature, then into the New Testament and the Christian pseudepigraphal material. Potentially we could continue to track development into the medieval period since there are any number of texts which are extensions on themes we begin reading in the Old Testament but come to us through hundreds of years of recycling and reapplying.

When approaching a text, we need to place the book in a historical context including both date and provenance, but also sources. In dealing with a book in the Ezra tradition, for example, we need to think about how the book used and re-used the early Ezra traditions. It is therefore possible even a late text from the medieval period still has useful materials for reconstructing the context of the New Testament despite being hundreds of years removed from the period. There is also the problem of diminishing returns studying the later texts. Because of the late date of the text, the value of the Apocalypse of Daniel for studying the New Testament is rather limited, for example.

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List of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pseudepigrapha are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.[1] Some of these works may have originated among JewishHellenizers, others may have Christian authorship in character and origin.

1. Apocalyptic and related works:

• 1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch (Jewish, ca. 200 BCE–50 CE)
• 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch (Jewish, ca. 75–100 CE)
• 3 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch (Jewish, in present form from ca. 5th to 6th cent. CE)
• Sibylline Oracles (both Jewish and Christian, ca. 2nd cent. BCE–7th cent. CE)
• Treatise of Shem (ca. near end of first cent. BCE)
• Apocryphon of Ezekiel (mostly lost, original form ca. late 1st cent.BCE)
• Apocalypse of Zephaniah (mostly lost, original form ca. late 1st cent. BCE)
• 4 Ezra (original Jewish form after 70 CE, final Christian additions later)
• Greek Apocalypse of Ezra (present form is Christian ca. 9th cent.CE with both Jewish and Christian sources)
• Vision of Ezra (a Christian document dating from 4th to 7th cent.CE)
• Questions of Ezra (Christian, but date is imprecise)
• Revelation of Ezra (Christian and sometime before 9th cent. CE)
• Apocalypse of Sedrach (present form is Christian from ca. 5th cent. with earlier sources)
• 2 (Syriac Apocalypse of) Baruch (Jewish, from ca. 100 CE)
• 3 (Greek Apocalypse of) Baruch (Christian utilizing Jewish sources, ca. 1st–2nd cent. CE)
• Apocalypse of Abraham (Jewish primarily, ca. 70–150 CE)
• Apocalypse of Adam (Gnostic derived from Jewish sources from ca. the 1st cent. CE)
• Apocalypse of Elijah (both Jewish and Christian, ca. 150–275 CE)
• Apocalypse of Daniel (present form ca. 9th cent. CE, but contains Jewish sources from ca. 4th cent. CE).

2. Testaments:

• Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (current form is Christian, ca. 150–200 CE, but Levi, Judah, and Naphtali are Jewish and date before 70 CE and probably 2nd–1st cent. BCE)
• Testament of Job (Jewish, ca. late 1st cent. BCE)
• Testaments of the Three Patriarchs (Jewish Testaments of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from ca. 100 CE which are linked with the Christian Testament of Isaac and Jacob)
• Testament of Moses (Jewish, from ca. early 1st cent. CE)
• Testament of Solomon (Jewish, current form ca. 3rd cent. CE, but earliest form ca. 100 CE)
• Testament of Adam (Christian in current form ca. late 3rd cent. CE, but used Jewish sources from ca. 150–200 CE).

3. Expansions of Old Testament and other legends:

• The Letter of Aristeas (Jewish, ca. 200–150 BCE)
• Jubilees (Jewish, ca. 130–100 CE)
• Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah (has three sections, the first Jewish from ca. 100 BCE, and 2nd and 3rd sections are Christian. The second from ca. 2nd cent. CE, and the third— Testament of Hezekiah, ca. 90–100 CE)
• Joseph and Asenath (Jewish, ca. 100 CE)
• Life of Adam and Eve (Jewish, ca. early to middle 1st cent. CE)
• Pseudo-Philo (Jewish, ca. 66–135 CE)
• Lives of the Prophets (Jewish, ca. early 1st cent. CE with later Christian additions)
• Ladder of Jacob (earliest form is Jewish dating from late 1st cent.CE. One chapter is Christian)
• 4 Baruch (Jewish original but edited by a Christian, ca. 100–110 CE)
• Jannes and Jambres (Christian in present form, but dependent on earlier Jewish sources from ca. 1st cent. BCE)
• History of the Rechabites (Christian in present form dating ca. 6th cent. CE, but contains some Jewish sources before 100 CE)
• Eldad and Modat (forged on basis of Numbers 11.26–29, before the 1st CE is now lost, but quoted in Shepherd of Hermas ca. 140 CE)
• History of Joseph (Jewish, but difficult to date).

4. Wisdom and Philosophical Literature:

• Ahiqar (Jewish dating from late 7th or 6th cent. BCE and cited in Apocryphal Tobit)
• 3 Maccabees (Jewish, ca. 1st cent. BCE)
• 4 Maccabees (Jewish, ca. before 70 CE)
• Pseudo-Phocylides (Jewish maxims attributed to 6th cent. Ionic poet, ca. 50 BCE–100 CE)
• The Sentences of the Syriac Menander (Jewish, ca. 3rd cent. CE).

5. Prayers, Psalms, and Odes:

• More Psalms of David (Jewish psalms from ca. 3rd cent. BCE to 100 CE)
• Prayer of Manasseh (sometimes in Apocrypha, Jewish from ca. early 1st cent. CE)
• Psalms of Solomon (Jewish, ca. 50–5 BCE)
• Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers (Jewish, ca. 2nd–3rd cent. CE)
• Prayer of Joseph (Jewish, ca. 70–135)
• Prayer of Jacob (mostly lost Jewish document from ca. 4th cent. CE)
• Odes of Solomon (Christian but influenced by Judaism and probably also Qumran, ca. 100 CE)

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Pseudepigrapha

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pseudepigrapha (also Anglicized as "pseudepigraph" or "pseudepigraphs") are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.[1]Pseudepigraphy covers the false ascription of names of authors to works, even to authentic works that make no such claim within their text. Thus a widely accepted but incorrect attribution of authorship may make a completely authentic text pseudepigraphical. Assessing the actual writer of a text locates questions of pseudepigraphical attribution within the discipline of literary criticism.

In biblical studies, the term pseudepigrapha typically refers to an assorted collection of Jewish religious works thought to be written c 300 BC to 300 AD. They are distinguished by Protestants from the Deuterocanonical books(Catholic and Orthodox) or Apocrypha (Protestant), the books that appear in extant copies of the Septuagint from the fourth century on,[2] and the Vulgate but not in the Hebrew Bible or in Protestant Bibles.[3] Catholics distinguish only between the deuterocanonical and all the other books, that are called biblical Apocrypha, a name that is also used for the pseudepigrapha in the Catholic usage. In addition, two books considered canonical in the Tewahedochurches, viz. 1 Enoch and Jubilees, are categorized as pseudepigrapha from the point of view of the Chalcedonian churches.

Etymology

The word pseudepigrapha (from the Greek: ψευδής, pseudes, "false" and ἐπιγραφή, epigraphē, "name" or "inscription" or "ascription"; thus when taken together it means "false superscription or title";[4] see the related epigraphy) is the plural of "pseudepigraphon" (sometimes Latinized as "pseudepigraphum").

Classical and biblical studies

There have probably been pseudepigrapha almost from the invention of full writing. For example, ancient Greek authors often refer to texts which claimed to be by Orpheus or his pupil Musaeus but which attributions were generally disregarded. Already in Antiquity the collection known as the "Homeric hymns" was recognized as pseudepigraphical, that is, not actually written by Homer.

Literary studies

In secular literary studies, when works of antiquity have been demonstrated not to have been written by the authors to whom they have traditionally been ascribed, some writers apply the prefix pseudo- to their names. Thus the encyclopedic compilation of Greek myth called Bibliotheke is often now attributed, not to Apollodorus of Athens, but to "pseudo-Apollodorus" and the Catasterismi, recounting the translations of mythic figure into asterisms and constellations, not to the serious astronomer Eratosthenes, but to a "pseudo-Eratosthenes". The prefix may be abbreviated, as in "ps-Apollodorus" or "ps-Eratosthenes".

Old Testament and Intertestamental Studies

See also: Apocrypha and Biblical apocrypha

In biblical studies, pseudepigrapha refers particularly to works which purport to be written by noted authorities in either the Old and New Testaments or by persons involved in Jewish or Christian religious study or history. These works can also be written about biblical matters, often in such a way that they appear to be as authoritative as works which have been included in the many versions of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Eusebius of Caesareaindicates this usage dates back at least to Serapion, bishop of Antioch whom Eusebius records[5] as having said: "But those writings which are falsely inscribed with their name (ta pseudepigrapha), we as experienced persons reject...."

Many such works were also referred to as Apocrypha, which originally connoted "secret writings", those that were rejected for liturgical public reading. An example of a text that is both apocryphal and pseudepigraphical is theOdes of Solomon.[6] It is considered pseudepigraphical because it was not actually written by Solomon but instead is a collection of early Christian (first to second century) hymns and poems, originally written not in Hebrew, and apocryphal because they were not accepted in either the Tanakh or the New Testament.

Protestants have also applied the word Apocrypha to texts found in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox scriptures which were not found in Hebrew manuscripts. Roman Catholics called those texts "deuterocanonical". Accordingly, there arose in some Protestant biblical scholarship an extended use of the term pseudepigrapha for works that appeared as though they ought to be part of the biblical canon, because of the authorship ascribed to them, but which stood outside both the biblical canons recognized by Protestants and Catholics. These works were also outside the particular set of books that Roman Catholics called deuterocanonical and to which Protestants had generally applied the term Apocryphal. Accordingly, the term pseudepigraphical, as now used often among both Protestants and Roman Catholics (allegedly for the clarity it brings to the discussion), may make it difficult to discuss questions of pseudepigraphical authorship of canonical books dispassionately with a lay audience. To confuse the matter even more, Eastern Orthodox Christians accept books as canonical that Roman Catholics and most Protestant denominations consider pseudepigraphical or at best of much less authority. There exist also churches that reject some of the books that Roman Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants accept. The same is true of some Jewish sects. Many works that are "apocryphal" are otherwise considered genuine.

There is a tendency not to use the word pseudepigrapha when describing works later than about 300 AD when referring to biblical matters.[3]:pp.222–228 But the late-appearing Gospel of Barnabas, Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, the Pseudo-Apuleius (author of a fifth-century herbal ascribed to Apuleius), and the author traditionally referred to as the "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite", are classic examples of pseudepigraphy. In the fifth century the moralist Salvian published Contra avaritiam ("Against avarice") under the name of Timothy; the letter in which he explained to his former pupil, Bishop Salonius, his motives for so doing survives.[7] There is also a category of modern pseudepigrapha.

Examples of books labeled Old Testament pseudepigrapha from the Protestant point of view are the Ethiopian Book of Enoch, Jubilees (both of which are canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, and the Beta Israel sect of Judaism); the Life of Adam and Eve and "Pseudo-Philo".

The term Pseudepigrapha also commonly describes numerous works of Jewish religious literature written from about 300 BC to 300 AD. Not all of these works are actually pseudepigraphical. It also refers to books of the New Testament canon whose authorship is misrepresented. Such works include the following:[3]

• 3 Maccabees
• 4 Maccabees
• Assumption of Moses
• Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1 Enoch)
• Slavonic Book of Enoch (2 Enoch)
• Book of Jubilees
• Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch)
• Letter of Aristeas
• Life of Adam and Eve
• Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah
• Psalms of Solomon
• Sibylline Oracles
• Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch)
• Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

New Testament Studies

Many scholars maintain that no letter actually known to be pseudepigraphical would ever have been admitted to the New Testament canon. Other scholars suggest that the church only developed its hard line against pseudepigraphy because the practice was being abused. Some works that were definite forgeries led to a rejection of any sort of pseudepigraphy.[8]:p.225–226

Pauline Epistles
Main article: Pauline epistles

In contrast to most writings termed pseudepigraphical, all 13 of the letters attributed to Paul are still considered canonical. All of them are still part of the Holy Bible and are foundational for the Christian Church. Therefore, those letters thought to be pseudepigraphic are not considered any less valuable than the other letters.[9] They are termed as "disputed" or "pseudepigraphical" letters because they are believed by most scholars to have come from followers writing in Paul's name, often using material from his surviving letters. Those followers may have had access to letters written by Paul that no longer survive.[10] Due to lack of agreement regarding the authorship of certain letters, some theologians prefer to simply distinguish between "undisputed" and "disputed" letters, thus avoiding the term "pseudepigraphical".[9]

Authorship of six of the Apostle Paul's letters has been questioned by some scholars, according to E. P. Sanders.[10] The six disputed epistles are Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. Of these the first three are sometimes referred to as Deutero-Pauline letters meaning "secondary letters of Paul". They internally claim to have been written by Paul, but there is no consensus among scholars on that assertion. Those known as the "Pastoral Epistles", 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, are widely regarded as pseudographs, though certain scholars do consider them genuine.[8]

Mark Powell writes that the first-century church did not seem to have a problem with the now-disputed letters since their thought was compatible with Paul's doctrines. An established convention at the time—especially epistles written in the first two or three decades after Paul's probable martyrdom, may have been viewed as part of the legitimate Pauline tradition and included as such in the New Testament canon. However, that apparent attitude of "acceptable pseudepigraphy" was short lived and did not continue into the second century. Powell says that there is no record of anyone in the early church ever recognizing that a writing was pseudepigraphical in any sense of the word and still regarding it as authoritative.[8]:p. 225–226

Other New Testament Pseudepigrapha

Examples of other New Testament pseudepigrapha that were not included in the New Testament canon are the Gospel of Peter[11] and the attribution of the Epistle to the Laodiceans[12] to Paul. They are often referred to as New Testament Apocrypha. Further examples of New Testament pseudepigrapha include the aforementioned Gospel of Barnabas,[13] and the Gospel of Judas which begins by presenting itself as "the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot".

Authorship and Pseudepigraphy: Levels of Authenticity

Scholars have identified seven levels of authenticity which they have organized in a hierarchy ranging from literal authorship, meaning written in the author's own hand, to outright forgery:

• Literal authorship. A church leader writes a letter in his own hand.
• Dictation. A church leader dictates a letter almost word for word to an amanuensis.
• Delegated authorship. A church leader describes the basic content of an intended letter to a disciple or to an amanuensis.
• Posthumous authorship. A church leader dies, and his disciples finish a letter that he had intended to write, sending it posthumously in his name.
• Apprentice authorship. A church leader dies, and disciples who had been authorized to speak for him while he was alive continue to do so by writing letters in his name years or decades after his death.
• Honorable pseudepigraphy. A church leader dies, and admirers seek to honor him by writing letters in his name as a tribute to his influence and in a sincere belief that they are responsible bearers of his tradition.
• Forgery. A church leader obtains sufficient prominence that, either before or after his death, people seek to exploit his legacy by forging letters in his name, presenting him as a supporter of their own ideas.[8]:p.224

See also

• Apocrypha
• List of Old Testament pseudepigrapha

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Apocrypha

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Apocryphal" redirects here. For the adjective, see wiktionary:apocryphal. For the section found in some Bibles called Apocrypha, see Biblical apocrypha. For The X-Files episode, see Apocrypha (The X-Files).

Apocryphal letter of Sultan Mohammed II to the Pope ("Notes et extraits pour servir à l'histoire des croisades au XVe siècle" / published byNicolas Jorga. Series 4: 1453-1476, Paris; Bucarest, 1915, pages 126-127

Apocrypha are works, usually written works, that are of unknown authorship, or of doubtful authenticity, or spurious, or not considered to be within a particular canon. The word is properly treated as a plural, but in common usage is often singular.[1] In the context of the Jewish and Christian Bibles, where most texts are of unknown authorship, Apocrypha usually refers to a set of texts included in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible.

The word's origin is the Medieval Latin adjective apocryphus, "secret, or non-canonical", from the Greek adjective ἀπόκρυφος (apokryphos), "obscure", from the verb ἀποκρύπτειν(apokryptein), "to hide away".[2]

Introduction

Apocrypha is commonly applied in Christian religious contexts involving certain disagreements about biblical canonicity. Apocryphal writings are a class of documents rejected by some as being worthy to properly be called Scripture, though, as with other writings, they may sometimes be referenced for support. While writings that are now accepted by Christians as Scripture were recognized as being such by various believers early on, the establishment of a largely settled uniform canon was a process of centuries, and what the term "canon" (as well as "apocrypha") precisely meant also saw development. The canonical process took place with believers recognizing writings as being of God, subsequently being followed official affirmation of what had become largely established.[3] The Roman Catholic church provided its first dogmatic definition of her entire canon in 1546, which put a stop to doubts and disagreements about the status of the Apocrypha, as well as certain other books, which had continued from the beginning of the NT church.[4] The leader of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, like the Catholic church father Jerome (and certain others), favored the Masoretic canon for the Old Testament, excluding apocryphal books in his non-binding canon as being worthy to properly be called Scripture, but included most of them in a separate section, as per Jerome.[5] Luther also doubted the canonicity of four New Testament books (Hebrews, James and Jude, and Revelation), which judgment Protestantism did not follow, but he did not title them Apocrypha.

Explaining the Eastern Orthodox Church's canon is made difficult because of differences of perspective with the Roman Catholic church in the interpretation of how it was done. Today Orthodox accept a few more books than appear in the Catholic canon.

Examples

Esoteric writings and objects

The word "apocryphal" (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied[who?] to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered too profound or too sacred to be disclosed to anyone other than the initiated. For example, the disciples of the Gnostic Prodicus boasted that they possessed the secret (ἀπόκρυφα) books of Zoroaster. The term in general enjoyed high consideration among the Gnostics (see Acts of Thomas, pp. 10, 27, 44).[6]

Renowned Sinologist Anna Seidel refers to texts and even items produced by ancient Chinese sages as apocryphal and studied their uses during Six Dynasties China (A.D. 220 to 589). These artifacts were used as symbols legitimizing and guaranteeing the Emperor's Heavenly Mandate. Examples of these include talismans, charts, writs, tallies, and registers. The first examples were stones, jade pieces, bronze vessels and weapons, but came to include talismans and magic diagrams.[7] From their roots in Zhou era China (1066 to 256 B.C.) these items came to be surpassed in value by texts by the Han dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D. 220). Most of these texts have been destroyed as Emperors, particularly during the Han dynasty, collected these legitimizing objects and proscribed, forbade and burnt nearly all of them to prevent them from falling into the hands of political rivals.[7] It is therefore fitting with the Greek root of the word, as these texts were obviously hidden away to protect the ruling Emperor from challenges to his status as Heaven's choice as sovereign.

Writings of questionable value

"Apocrypha" was also applied to writings that were hidden not because of their divinity but because of their questionable value to the church. Many in Protestant traditions cite Revelation 22:18–19 as a potential curse for those who attach any canonical authority to extra-biblical writings such as the Apocrypha. However, a strict explanation of this text would indicate it was meant for only the Book of Revelation. Rv.22:18–19f. (KJV) states: "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." In this case, if one holds to a strict hermeneutic, the "words of the prophecy" do not refer to the Bible as a whole but to Jesus' Revelation to John. Origen, in Commentaries on Matthew, distinguishes between writings which were read by the churches and apocryphal writings: γραφὴ μὴ φερομένη μέν ἒν τοῖς κοινοῖς καὶ δεδημοσιευμένοις βιβλίοις εἰκὸς δ' ὅτι ἒν ἀποκρύφοις φερομένη (writing not found on the common and published books in one hand, actually found on the secret ones on the other).[8] The meaning of αποκρυφος is here practically equivalent to "excluded from the public use of the church", and prepares the way for an even less favourable use of the word.[6]

Spurious writings

In general use, the word "apocrypha" came to mean "false, spurious, bad, or heretical." This meaning also appears in Origen's prologue to his commentary on the Song of Songs, of which only the Latin translation survives: De scripturis his, quae appellantur apocryphae, pro eo quod multa in iis corrupta et contra fidem veram inveniuntur a majoribus tradita non placuit iis dari locum nec admitti ad auctoritatem.[6] "Concerning these scriptures, which are called apocryphal, for the reason that many things are found in them corrupt and against the true faith handed down by the elders, it has pleased them that they not be given a place nor be admitted to authority."

Other

Other uses of apocrypha developed over the history of Western Christianity. The Gelasian Decree (generally held now as being the work of an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553) refers to religious works by church fathers Eusebius, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria as apocrypha. Augustine defined the word as meaning simply "obscurity of origin," implying that any book of unknown authorship or questionable authenticity would be considered apocryphal. On the other hand, Jerome (in Protogus Galeatus) declared that all books outside the Hebrew canon were apocryphal.[6] In practice, Jerome treated some books outside the Hebrew canon as if they were canonical, and the Western Church did not accept Jerome's definition of apocrypha, instead retaining the word's prior meaning (see: Deuterocanon). As a result, various church authorities labeled different books as apocrypha, treating them with varying levels of regard.

Origen (who stated that "the canonical books, as the Hebrews have handed them down, are twenty-two"),[9] Clement and others cited some apocryphal books as "scripture," "divine scripture," "inspired," and the like. On the other hand, teachers connected with Palestine and familiar with the Hebrew canon excluded from the canon all of the Old Testament not found there. This view is reflected in the canon of Melito of Sardis, and in the prefaces and letters of Jerome.[6] A third view was that the books were not as valuable as the canonical scriptures of the Hebrew collection, but were of value for moral uses, as introductory texts for new converts from paganism, and to be read in congregations. They were referred to as "ecclesiastical" works by Rufinus.[6]

These three opinions regarding the apocryphal books prevailed until the Protestant Reformation, when the idea of what constitutes canon became a matter of primary concern for Roman Catholics and Protestants alike. In 1546 the Catholic Council of Trent reconfirmed the canon of Augustine, dating to the second and third centuries, declaring "He is also to be anathema who does not receive these entire books, with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church, and are found in the ancient editions of the Latin Vulgate, as sacred and canonical." The whole of the books in question, with the exception of 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, were declared canonical at Trent.[6] The Protestants, in comparison, were diverse in their opinion of the deuterocanon early on. Some considered them divinely inspired, others rejected them. Anglicans took a position between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches; they kept them as Christian intertestamental readings and a part of the Bible, but no doctrine should be based on them. John Wycliffe, a 14th-century Christian Humanist, had declared in his biblical translation that "whatever book is in the Old Testament besides these twenty-five shall be set among the apocrypha, that is, without authority or belief."[6] Nevertheless, his translation of the Bible included the apocrypha and the Epistle of the Laodiceans.[10]

Martin Luther did not class apocryphal books as being Scripture, but in both the German (1534) and English (1535) translations of the Bible, the apocrypha are published in a separate section from the other books, although the Lutheran and Anglican lists are different. In some editions (like the Westminster), readers were warned that these books were not "to be any otherwise approved or made use of than other human writings." A milder distinction was expressed elsewhere, such as in the "argument" introducing them in the Geneva Bible, and in the Sixth Article of the Church of England, where it is said that "the other books the church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners," though not to establish doctrine.[6] Among some other Protestants, the term apocryphal began to take on extra or altered connotations: not just of dubious authenticity, but having spurious or false content.[3] not just obscure but having hidden or suspect motives.[citation needed] Protestants were (and are) not unanimous in adopting those meanings. The Church of England agreed, and that view continues today throughout the Lutheran Church, the worldwide Anglican Communion, and many other denominations.[citation needed] Whichever implied meaning is intended, Apocrypha was (and is) used primarily by Protestants, in reference to the books of questioned canonicity. Catholics and Orthodox sometimes avoid using the term in contexts where it might be disputatious or be misconstrued as yielding on the point of canonicity. Thus the respect accorded to apocryphal books varied between Protestant denominations. Most Protestant published Bibles that include the apocryphal books will relocate them into a separate section (rather like an appendix), so as not to intermingle them with their canonical books.

According to the Orthodox Anglican Church:

On the other hand, the Anglican Communion emphatically maintains that the Apocrypha is part of the Bible and is to be read with respect by her members. Two of the hymns used in the American Prayer Book office of Morning Prayer, the Benedictus es and Benedicite, are taken from the Apocrypha. One of the offertory sentences in Holy Communion comes from an apocryphal book (Tob. 4: 8–9). Lessons from the Apocrypha are regularly appointed to be read in the daily, Sunday, and special services of Morning and Evening Prayer. There are altogether 111 such lessons in the latest revised American Prayer Book Lectionary [The books used are: II Esdras, Tobit, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Three Holy Children, and I Maccabees.] The position of the Church is best summarized in the words of Article Six of the Thirty-nine Articles: "In the name of Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority there was never any doubt in the Church... And the other Books (as Hierome [St. Jerome] saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine."

With few exceptions, the 66 book Protestantism canon (such as listed in the Westminster Confession of 1646)[11] has been well established for centuries, and with many today contending against the Apocrypha using various arguments.[12][13][14]

Metaphorical Usage

The adjective apocryphal is commonly used in modern English to refer to any text or story considered to be of dubious veracity or authority, although it may contain some moral truth. In this broader metaphorical sense, the word suggests a claim that is in the nature of folklore, factoid or urban legend.

Texts

Judaism

Main article: Jewish apocrypha

Although traditional rabbinical Judaism insists on the exclusive canonization of the current 24 books in the Tanakh, it also claims to have an oral law handed down from Moses. The Sadducees—unlike the Pharisees but like theSamaritans—seem to have maintained an earlier and smaller number of texts as canonical, preferring to hold to only what was written in the Law of Moses[15] (making most of the presently accepted canon, both Jewish and Christian, apocryphal in their eyes). Certain circles in Judaism, such as the Essenes in Judea and the Therapeutae in Egypt, were said to have a secret literature (see Dead Sea scrolls). Other traditions maintained different customs regarding canonicity.[16] The Ethiopic Jews, for instance, seem to have retained a spread of canonical texts similar to the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians,[17] cf Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol 6, p 1147. A large part of this literature consisted of the apocalypses. Based on prophecies, these apocalyptic books were not considered scripture by all, but rather part of a literary form that flourished from 200 BCE to CE 100.

Intertestamental

Main article: Biblical apocrypha

See also: Intertestamental period

During the birth of Christianity, some of the Jewish apocrypha that dealt with the coming of the Messianic kingdom became popular in the rising Jewish Christian communities. Occasionally these writings were changed or added to, but on the whole it was found sufficient to reinterpret them as conforming to a Christian viewpoint. Christianity eventually gave birth to new apocalyptic works, some of which were derived from traditional Jewish sources. Some of the Jewish apocrypha were part of the ordinary religious literature of the Early Christians. This was strange, as the large majority of Old Testament references in the New Testament are taken from the Greek Septuagint, which is the source of the deuterocanonical books[18] as well as most of the other biblical apocrypha.[19]

Slightly varying collections of additional Books (called deuterocanonical by the Roman Catholic Church) form part of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox canons. See Development of the Old Testament canon.

The Book of Enoch is included in the biblical canon only of the Oriental Orthodox churches of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Epistle of Jude quotes the book of Enoch, and some believe the use of this book also appears in the four gospels and 1 Peter.[20][1] The genuineness and inspiration of Enoch were believed in by the writer of the Epistle of Barnabas, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria and much of the early church. The epistles of Paul and the gospels also show influences from the Book of Jubilees, which is part of the Ethiopian canon, as well as the Assumption of Moses and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, which are included in no biblical canon.

The high position which some apocryphal books occupied in the first two centuries was undermined by a variety of influences in the Christian church. All claims to the possession of a secret tradition (as held by many Gnosticsects) were denied by the influential theologians like Irenaeus and Tertullian, which modern historians refer to as the Proto-orthodox, the timeframe of true inspiration was limited to the apostolic age, and universal acceptance by the church was required as proof of apostolic authorship. As these principles gained currency, books deemed apocryphal tended to become regarded as spurious and heretical writings, though books now considered deuterocanonical have been used in liturgy and theology from the first century to the present.

Christianity

Disputes over Canonicity

The actual status of the books which the Catholic church terms Deuterocanonicals ("second canon) and Protestantism refers to as Apocrypha has been an issue of disagreement which preceded the Reformation. Many believe that the pre-Christian-era Jewish translation (into Greek) of holy scriptures known as the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures originally compiled around 280 B.C., originally included the apocryphal writings in dispute, with little distinction made between them and the rest of the Old Testament. Others argue that the Septuagint of the first century did not contain these books but were added later by Christians,[21][22] The earliest extant manuscripts of the Septuagint are from the fourth century, and suffer greatly from a lack of uniformity as regards containing apocryphal books,[23][24][25] and some also contain books classed as Pseudepigrapha, from which texts were cited by some early writers in the second and later centuries as being Scripture.[3]

While a few scholars conclude that the Jewish canon was the achievement of the Hasmonean dynasty,[26] it is generally considered to not have been finalized until about 100 A.D.[27] or somewhat later, at which time considerations of Greek language and beginnings of Christian acceptance of the Septuagint weighed against some of the texts. Some were not accepted by the Jews as part of the Hebrew Bible canon and the Apocrypha is not part of the historical Jewish canon.

Early church fathers such as Athanasius, Melito, Origen, and Cyril of Jerusalem, spoke against the canonicity of much or all of the apocrypha,[21] but the most weighty opposition was the fourth century Catholic scholar Jeromewho preferred the Hebrew canon, whereas Augustine and others preferred the wider (Greek) canon,[28] with both having followers in the generations that followed. The Catholic Encyclopedia states as regards the Middle Ages,

"In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages [5th century to the 15th century] we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity." The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers.[29]

The wider Christian canon accepted by Augustine became the more established canon in the western Church[30] after being promulgated for use in the Easter Letter of Athanasius (circa 372 A.D., though in the same letter he denied all apocryphal books as being Scripture, except for Baruch, while excluding Esther).[31] the Synod of Rome (382 A.D., but its Decretum Gelasianum is generally considered to be a much later addition[32] ) and the local councils of Carthage and Hippo in north Africa (391 and 393 A.D). Nevertheless, none of these constituted indisputable definitions, and significant scholarly doubts and disagreements about the nature of the Apocrypha continued for centuries and even into Trent,[33][34][35] which provided the first infallible definition of the Catholic canon in 1546.[36][37] This canon came to see appropriately 1,000 years of nearly uniform use by the majority, even after the 11th-century schism that separated the church into the branches known as the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

In the 16th century, the Protestant reformers challenged the canonicity of the books and partial-books found in the surviving Septuagint but not in the Masoretic Text. In response to this challenge, after the death of Martin Luther (February 8, 1546) the ecumenical Council of Trent officially ("infallibly") declared these books (called "deuterocanonical" by Catholics) to be part of the canon in April, 1546 A.D. While the Protestant Reformers rejected the parts of the canon that were not part of the Hebrew Bible, they included the four New Testament books Luther held as doubtful canonicity along with the Apocrypha in his non-binding canon (though most were separately included in his bible,[3] as they were in some editions of the KJV bible until 1947).[38] Protestantism therefore established a 66 book canon with the 39 books based on the ancient Hebrew canon, along with the traditional 27 books of the New Testament. Protestants also rejected the Catholic term "deuterocanonical" for these writings, preferring to apply the term "apocryphal" which was already in use for other early and disputed writings. As today (but along with others reasons),[21] various reformers argued that those books contained doctrinal or other errors and thus should not have been added to the canon for that reason. The differences between canons can be seen under Biblical canon and Development of the Christian biblical canon.

Explaining the Eastern Orthodox Church's canon is made difficult because of differences of perspective with the Roman Catholic church in the interpretation of how it was done. Those differences (in matters of jurisdictional authority) were contributing factors in the separation of the Roman Catholics and Orthodox around 1054, but the formation of the canon which Trent would later officially definitively settle was largely complete by the fifth century, in not settled, six centuries before the separation. In the eastern part of the church, it took much of the fifth century also to come to agreement, but in the end it was accomplished. The canonical books thus established by the undivided church became the predominate canon for what was later to become Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox alike. The East did already differ from the West in not considering every question of canon yet settled, and it subsequently adopted a few more books into its Old Testament. It also allowed consideration of yet a few more to continue not fully decided, which led in some cases to adoption in one or more jurisdictions, but not all. Thus, there are today a few remaining differences of canon among Orthodox, and all Orthodox accept a few more books than appear in the Catholic canon. The Psalms of Solomon, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, the Epistle of Jeremiahthe Book of Odes, the Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151 are included in some copies of the Septuagint,[39] some of which are accepted as canonical by Eastern Orthodox and some other churches. Protestants accept none of these additional books as canon either, but see them having roughly the same status as the other Apocrypha.

New Testament Apocrypha

Main article: New Testament apocrypha

New Testament apocrypha—books similar to those in the New Testament but almost universally rejected by Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants—include several gospels and lives of apostles. Some were written by early Jewish Christians (see the Gospel according to the Hebrews). Others of these were produced by Gnostic authors or members of other groups later defined as heterodox. Many texts believed lost for centuries were unearthed in the 19th and 20th centuries, producing lively speculation about their importance in early Christianity among religious scholars,[citation needed] while many others survive only in the form of quotations from them in other writings; for some, no more than the title is known. Artists and theologians have drawn upon the New Testament apocrypha for such matters as the names of Dismas and Gestas and details about the Three Wise Men. The first explicit mention of theperpetual virginity of Mary is found in the pseudepigraphical Infancy Gospel of James.

Before the fifth century, the Christian writings that were then under discussion for inclusion in the canon but had not yet been accepted were classified in a group known as the ancient antilegomenae. These were all candidates for the New Testament and included several books which were eventually accepted, such as: The Epistle to the Hebrews, 2 Peter, 3 John and the Revelation of John (Apocalypse). None of those accepted books can be considered Apocryphal now, since all Christendom accepts them as canonical. Of the uncanonized ones, the Early Church considered some heretical but viewed others quite well. Some Christians, in an extension of the meaning, might also consider the non-heretical books to be "apocryphal" along the manner of Martin Luther: not canon, but useful to read. This category includes books such as the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, and The Shepherd of Hermas which are sometimes referred to as the Apostolic Fathers. The Gnostic tradition was a prolific source of apocryphal gospels. While these writings borrowed the characteristic poetic features of apocalyptic literature from Judaism, Gnostic sects largely insisted on allegorical interpretations based on a secret apostolic tradition. With them, these apocryphal books were highly esteemed. A well-known Gnostic apocryphal book is theGospel of Thomas, the only complete text of which was found in the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. The Gospel of Judas, a Gnostic gospel, also received much media attention when it was reconstructed in 2006.

Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians as well as Protestants generally agree on the canon of the New Testament, see Development of the New Testament canon. The Ethiopian Orthodox have in the past also included I & II Clement and Shepherd of Hermas in their New Testament canon.

* * * * * * * * *

New Testament Apocrypha

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

New Testament Apocrypha
Apostolic Fathers
1 Clement · 2 Clement Epistles of Ignatius Polycarp to the Philippians Martyrdom of Polycarp · Didache Barnabas · Diognetus The Shepherd of Hermas
Jewish-Christian Gospels
Ebionites · Hebrews · Nazarenes
Infancy Gospels
James · Thomas · Syriac · Pseudo-Matthew ·History of Joseph the Carpenter
Gnostic Gospels
Judas · Mary · Philip · Truth · Secret Mark ·The Saviour
Other Gospels
Thomas · Marcion · Peter · Barnabas
Apocalypse
Paul · Coptic Paul Peter · Gnostic Peter Pseudo-Methodius · Thomas · Stephen 1 James · 2 James
Epistles
Apocryphon of James Epistula Apostolorum Corinthians to Paul · Pseudo-Titus Peter to Philip · Laodiceans Seneca the Younger · 3 Corinthians
Acts
Andrew · Barnabas · John · the Martyrs Paul · Paul & Thecla Peter · Peter & Andrew Peter & Paul · Peter & the Twelve Philip · Pilate · Thomas · Timothy Xanthippe, Polyxena, & Rebecca
Misc
Diatessaron Questions of Bartholomew Resurrection of Jesus Christ
"Lost" Books
Bartholomew · Cerinthus · Basilides · Mani
Historical Edits
Decretum Gelasianum
Nag Hammadi library
v t e

The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings have been cited as scripture by early Christians, but since the fifth century a widespread consensus has emerged limiting the New Testament to the27 books of the modern canon.^[1][2] Thus Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches generally do not view these New Testament apocrypha as part of the Bible.^[2]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1Definition
• 2History
  • 2.1Development of the New Testament Canon
  • 2.2Modern scholarship and translation
• 3Gospels
  • 3.1Canonical gospels
  • 3.2Infancy gospels
  • 3.3Jewish Christian gospels
  • 3.4Non-canonical gospels
  • 3.5Sayings gospels
  • 3.6Passion gospels
  • 3.7Harmonized gospels
• 4Gnostic texts
  • 4.1Dialogues with Jesus
  • 4.2General texts concerning Jesus
  • 4.3Sethian texts concerning Jesus
  • 4.4Ritual diagrams
• 5Acts
• 6Epistles
• 7Apocalypses
• 8Fate of Mary
• 9Miscellany
• 10Fragments
• 11Lost works
• 12Close candidates for canonization
• 13Evaluation
• 14See also
• 15References
• 16External links

Definition[edit]

The word "apocrypha" means "things put away" or "things hidden" and comes from the Greek through the Latin. The general term is usually applied to the books that were considered by the church as useful, but not divinely inspired. As such, to refer to Gnostic writings as "apocryphal" is misleading since they would not be classified in the same category by orthodox believers. Often used by the Greek Fathers was the term antilegomena, or "spoken against", although some canonical books were also spoken against, such as the Apocalypse of John in the East. Often used by scholars is the term pseudepigrapha, or "falsely inscribed" or "falsely attributed", in the sense that the writings were written by an anonymous author who appended the name of an apostle to his work, such as in the Gospel of Peter or The Æthiopic Apocalypse of Enoch: almost all books, in both Old and New Testaments, called "apocrypha" in the Protestant tradition are pseudepigrapha. In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, what are called the apocrypha by Protestants include thedeuterocanonical books: in the Catholic tradition, the term "apocrypha" is synonymous with what Protestants would call the pseudepigrapha, the latter term of which is almost exclusively used by scholars.^[3]

History[edit]

Development of the New Testament Canon[edit]

Main article: Development of the New Testament canon

That some works are categorized as New Testament Apocrypha is indicative of the wide range of responses that were engendered in the interpretation of the message of Jesus ofNazareth. During the first several centuries of the transmission of that message, considerable debate turned on safeguarding its authenticity. Three key methods of addressing this survive to the present day: ordination, where groups authorize individuals as reliable teachers of the message; creeds, where groups define the boundaries of interpretation of the message; and canons, which list the primary documents certain groups believe contain the message originally taught by Jesus (in other words, the Bible). There was substantial debate about which books should be included in the canons. In general, those books that the majority regarded as the earliest books about Jesus were the ones included. Books that were not accepted into the canons are now termed apocryphal. Some of them were vigorously suppressed and survive only as fragments. The earliest lists of canonical works of the New Testament were not quite the same as modern lists; for example, the Book of Revelation was regarded as disputed by some Christians(see Antilegomena), while Shepherd of Hermas was considered genuine by others, and appears (after the Book of Revelation) in the Codex Sinaiticus.

The works that presented themselves as "authentic" but that did not obtain general acceptance from within the churches are called New Testament Apocrypha. These are not accepted as canonical by most mainstream Christian denominations; only the Ethiopian Orthodox Church recognizes the Shepherd of Hermas, 1 Clement, Acts of Paul, and several Old Testament books that most other denominations reject, but it should be noted that this church does not adhere to an explicit canon.^{[citation needed]}

The Syriac Peshitta, used by all the various Syrian Churches, originally did not include 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation (and this canon of 22 books is the one cited by John Chrysostom (~347-407) and Theodoret(393-466) from the School of Antioch).^[4] Western Syrians have added the remaining five books to their New Testament canons in modern times^[4] (such as the Lee Peshitta of 1823). Today, the official lectionaries followed by theMalankara Syrian Orthodox Church and the East Syriac Chaldean Catholic Church, which is in communion with the Bishop of Rome, still only present lessons from the 22 books of the original Peshitta.^[4]

The Armenian Apostolic church at times has included the Third Epistle to the Corinthians, but does not always list it with the other 27 canonical New Testament books. This Church did not accept Revelation into its Bible until 1200 CE.^[5] The New Testament of the Coptic Bible, adopted by the Egyptian Church, includes the two Epistles of Clement.

Modern scholarship and translation[edit]

English translations were made in the early 18th century by William Wake and by Jeremiah Jones, and collected in 1820 by William Hone's Apocryphal New Testament.^[6] The series Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 8, contains translations by Alexander Walker.^[7] New translations by M. R. James appeared in 1924, and were revised by J.K. Eliott in 1991, The Apocryphal New Testament. The "standard" scholarly edition of the New Testament Apocrypha in German is that of Schneemelcher,^[8] and in English its translation by Wilson (1991).

Tischendorf and other scholars began to study New Testament apocrypha seriously in the 19th century and produce new translations. The texts of the Nag Hammadi library are often considered separately but the current edition of Schneemelcher also contains eleven Nag Hammadi texts.^[9]

Books that are known objectively not to have existed in antiquity are usually not considered part of the New Testament Apocrypha. Among these are the Libellus de Nativitate Sanctae Mariae (also called the "Nativity of Mary") and the Latin Infancy gospel. The latter two did not exist in antiquity, and they seem to be based on the earlier Infancy gospels.^{[citation needed]}

Gospels[edit]

Main articles: Gospel and List of gospels

Canonical gospels[edit]

Four gospels came to be accepted as part of the New Testament canon.

• Gospel according to Matthew
• Gospel according to Mark
• Gospel according to Luke
• Gospel according to John

Infancy gospels[edit]

The rarity of information about the childhood of Jesus in the canonical gospels led to a hunger of early Christians for more detail about the early life of Jesus. This was supplied by a number of 2nd century and later texts, known as infancy gospels, none of which were accepted into the biblical canon, but the very number of their surviving manuscripts attests to their continued popularity.

Most of these were based on the earliest infancy gospels, namely the Infancy Gospel of James (also called the "Protoevangelium of James") and Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and on their later combination into the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (also called the "Infancy Gospel of Matthew" or "Birth of Mary and Infancy of the Saviour").

The other significant early infancy gospels are the Syriac Infancy Gospel, the History of Joseph the Carpenter and the Life of John the Baptist.

Jewish Christian gospels[edit]

Main article: Jewish–Christian gospels

The Jewish–Christian Gospels were gospels of a Jewish Christian character quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerome and probably Didymus the Blind.^[10] Most modern scholars have concluded that there was one gospel in Aramaic/Hebrew and at least two in Greek, although a minority argue that there were only two, Aramaic/Hebrew and Greek.^[11]

None of these gospels survives today, but attempts have been made to reconstruct them from references in the Church Fathers. The reconstructed texts of the gospels are usually categorized under New Testament Apocrypha. The standard edition of Schneemelcher describes the texts of three Jewish–Christian gospels as follows:^[12]

1) The Gospel of the Ebionites ("GE") – 7 quotations by Epiphanius.

2) The Gospel of the Hebrews ("GH") – 1 quotation ascribed to Cyril of Jerusalem, plus GH 2–7 quotations by Clement, Origen, and Jerome.

3) The Gospel of the Nazarenes ("GN") – GN 1 to GN 23 are mainly from Jerome; GN 24 to GN 36 are from medieval sources.

Some scholars consider that the 2 last named are in fact the same source.^[13]

Non-canonical gospels[edit]

Other documents entitled "gospels" came into existence in the second and third Christian centuries. Sometimes, those attributed to the text state elsewhere that their text is the earlier version, or that their text excises all the additions and distortions made by their opponents to the more recognised version of the text. The Church Fathers insisted that these people were the ones making distortions, but some modern scholars do not. It remains to be seen whether any are earlier and more accurate versions of the canonical texts. Details of their contents only survive in the attacks on them by their opponents, and so for the most part it is uncertain as to how extensively different they are, and whether any constitute entirely different works. These texts include:

• Gospel of Marcion (mid 2nd century)
• Gospel of Mani (3rd century)
• Gospel of Apelles (mid-late 2nd century)
• Gospel of Bardesanes (late 2nd - early 3rd century)
• Gospel of Basilides (mid 2nd century)

Sayings gospels[edit]

One or two texts take the form of brief logia—sayings and parables of Jesus—which are not embedded in a connected narrative:

• Gospel of Thomas

Some scholars regard the Gospel of Thomas as part of the tradition from which the canonical gospels eventually emerged; in any case both of these documents are important as showing us what the theoretical Q documentmight have looked like.

Passion gospels[edit]

A number of gospels are concerned specifically with the "Passion" (arrest, execution and resurrection) of Jesus:

• Gospel of Peter
• Gospel of Nicodemus (also called the "Acts of Pilate")
• Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem, On the Life and the Passion of Christ
• Gospel of Bartholomew
• Questions of Bartholomew
• Resurrection of Jesus Christ (which claims to be according to Bartholomew)

Although three texts take Bartholomew's name, it may be that one of the Questions of Bartholomew or the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is in fact the unknown Gospel of Bartholomew.

Harmonized gospels[edit]

A number of texts aim to provide a single harmonization of the canonical gospels, that eliminates discordances among them by presenting a unified text derived from them to some degree. The most widely read of these was theDiatessaron.

Gnostic texts[edit]

Main article: Gnostic gospels

In the modern era, many Gnostic texts have been uncovered, especially from the Nag Hammadi library. Some texts take the form of an expounding of the esoteric cosmology and ethics held by the Gnostics. Often this was in the form of dialogue in which Jesus expounds esoteric knowledge while his disciples raise questions concerning it. There is also a text, known as the Epistula Apostolorum, which is a polemic against Gnostic esoterica, but written in a similar style as the Gnostic texts.

Dialogues with Jesus[edit]

• Apocryphon of James (also called the "Secret Book of James")
• Book of Thomas the Contender
• Dialogue of the Saviour
• Gospel of Judas (also called the "Gospel of Judas Iscariot")
• Gospel of Mary (also called the "Gospel of Mary Magdalene")
• Gospel of Philip
• Greek Gospel of the Egyptians (distinct from the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians)
• The Sophia of Jesus Christ

General texts concerning Jesus[edit]

• Coptic Apocalypse of Paul (distinct from the Apocalypse of Paul)
• Gospel of Truth
• Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter (distinct from the Apocalypse of Peter)
• Pistis Sophia
• Second Treatise of the Great Seth

Sethian texts concerning Jesus[edit]

The Sethians were a gnostic group who originally worshipped the biblical Seth as a messianic figure, later treating Jesus as a re-incarnation of Seth. They produced numerous texts expounding their esoteric cosmology, usually in the form of visions:

• Apocryphon of John (also called the "Secret Gospel of John")
• Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians (distinct from the Greek Gospel of the Egyptians)
• Trimorphic Protennoia

Ritual diagrams[edit]

Some of the Gnostic texts appear to consist of diagrams and instructions for use in religious rituals:

• Ophite Diagrams
• Books of Jeu

Acts[edit]

Main article: Acts of the Apostles (genre)

Several texts concern themselves with the subsequent lives of the apostles, usually with highly supernatural events. Almost half of these are said^[who?] to have been written by Leucius Charinus (known as the Leucian Acts), a companion of John the apostle. The Acts of Thomas and the Acts of Peter and the Twelve are often considered Gnostic texts. While most of the texts are believed to have been written in the 2nd century, at least two, the Acts of Barnabas and the Acts of Peter and Paul are believed to have been written as late as the 5th century.

• Acts of Andrew
• Acts of Barnabas
• Acts of John
• Acts of the Martyrs
• Acts of Paul
• Acts of Paul and Thecla
• Acts of Peter
• Acts of Peter and Andrew
• Acts of Peter and Paul
• Acts of Peter and the Twelve
• Acts of Philip
• Acts of Pilate
• Acts of Thomas
• Acts of Timothy
• Acts of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca

Epistles[edit]

Main article: Epistles

There are also non-canonical epistles (or "letters") between individuals or to Christians in general. Some of them were regarded very highly by the early church:

• Epistle of Barnabas
• Epistles of Clement
• Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul
• Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans
• Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians
• Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians
• Epistle to Diognetus
• Epistle to the Laodiceans (an epistle in the name of Paul)
• Epistle to Seneca the Younger (an epistle in the name of Paul)
• Third Epistle to the Corinthians - accepted in the past by some in the Armenian Orthodox church.

Apocalypses[edit]

Main article: Apocalyptic literature

Several works frame themselves as visions, often discussing the future, afterlife, or both:

• Apocalypse of Paul (distinct from the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul)
• Apocalypse of Peter (distinct from the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter)
• Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius
• Apocalypse of Thomas (also called the Revelation of Thomas)
• Apocalypse of Stephen (also called the Revelation of Stephen)
• First Apocalypse of James (also called the First Revelation of James)
• Second Apocalypse of James (also called the Second Revelation of James)
• The Shepherd of Hermas

Fate of Mary[edit]

Several texts (over 50) consist of descriptions of the events surrounding the varied fate of Mary (the mother of Jesus):

• The Home Going of Mary
• The Falling Asleep of the Mother of God
• The Descent of Mary

Miscellany[edit]

These texts, due to their content or form, do not fit into the other categories:

• Apostolic Constitutions (church regulations supposedly asserted by the apostles)
• Book of Nepos
• Canons of the Apostles
• Cave of Treasures (also called The Treasure)
• Clementine literature
• Didache (possibly the first written catechism)
• Liturgy of St James
• Penitence of Origen
• Prayer of Paul
• Sentences of Sextus
• Physiologus
• Book of the Bee

Fragments[edit]

In addition to the known apocryphal works, there are also small fragments of texts, parts of unknown (or uncertain) works. Some of the more significant fragments are:

• The Unknown Berlin Gospel (also called the Gospel of the Saviour)
• The Naassene Fragment
• The Fayyum Fragment
• The Secret Gospel of Mark, whose authenticity has been challenged
• The Oxyrhynchus Gospels
• The Egerton Gospel

Lost works[edit]

Several texts are mentioned in many ancient sources and would probably be considered part of the apocrypha, but no known text has survived:

• Gospel of Eve (a quotation from this gospel is given by Epiphanius (Haer. xxvi. 2, 3). It is possible that this is the Gospel of Perfection he alludes to in xxvi. 2. The quotation shows that this gospel was the expression of complete pantheism)
• Gospel of the Four Heavenly Realms
• Gospel of Matthias (probably different from the Gospel of Matthew)
• Gospel of Perfection (used by the followers of Basilides and other Gnostics. See Epiphanius, Haer. xxvi. 2)
• Gospel of the Seventy
• Gospel of Thaddaeus (this may be a synonym for the Gospel of Judas, confusing Judas Iscariot for Jude the Apostle)
• Gospel of the Twelve
• Memoria Apostolorum

Close candidates for canonization[edit]

While many of the books listed here were considered heretical (especially those belonging to the gnostic tradition—as this sect was considered heretical by Proto-orthodox Christianity of the early centuries), others were not considered particularly heretical in content, but in fact were well accepted as significant spiritual works.

While some of the following works appear in complete Bibles from the fourth century, such as 1 Clement and The Shepherd of Hermas, showing their general popularity, they were not included when the canon was formally decided at the end of that century.

• 1 and 2 Clement
• Shepherd of Hermas
• Didache
• Epistle of Barnabas
• Apocalypse of Peter
• Third Epistle to the Corinthians

Evaluation[edit]

Among historians of early Christianity the books are considered invaluable, especially those that almost made it into the final canon, such as Shepherd of Hermas. Bart Ehrman, for example, said:

The victors in the struggles to establish Christian Orthodoxy not only won their theological battles, they also rewrote the history of the conflict; later readers then naturally assumed that the victorious views had been embraced by the vast majority of Christians from the very beginning ... The practice of Christian forgery has a long and distinguished history ... the debate lasted three hundred years ... even within "orthodox" circles there was considerable debate concerning which books to include.^[14]

This debate primarily concerned whether certain works should be read in the church service or only privately. These works were widely used but not necessarily considered Catholic or 'universal.' Such works include the Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, 1 Clement, 2 Clement, the Epistle of Barnabas, and to a lesser extent the Apocalypse of Peter. Considering the generally accepted dates of authorship for all of the canonical New Testament works (ca. 100 AD), as well as the various witnesses to canonicity extant among the writings of Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, etc., the four gospels and letters of Paul were universally held as scriptural, and 200 years were needed to finalize the canon; from the beginning of the 2nd Century to the mid-4th Century, no book in the final canon was ever declared spurious or heretical, except for the Revelation of John which the Council of Laodicea in 363-364 AD rejected (although it accepted all of the other 26 books in the New Testament). This was possibly due to fears of the influence of Montanism which used the book extensively to support their theology. See Revelation of John for more details. Athanasius wrote his Easter letter in 367 AD which defined a canon of 27 books, identical to the current canon, but also listed two works that were "not in the canon but to be read:" The Shepherd of Hermas and theDidache. Nevertheless, the early church leaders in the 3rd and 4th Centuries generally distinguished between canonical works and those that were not canonical but 'useful,' or 'good for teaching,' though never relegating any of the final 27 books to the latter category. One aim with establishing the canon was to capture only those works which were held to have been written by the Apostles, or their close associates, and as the Muratorian fragmentcanon (ca. 150–175 AD) states concerning the Shepherd of Hermas:^{[citation needed]}

...But Hermas wrote The Shepherd very recently, in our times, in the city of Rome, while bishop Pius, his brother, was occupying the chair of the church of the city of Rome. And therefore it ought indeed to be read; but it cannot be read publicly to the people in church either among the Prophets, whose number is complete, or among the Apostles, for it is after their time.^{[citation needed]}

When Religion Makes People Worse

This statue of Jesus crucified is included in a collection of
the fragments from Reims Cathedral in France, on display
at the National WWI Museum at  Liberty Memorial in Kansas
City, Mo., on May 2, 2014. The museum holds the most
diverse collection of artifacts around the world. | Religion
News Service photo by Sally Morrow

Christians, Conflicts & Change: When religion makes people worse

http://religionnews.com/2016/04/05/religion-makes-people-worse/

by David Gushee

April 15, 2016

Religion can do a great job helping believers discern right from wrong. Religion can do a great job helping believers relate kindly and justly to other people. And religion can do a great job stiffening the will of believers when they face unjust suffering for their faith.

I was taught these things when I studied Christian ethics, and they continue to motivate me in my work as an ethics professor today.

But hard experience has me seeing the negation of these claims more than I did at the beginning of my journey.

Now I see that religion can sometimes do a very poor job helping believers discern right from wrong. Religion can do a very poor job helping believers relate kindly and justly to others. And religion can easily persuade people that the rejection they are receiving for their hurtful or ill-considered convictions is martyrdom for God’s Truth, leaving them even more entrenched in their destructive beliefs.

My two key teachers in the field of Christian ethics in the 1980s were the Baptist Glen Stassen of Southern Baptist Seminary and the Lutheran Larry Rasmussen of Union Seminary in New York. These men knew each other and shared many common scholarly interests that shaped me as well. These included the Nazi period in Germany, the extraordinary life of the scholar-pastor-resister Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the challenge of overcoming racism, and the fight against the nuclear arms race during the Cold War.

Both men modeled and taught me an essentially hopeful vision about the role that Christian convictions can play in making Christians more faithful and society better. They taught a faith that had learned very deeply the lessons of the Nazi period; that honored Dietrich Bonhoeffer for standing fast against Nazi seductions when so many of his fellow Christians surrendered their souls; that resisted America’s own racism; and that rejected the idea that more nukes would make the world safer.

My own dissertation focused on that small minority of Christians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. I sought to discover what kind of character, motivations, and faith shaped these people who risked their lives when their neighbors were standing by indifferently. I have spent much of my career attempting to teach what I have sometimes called a “rescuer Christianity,” as over against a “bystander Christianity.”

But now as a wizened old veteran of the fight, I struggle with discouragement sometimes. It is not just that many Christians fail to live up to the clear demands of Christian discipleship. It’s that we can’t even agree on what those demands are. We all say we believe in Jesus, but what we make of that belief is so irreconcilably different that I am not sure that we are in any meaningful way members of the same religious community.

I should have seen this more clearly all along. After all, could it really be said that a Dietrich Bonhoeffer who died resisting Hitler shared the same religion as the “Christian” men who murdered children in Hitler’s name? What was the religious commonality between white Christian KKK members and black Christians fighting for an end to segregation and lynching? And how much do pro-torture, Islamophobic Christians have in common with those who take the opposite path?

A faith that stands with the crucified ones of this world is very different from a faith that does the crucifying. The question becomes not whether you say you follow Jesus, but which Jesus you follow.

Worst of all has been my discovery in recent years of versions of Christianity that actually make people worse human beings than they might otherwise have been. Here churches, pastors, or individuals interpret Scripture or faith in such a way that they do harm they would not do if they were just good old-fashioned pagans. I never anticipated that I would think: “If we could just keep people out of (this version of) church, they would be better people.”

Christian leaders often puzzle over why Christianity in America is declining so badly. Here’s a reason: some highly visible versions of Christianity are so abhorrent that reasonably sensible people want nothing to do with Christianity or the people who practice it.

The same, of course, holds for abhorrent versions of other religions. But that’s their problem, and this one is mine.

Were the Titles of the Gospel on #Sillyboi?

Were the Titles of the Gospel on #Sillyboi?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2016/05/were-the-titles-of-the-gospel-on-sillyboi.html#st_refDomain=www.facebook.com&st_refQuery=/

by James F. Mc Grath

May 18, 2016

Comments

You may think I’m a “silly boy” for writing about this. But when Sarah Bond recently wrote a blog post about the ancient Greek use of a tag (sillybos) to indicate the author and title of a work on a scroll, I felt I needed to blog in a bit more detail about the possible implications of this practice for the study of the New Testament, which Bond mentioned briefly. Not that this has not come up before. But one will often hear people outside of the academy (and occasionally even within it) speak about the “anonymity” of the New Testament Gospels as though this were something surprising. The placement of a title at the top of the first page is something relatively new. It goes along with the development of the codex, since in a scroll, you wouldn’t want to have to unwind it all the way to see what it was. And so tags were used. Even in codices, whether a title would be included, and if so whether it would be at the start or end of a work, varied for a long time.

And so it seems to me unsurprising that the Gospels lack titles of the kind modern readers expect. Would the earliest version of Mark ever have been written on a scroll? It is impossible to know (Francis Moloney thinks so, and so too does Ben Witherington). But at the very least, its author would have been more used to reading scrolls than codices, and might therefore have expected any designation for his literary work to go on a tag rather than someplace else.

It is probable that the Gospel of Mark would have been known initially as “The Gospel of Jesus Christ,” with the author certainly known to those who first read the work. The Gospel of Matthew would have been known as Βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (“The Genesis/Genealogy of Jesus Christ”). The author of the Gospel of John may perhaps have hoped that his work would be confused with that other, already famous “In The Beginning,” and so actually have had the evangelistic purpose some have detected in the statement of purpose in John 20:31. With the composition of these other works in the same vein, however, it became natural to refer to them in a similar way, with the author being the point of comparison between them. The fact that the first of them highlighted the word Gospel at its start would then explain well why the titling followed Mark’s lead. And given that it is the conclusion of modern scholarship that Mark was written first, but that this was not the historic view of the order of the Gospels, the convergence of modern scholarship on the order with these ancient considerations about the titles is perhaps noteworthy.

(I’m pretty sure no one ever called the Gospel of Luke ΕΠΕΙΔΗΠΕΡ ΠΟΛΛΟΙ ἐπεχείρησαν ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησινπερὶ τῶν πεπληροφορημένων ἐν ἡμῖν πραγμάτων… And that too is something worth talking about, since it begins in a manner that does not make for easy reference. Might it have been referred to as ‘The Things Concerning Which You Were Instructed’ or perhaps ‘In the Days of Herod the Great,’ the words which follow the introducion?)

When groups tended to use a small number of books (and in those times, very few individuals or groups owned large collections), shorthand ways of referring to them would be preferred. Even today one can find numerous examples of this.

For those who’ve been wondering ever since they read the title, the Greek word σύλλαβος is supposed to provide the origin of the English word syllabus. But in fact, the word for a tag on parchments was σίττυβας, and it seems that “syllabus” therefore derives from a transcription mistake that was made in a Greek word, or a Latin word derived from it. You can read in various places online about the debates regarding the term – and how to make the plural of “syllabus” in English if it is neither properly Greek nor properly Latin.

See also my earlier two posts on the question of whether the Gospels were originally anonymous:

Were the Gospels originally anonymous?

Are the Gospels anonymous?

As you’ll see in the first post, we have actually found a “flyleaf” or attached tag indicating the title of the Gospel of Matthew. We know from the history of literature that the ways works were referred to could change over time.

What do you think the relevance is of this ancient practice of “tagging” literature (with what we today would call “metadata”) for the question of the titles and authorship of the New Testament Gospels?

Deconstructing "Evangelicalsim"

"Today, some are making an idol out of “evangelicalism.” They are doing that by insisting

that it is a closed system, exclusive of all but themselves and those who think just like them -

always the same (impervious to change and development), absolutely and objectively true

(unbiased, without perspective) and bounded by identifiable boundaries (propositional truths)

impervious to outsiders or new ideas and established by “the received evangelical tradition."

- Roger Olson

I found early on when doing the hard work of Christian deconstruction that after completing its project - such as the one Roger Olson is referencing today - that it is always spiritually healthy to then provide a Christian reconstruction as bridge from the apophatic (what God is not) to the cataphatic (what God is). That it would be spiritually healthy for me to discern both my background and the effects of my background upon my faith - both in the negative and in the positive. To take an "internal inventory" if you will, of my beliefs, and to determine, if possible, where necessary change must come.

More importantly, this task took me by surprise when after over a dozen years of Holy-Spirit burden I became overwhelmed by God and fell into a black pit of despair requiring a personal brokenness for a period of time before then yearning for release. And when delivered by the hand of God, He had formed within me a new purpose, a new mind, a changed heart, and renewed determination measured in passion and insight. It was both a God-thing and a me-thing where God took my mind, heart, will, and spirit, and re-oriented myself towards a gospel filled with Jesus and no longer a form of Jesus as expressed by a hardened religion that had absorbed me without my notice. And yet, this idolatrous form of Christianity needed breaking, and when done, was broken, and I was released into a clearer light of day than I first had possessed in my earlier adult years.

 It was a process which took its time with me (by my count, approximately eleven months). And it was within this personally difficult process or space that the truth of Jack Caputo's statement became true:

"The truth will set you free,
but it does so by turning your life upside down."

- John (Jack) Caputo

However, if I were to tarry too long in this land of loss and positive criticism then I would miss the beauty of Christ in the lands of renewal, reclamation, and reconstruction. That it was my responsibility to also speak of a better form of Christian faith and theology then what it had become these past several decades. And so I have. As best as I could. With what I had. More specifically, I became burdened to speak of a postmodern, post-Christian faith emphasizing some of its newer discoveries over the past several decades. Discoveries such as presenting:

• a "weak (sic, non-dogmatic) theology" that is more open (and less closed) within the best traditions of the church; or,

• a faith that allows for the Spirit of God to presage our hearts and minds again in the forms of mystic Christianity (ala Richard Rohr, Stanley Hauerwas, et al) which stands amazed and wordless before the presence of a Holy God; or,

• recognizing an "anthropological hermeneutic" inadvertently laid upon Scripture which we bring upon the interpretations of God's revelation in the Bible through our self-oriented (existential) needs, wants, prejudices, and bigotries; or even,

• when discovering a ground-changing philosophical basis other than the Western Analytical tradition I grew up within. An over-used tradition steeped in a "mathematical, syllogistic, formula-based theology" when describing God (systematic theology) or His work (Christian essays). One known as a (Hegelian-based) Continental Philosophy (cf. Postmodern Christianity) which would emphasize God's revealed story as a salvific (meta)narrative wrapped around the nucleus of a Radical Christianity which tore at the idols of modernal Christian religion.

And so then, in today's post, submitted by a true-to-form religious evangelic theologian steeped in church history, Dr. Roger Olson, we can hear again of this newer movement writhing within the deep halls of both evangelical and liberal Christianity. And, of course, I use the descriptive word "liberal" in its best sense of "reconstructing" a Jesus-centric Christian faith - not a biblio-centric, nor a closed dogmatic faith, nor even a sectarian creed-based Christianity. But a faith that leads out with Jesus even as the best bible-centered, weaker dogmatic, and confessional creeds do over the church's long, controversy-filled, history. One that lifts up God's revealed self-incarnation in the flesh, Jesus, as our Sovereign Lord and Savior, who came to save us from our sin and suffering. Who offers real hope in the "lands of the midnight sun" underwhich we turn-and-spin seeking truth-and-knowledge through the grand auspices of love, compassion, forgiveness, and service.

As such, the take-aways from today's discussion is the rebalancing of what an evangelic faith can be with Jesus at its center. To not over-judge a beneficial (evangelical) movement largely taken heist by the idolaters of its faith having crept in and demanded a more sectarian, secular form of its best self. To understand that a postmodern Christianity has come to re-right its 20th century predecessor by emphasizing both the negatives and the positives of its evangelical heritage in the best that it has to offer through its more progressive, liberal forms of revelation. That in the end, this rebalancing act (one which Peter Rollins calls a "magic act") will remove the idolatry we have brought to a godly faith by supplanting it with God Himself rather than with our unrepentant selves. To do this we must declare Jesus by speaking of Him and His resurrection through newer words and ideas which will lead us out of our present darkness. Words and ideas which will perform their necessary work of a postmodern deconstruction and reconstruction. Words hearkening to the old words of the Apostle Paul who declared we must deliver over the "old man" to death in order to allow the Holy Spirit to place within our hearts and minds and souls "the new man in Christ." And this I had proposed to do by the merciful hand of God - and have done to the best of my ability - within the pages of this blogsite. To the glory of God, and to His Son. Amen and amen.

R.E. Slater

May 1, 2016
edited May 10, 2016

* * * * * * * * *

Deconstructing "Evangelicalism"

by Roger Olson

April 29, 2016

Comments

Recently I had the privilege of hearing George Marsden speak. Marsden is widely considered the “dean” of evangelical historians. That is, he practically pioneered and led in the study of the history of the evangelical movement. He taught at Calvin College, Duke Divinity School and retired from the University of Notre Dame (where Mark Noll succeeded him). Marsden helped many of us, in our callow years as budding evangelical scholars, distinguish between “evangelicalism” and “fundamentalism.” The lecture I heard, just recently, was about C. S. Lewis and Mere Christianity—a phenomenon that continues to grow in influence and not only among evangelicals.

Hearing Marsden, and meeting him for the first time, reminded me of an essay I wrote a few years ago that never was published. If I posted it here, I have forgotten that. So here it is:

“Deconstructing Evangelicalism”

What is “deconstruction,” anyway? Well, I’ve been reading a lot about that and it turns out it’s not at all what I had been told. It’s not “destruction” but rather has a positive agenda–to expose idols for what they are and help institutions and movements (etc.) improve themselves by becoming more open, more just and more flexible.

A basic presupposition of deconstruction is that all ideologies are idols because they usurp the place of God (for Christian deconstructionists) and/or claim to be what no human system can be–totalizing, monolithic, all-encompassing explanatory schemes that function as God (for secular deconstructionists).

According to Peter Rollins (How [Not] to Speak of God) (depending largely on Christian philosopher Merold Westphal) there are at least two principles of deconstruction: the principle of finitude and the principle of suspicion. These, along with some other possible deconstructive principles, serve as critical tools for exposing idols.

Today, some are making an idol out of “evangelicalism.” They are doing that by insisting that it is a closed system, exclusive of all but themselves and those who think just like them - always the same (impervious to change and development), absolutely and objectively true (unbiased, without perspective) and bounded by identifiable boundaries (propositional truths) impervious to outsiders or new ideas and established by “the received evangelical tradition.”

Of course, few evangelicals would put it this way, but one can easily detect this notion of evangelicalism by reading some of its self-appointed spokesmen.

My intention is not at all to critique authentic evangelicalism, although it is always improvable, but rather my intention is to deconstruct the concept of evangelicalism being promoted by some conservatives.

My first deconstructive move is to demonstrate the aporia of a movement with boundaries. I’ve written about this here before, but it bears repeating. Evangelicalism is a movement and a movement, by definition, cannot have boundaries. Thus, it is simply ridiculous to think of or to talk about evangelical boundaries. Evangelicalism would have to have a magisterium [a centralizing synod-like body] to have boundaries; it has no magisterium. It [the evangelical movement] is a people’s movement stemming from the Reformation, the Pietist renewals, the first and second Great Awakenings, the conservative reaction to liberal theology (early fundamentalism) and dissatisfaction with fundamentalism. Evangelicalism has always been tremendously diverse. All within it have similiar concerns and interests, but the moment you try to put your finger on something that could serve as a boundary (rather than a center of attention and interest) it slips away because someone within the movement has already violated it!

Along the same lines (exposing an aporia of this concept of evangelicalism): evangelicals have always valued the Scripture principle stemming from the Reformation (sola scriptura). They have interpreted it in many different ways, but it stands at the center of the movement (which is a centered set but not a bounded set). Yet, many of those promoting this new, narrow, almost idolatrous notion of evangelicalism seem to violate sola scriptura even as they identify it as a boundary of the movement. They violate it by solidifying tradition and raising it to a level of authority functionally equal with Scripture.

Real affirmation of the Scripture principle manifests in openness to correction of all systems and traditions from Scripture itself. Where that openness is missing sola scriptura is receiving only lip service at best.

Moving on to the deconstructive principle of finitude: Evangelicalism is historically allergic to idolatry of any kind and yet idolatry appears wherever and whenever something finite, human, is elevated to God-like status. Anything treated as immutable, absolute, incorrigible, all comprehensive, completely objective and exclusive of insights from others (beyond God’s own self-revelation) is an idol. No theological system or doctrinal confession or tradition can be any of those things because they are all finite creations of humans. That is not to say they are false; it is only to say they are less than absolute and, if they are to avoid idolatry, must be held open to correction. Thus, to the extent that people treat evangelicalism as a regime of truth incapable of improvement through criticism and correction it is becoming an ideology rather than an expression of the gospel and therefore an idol.

What about the principle of suspicion? Anyone who has been intimately involved in studying and participating in evangelicalism for a long time can easily see that there is tremendous gain to be had in terms of power, prestige and even money by controlling evangelical thought. Some evangelical spokesmen (always self-appointed, of course) jockey for status as pontiff of evangelicalism in public opinion. Such people sometimes change their views in order to gain greater support. Whole groups of evangelicals attempt to throw others out of the movement by marginalizing them, often by misrepresenting their views. (I can prove that has happened to me and I know of others to whom it has happened in the most cynical ways.) Evangelicalism has become respectable and prosperous and worldly in terms of power and prestige and whoever has the ability to convince the movers and shakers of evangelicalism (administrators, publishers, etc.) that he is its true representative wields great power. Evangelicalism began (at least in modern times) as a movement of the margins. In some circles it is in danger of becoming a movement of elites who delight in marginalizing other evangelicals to prove they have the power to do it.

Finally, I will add the principle of obligation to the “other”–the principle of alterity [a state of being different. "Otherness"]. Postmodern deconstructionism elevates obligation to the “other”–the outsider, the outcast, the invisible–as a primary ethical norm. Ideologies are belief systems that create otherness and thrive on exclusion under the guise of providing an all-encompassing explanatory scheme. Evangelical theologian Miroslav Volf writes about “willingness to embrace” the other–a Christian version of postmodern Jewish philospher Levinas’ obligation to the “face” of the other.

In the aftermath of the 20th century–a century of genocidal ideologies–we all need to be careful not to create or embrace or follow new ideologies that exclude and refuse even to hear the voices of those who do not fit in or who disagree. These days conservative evangelicalism is a monologue, a choir singing only in melody without harmony, a movement aiming at conformity.

Not long before he died I corresponded with conservative evangelical theologian (to many the “dean of evangelical theologians”) Carl F. H. Henry about inerrancy and other matters of concern. I mentioned to him that evangelical theologian Donald Bloesch, in his developing Foundations series, denied inerrancy except in the broadest sense possible. Henry dismissed Bloesch as a “mediating theologian” by which he clearly meant “not evangelical in true sense” (as defined, of course, by Henry). Anyone who knew Bloesch knows what a great evangelical spirit he was.

Rather than practicing hospitality through dialogue and consensus-building, today’s conservative evangelicals are too concerned with excluding people. In some cases this lack of value placed on alterity borders on violence. Not physical violence but spiritual abuse which is another kind of violence.

The upshot is that today’s self-appointed (but very loud and influential) establishment evangelicalism is in danger of turning the liberating evangelical movement that is gospel-centered, generous and loving into an ideology and thus [into] an idol. There is the danger of God being effectively pulled down out of transcendence and made into a prisoner of a propositional system (and perhaps even a servant of a political agenda).

The great German pietist Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf often said that whoever puts Christianity into a system kills it. He didn’t mean, of course, that doctrine is bad. He was a great defender of basic Protestant orthodoxy, but he recognized the grave danger of giving too much importance and power to human systems of thought that imprison the Spirit of God who always transcends our humanly constructed houses of authority.

Sermons from Elder D.J. Ward, Lexington, Kentucky

“On Christ Alone” — Elder D.J. Ward

(T4G 2016)

www.vimeo.com

The death of Christ was an accomplishment, and our works cannot add to Christ's death. In this video, Elder D.J. Ward, the late pastor of Main Street Baptist Church in Lexington, K.Y., powerfully reminds us of the sufficiency of Christ's death for all who turn to him in repentance and faith.

"Jesus Paid it All" - Elder DJ Ward

"Because of God's Choice" - In Memory of Elder D.J. Ward

" GOD Is Sovereign" - Elder D.J. Ward

Christianity's New Atheism

Not long ago I went through a transformative period which I deemed my "atheistic stage" of faith. Having grown up in a Christianity that positively affirmed itself while denying so many "worldly" attitudes and practices I bore a critical Christianity towards "the other" rather than towards my faith or my church fellowship. In fact, this kind of Christian faith had become its own death knell in my life which eventually collapsed and in its deconstruction rose again as another kind of Christian faith than the one I had grown up with and was so familiar or comfortable around its religious constructs.

The curious thing I discovered was that in this phase of "unknowing" or "deconstruction" it proved to be a period of lament and grief for me as much as it was a period of questioning the directions/answers I was taught to believe. This lament was a dark time of soul searching and lasted for most of a year before it left its beneficial affects upon both my soul and my outlook of what Christianity could be and not what it had become. This was a paradox.

Another paradox was the closeness of God I felt to me. Like Job of old I never felt His presence to have left my soul regardless the deep trauma of soul-searching I was undergoing. Rather, God was closer than ever before. But what did leave me was my own positivistic belief structures which refused to question itself, so strong its borderlands of strict dogmas and religious folklores which I had intermixed with a truer form of Christian faith than I was holding. In essence, as deep as my grief and lament was, so was God's presence in my life as I wrote of my dissatisfaction with my church, its pulpiteers, and outcome-based theology of hate, violence, and judgment.

For myself, as with so many others, if a Christian faith was to be true it had to be built up upon the better elements of humanity - its courage, its searching honesty, its non-discriminatory forms of ministry and outreach. At its core it needed a loving God working through an evil world and pliant forms of clay-based Christians or humanity seeking for a better world than what they saw in mankind's many sociological or political institutions.

And so it wasn't long before I became acquainted with a new kind of atheism which would allow for an agnosticism and a kind of anti-theism as well. One which was questioning, discovering, and falling into the camps of the "nones and dones" of the church. Perhaps then I was one of these individuals because I certainly was "done" with the form of church I had grown up with. And perhaps I was also part of the "none" crowd though for me it was more in the form of rehabilitating my Christian faith rather than jettisoning it altogether.

Which is also where I believe many so-called agnostics, atheists, and anti-theists are today... not so much stripped of a spiritual kind of faith, but of a disillusionment with the world and its debilitating faith structures. If so, they and I have a real bond of fellowship in this regard and it has become one which I have been exploring through the length and breadth of this blogsite. One which would distill my faith to its very essence. To its pith. To its central cores of Christian belief by rejecting its more pagan street-forms and folklores which so many within the church would claim as biblical when they are not.

But I have also noticed amongst this brave new world a reluctance to re-enter into any kind of positivistic statement of doctrinal belief, structure, or assent. To be honest, as a (postmodern, radical) theologian I am not built this way. Though I have been stripped of what I thought were the essences of my Christian faith, they were, in the final analysis, unnecessary and harmful hinderances to entering into the way of Jesus who demonstrated to us God's fellowship with the pagan, the unholy, and the despised. It was this "humanitarian" view of Jesus that drew me over against the church's ill-perception of His pharisaical outlook upon the world of mankind. An outlook that had become in the church's doctrines and dogmas more brutal, unkind, full of hell and despair, and hateful to all elements of humanity that seemed less worthy of God.

This unkind/shallow/legalistic/inhuman form of Christian teaching had to die for me. It had to be thrown into its own pit of despair and flames of eternal torment. For me to continue in the Christian faith was to become like unto its own spiritual hell that God helped me to escape through deep grief and lament in my life. Of burying that part of Christianity which was unworthy of Himself. One which held to another form of Christianless Christianity become lost in its more popular forms of bigotry and bullying, hatred and aspersion, callousness and without mercy, forgiveness, or compassion. And once accomplished, God then burdened me to re-teach the "better forms" of Christian doctrine which would allow for more alliance with postmodernity's new atheism than it did its stricter, more classical forms of faith and belief. A faith which questioned itself first and foremost above all else. That critically reassessed what it was saying and doing before feeling assured of itself.

However, it appeared to me that it wasn't that the Spirit of God had to throw out the entire Christian faith I had learned through the church and its kindred souls of fellowship over the long years of my life. But to recognize and remove that part which had become unspiritual, unkind, unbiblical. More so, to allow in a new kind of "uncertainty and doubt" of self-examination which would better help both me and the church in the years ahead when coming to Christian teachings amiss of soul or heart. Thus, for me, I felt driven to re-teach theology in its better, more healthier forms, while also allowing contemporary society's newer insights from science, philosophy, and epistemology to help me re-create a postmodern, contemporary presence/witness of Christianity. One that was both post-secular and post-Christian in its reflection and dictates.

So then, I was tasked by the Spirit of God to realize (or re-create) a postmodern, radical Christianity which would reach out in a fundamentally uplifting way through its many avenues of witness and discussion to the nones and the dones while disturbing the unpeturbed, unquestioning, and settled of my faith. To more kindly embrace the former while making uncomfortable the latter.

Rather than denying the legitimacy of new atheism's unbelief in its "religious" sphere of rejecting all forms of knowing and belief, I wished to embrace its healthy skepticism of religion by reforming my own epistemology to be more open, more radical, more accepting of "the other." When done, a new form of Christianity had arisen which can accept "positive forms of unknowing or denial" which may be both spiritually constructive and more personally healthy in the lives of both the believer, the unsure, and the disbeliever.

Why? Because much of today's more popular forms of Christian belief has been rejecting and assertively judgmental upon the language of agnosticism and atheism. Fearing it - rather than accepting it - in the transformative experience of the existential and phenomenological experience of the church and its congregants. Yes, the worlds of unbelief can be a strong starting point for the one willing to question faith and yet, paradoxically, finding God beyond the church's institutionalized forms of its societalized God and "Christianized" belief structures which have more in common with the pagan than with the truly biblical. 

In a sense then, all epistemologies must first be broken down or deconstructed before they can be reborne or reconstructed. The nones and the dones are a part of Christianity's narrative story of postmodern angst and dissettlement to its older forms of commonly accepted practices and beliefs. But it can ironically become a place for revival when first throwing off all Christian pretentions to the real and the true that are actually unreal and untrue. Which are sandier foundations of belief than truly biblical foundations. As such, the language of the church must adjust for this postmodernal occurrence lest it clings to a poorer form of itself in action and belief.

Lastly, it is all too easy for postmodernal Christians holding this elevated sense of epistemology to fall into a form of Christian asceticism. I think of the followers of Richard Rohr who has been so helpful in reclaiming the spiritual side of Christianity by espousing a Socratic kind of "unknowing" when conflicted by biblical claim, verse, or teaching. However, as a postmodern, radical Christian, I am discontent towards this kind of "unknowing" and am burdened to elevate Scripture onto a Jesus-plane of gospeling so that even in its uncertainties we can be certain of God's love, guidance, and hope.

Christian asceticism, like stoicism, is not where I want to live. I can appreciate its monkish outlook on life, its forms of "walking softly upon this earth," and its claims of never being sure. But in another sense, as a Spirit-led teacher of God's Word I must "unearth" its truths, doctrines, and verities lest we simply fall into a kind of naturalistic faith whose hope is in hope itself and not in the Living Creator God of the cosmos come to redeem us from sin and shame.

And so, I hope to not only teach God's Word, but to teach it in a humble and kind fashion full of grace and truth while always questioning my self and my teachings so that each in its turn might be ever learning, growing, and reaching out to as much of mankind as possible. This is a Jesus thing. Its what I would expect of God's embrace of the world when He came to this earth to expose Himself to its sin and evil. Who died for us in order to bring redemption's healing to our hearts and souls. Who has transformed Himself through the insurrection of the Cross that both He-and-we be resurrected into the newness of life promised us through God's fellowship with us and with one another in spiritual solidarity with the divine, the holy, the gracious, and deep mysteries of His healing Personage.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

April 26, 2016
edited April 27, 2016

Reference Material - Wikipedia

New Atheism is the journalistic term used to describe the positions promoted by atheists of the twenty-first century. This modern day atheism and secularism is advanced by critics of religion and religious belief,[1] a group of modern atheist thinkers and writers who advocate the view that superstition, religion and irrationalism should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises in government, education and politics.[2] In England and Wales, as of 2011, census figures showed a decrease in respondents citing belief in Christian religion, while the non-religious are the largest growing demographic.[3]

New Atheism lends itself to and often overlaps with secular humanism and anti-theism, particularly in its criticism of what many New Atheists regard as the indoctrination of children and the perpetuation of ideologies."

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Emerging Church - The emerging church is a Christian movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries that crosses a number of theological boundaries: participants are described as Protestant, post-Protestant, evangelical,[1] post-evangelical, liberal, post-liberal, conservative, post-conservative, anabaptist, adventist,[2] reformed, charismatic, neocharismatic, and post-charismatic. Emerging churches can be found throughout the globe, predominantly in North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa. Some attend local independent churches or house churches[3][4][5] while others worship in traditional Christian denominations.

Proponents believe the movement transcends such "modernist" labels of "conservative" and "liberal," calling the movement a "conversation" to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature, its vast range of standpoints, and its commitment to dialogue. Participants seek to live their faith in what they believe to be a "postmodern" society. What those involved in the conversation mostly agree on is their disillusionment with the organized and institutional church and their support for the deconstruction of modern Christian worship, modern evangelism, and the nature of modern Christian community.

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Progressive Christianity is a form of Christianity which is characterized by a willingness to question tradition, acceptance of human diversity, a strong emphasis on social justice and care for the poor and the oppressed, and environmental stewardship of the Earth.

Progressive Christians have a deep belief in the centrality of the instruction to "love one another" (John 15:17) within the teachings of Jesus Christ.[1] This leads to a focus on promoting values such as compassion, justice, mercy, tolerance, often through political activism. Though prominent, the movement is by no means the only significant movement of progressive thought among Christians (see the 'See also' links below).

Progressive Christianity draws on the insights of multiple theological streams including evangelicalism, liberalism, neo-orthodoxy, pragmatism, postmodernism, Progressive Reconstructionism, and liberation theology.[2] Though the terms Progressive Christianity and Liberal Christianity are often used synonymously, the two movements are distinct, despite much overlap.[3]

Some characteristics of Progressive Christianity, though none be exclusive to it, are:

• A spiritual expressiveness, including participatory, arts-infused worship as well as a variety of spiritual disciplines and practices such as prayer or meditation.

• Intellectual integrity and creativity, including an openness to questioning and an insistence upon intellectual rigor.

• Understanding of spirituality as a real affective and psychological or neural state (see Neurotheology)

• Critical interpretation of the scripture as a record of human historical & spiritual experiences and theological reflection thereupon instead of a composition of literal or scientific facts.

• Acceptance of modern historical Biblical criticism.

• Acceptance (although not necessarily validation) of people who have differing understandings of the concept of "God", such as pantheism, deism, non-theism, as a social construct, or as community.

• Understanding of church communion (the Eucharist) as a symbol or reflection of the body of Christ.

• An affirmation of Christian belief with a simultaneous sincere respect for values present in other religions and belief systems. This does not necessarily mean all Progressive Christians believe that other religious traditions are as equally valid as Christianity, but rather, that other faiths have certain values and tenets that everyone, including Christians, can learn from and respect.

• An affirmation of both human spiritual unity and social diversity.

• An affirmation of the universe, and more immediately the Earth, as the natural and primary context of all human spirituality [as versus a heaven-mindedness].

• An unyielding commitment to the Option for the poor and a steadfast solidarity with the poor as the subjects of their own emancipation, rather than being the objects of charity.

• Compassion for all living beings.

• Support for LGBT rights and affirmation, including, but not limited to, support for same-sex marriage, affirmation of gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals as authentic Christians, affirmation of trans identity, and LGBT rights in general.

* * * * * * * * * *

More people than ever before are identifying as atheist, agnostic, or otherwise nonreligious, with potentially world-changing effects. | PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS BERGIN/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

The World's Newest Major Religion: No Religion

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160422-atheism-agnostic-secular-nones-rising-religion/

As secularism grows, atheists and agnostics are trying to expand and diversify their ranks.

by Gabe Bullard

April 22, 2016

You don’t usually think of churches as going out of business, but it happens. In March, driven by parishioner deaths and lack of interest, the U.K. Mennonites held their last collective service.

It might seem easy to predict that plain-dressing Anabaptists—who follow a faith related to the Amish—would become irrelevant in the age of smartphones, but this is part of a larger trend. Around the world, when asked about their feelings on religion, more and more people are responding with a meh.

The religiously unaffiliated, called "nones," are growing significantly. They’re the second largest religious group in North America and most of Europe. In the United States, nones make up almost a quarter of the population. In the past decade, U.S. nones have overtaken Catholics, mainline protestants, and all followers of non-Christian faiths.

A lack of religious affiliation has profound effects on how people think about death, how they teach their kids, and even how they vote. (Watch The Story of God With Morgan Freeman for more about how different religions understand God and creation.)

There have long been predictions that religion would fade from relevancy as the world modernizes, but all the recent surveys are finding that it’s happening startlingly fast. France will have a majority secular population soon. So will the Netherlands and New Zealand. The United Kingdom and Australia will soon lose Christian majorities. Religion is rapidly becoming less important than it’s ever been, even to people who live in countries where faith has affected everything from rulers to borders to architecture.

But nones aren’t inheriting the Earth just yet. In many parts of the world—sub-Saharan Africa in particular—religion is growing so fast that nones’ share of the global population will actually shrink in 25 years as the world turns into what one researcher has described as “the secularizing West and the rapidly growing rest.” (The other highly secular part of the world is China, where the Cultural Revolution tamped down religion for decades, while in some former Communist countries, religion is on the increase.)

And even in the secularizing West, the rash of “religious freedom bills”—which essentially decriminalize discrimination—are the latest front in a faith-tinged culture war in the United States that shows no signs of abetting anytime soon.

Within the ranks of the unaffiliated, divisions run deep. Some are avowed atheists. Others are agnostic. And many more simply don’t care to state a preference. Organized around skepticism toward organizations and united by a common belief that they do not believe, nones as a group are just as internally complex as many religions. And as with religions, these internal contradictions could keep new followers away.

Millennials to God: No Thanks

If the world is at a religious precipice, then we’ve been moving slowly toward it for decades. Fifty years ago, Time asked in a famous headline, “Is God Dead?” The magazine wondered whether religion was relevant to modern life in the post-atomic age when communism was spreading and science was explaining more about our natural world than ever before.

We’re still asking the same question. But the response isn’t limited to yes or no. A chunk of the population born after the article was printed may respond to the provocative question with, “God who?” In Europe and North America, the unaffiliated tend to be several years younger than the population average. And 11 percent of Americans born after 1970 were raised in secular homes.

Scientific advancement isn’t just making people question God, it’s also connecting those who question. It’s easy to find atheist and agnostic discussion groups online, even if you come from a religious family or community. And anyone who wants the companionship that might otherwise come from church can attend a secular Sunday Assembly or one of a plethora of Meetups for humanists, atheists, agnostics, or skeptics.

The groups behind the web forums and meetings do more than give skeptics witty rejoinders for religious relatives who pressure them to go to church—they let budding agnostics know they aren’t alone.

But it’s not easy to unite people around not believing in something. “Organizing atheists is like herding cats,” says Stephanie Guttormson, the operations director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation, which is merging with the Center for Inquiry. “But lots of cats have found their way into the 'meowry.'”

The Story of God with Morgan Freeman, continues Sunday, April 24, at 9/8c, and will take viewers on a trip around the world to explore different cultures and religions on the ultimate quest to uncover the meaning of life, God, and all the questions in between.

Guttormson says the goal of her group is to organize itself out of existence. They want to normalize atheism to a point where it’s so common that atheists no longer need a group to tell them it’s okay not to believe, or to defend their morals in the face of religious lawmakers.

But it’s not there yet.

Atheism’s Diversity Problem

The Center for Inquiry in Washington, D.C., hosts a regular happy hour called Drinking Skeptically. On a Wednesday in late March, about a dozen people showed up to faithlessly imbibe, and all but one were white.

“Most of the groups I’ve seen have been predominantly white, but I’m not sure what to attribute that to,” says Kevin Douglas, the lone African-American drinker, shrugging at the demographics. He came from a religious family in New York and struggled internally with his skepticism until shortly after college. The only time he mentions having difficulty with others accepting his atheism was when he worked in Dallas, Texas, and race, he says, had little to do with it.

But more typically, “there is pressure from our [African-American] community,” says Mandisa Thomas, the founder and president of the Atlanta-based Black Nonbelievers, Inc. This pressure stems from the place religion—Christianity in particular—holds in African-American history.

In the abolition movement churches “became a support system for blacks. It became almost the end-all be-all for the black community for a number of years,” Thomas says, adding that the Civil Rights movement was dominated—she says “hijacked”—by religious leaders.

“If you either reject or identify as a nonbeliever, you’re seen as betraying your race,” she says.

Thomas is an outlier among nonbelievers for another reason. She’s a woman.

The secularizing West is full of white men. The general U.S. population is 46 percent male and 66 percent white, but about 68 percent of atheists are men, and 78 percent are white. Atheist Alliance International has called the gender imbalance in its ranks “a significant and urgent issue.”

The Privilege of Not Believing

There are a few theories about why people become atheists in large numbers. Some demographers attribute it to financial security, which would explain why European countries with a stronger social safety net are more secular than the United States, where poverty is more common and a medical emergency can bankrupt even the insured.

Atheism is also tied to education, measured by academic achievement (atheists in many places tend to have college degrees) or general knowledge of the panoply of beliefs around the world (hence theories that Internet access spurs atheism).

There’s some evidence that official state religions drive people away from faith entirely, which could help explain why the U.S. is more religious than most Western nations that technically have a state religion, even if it is rarely observed. The U.S. is also home to a number of homegrown churches—Scientology, Mormonism—that might scoop up those who are disenchanted with older faiths.

The social factors that promote atheism—financial security and education—have long been harder to attain for women and people of color in the United States.

Around the world, the Pew Research Center finds that women tend to be more likely to affiliate with a religion and more likely to pray and find religion important in their lives. That changes when women have more opportunities. “Women who are in the labor force are more like men in religiosity. Women out of the labor force tend to be more religious,” says Conrad Hackett with Pew. “Part of that might be because they’re part of a religious group that enforces the power of women being at home."

In a Washington Post op-ed about the racial divides among atheists, Black Skeptics Group founder Sikivu Hutchinson points out that “the number of black and Latino youth with access to quality science and math education is still abysmally low.” That means they have fewer economic opportunities and less exposure to a worldview that does not require the presence of God.

Religion has a place for women, people of color, and the poor. By its nature, secularism is open to all, but it’s not always as welcoming.

Some of the humanist movement’s most visible figures aren’t known for their respect toward women. Prominent atheists Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have awful reputations for misogyny, as does the late Christopher Hitchens. Bill Maher, the comedian and outspoken atheist, is no (nonexistent) angel, either.

The leaders of Atheist Alliance International, Dawkins Foundation, and Center for Inquiry who I talked to were all well aware of the demographic shortcomings, and they’re working on it: All of the leaders I spoke to were women.

Even people who are white, male, and educated may fear the stigma of being labeled a nonbeliever. A white dentist at the CFI’s Drinking Skeptically event didn’t want to go on the record out of a fear that patients wouldn’t want an atheist working on their teeth.

“We have this stigma that we’re combative, that we’re arrogant, that we just want to provoke religious people,” Thomas with Black Nonbelievers, Inc. says. She’s working on changing that, and increasing the visibility of nonbelievers of color, too.

Thompson believes the demographics of nones don’t accurately reflect the number and diversity of nonbelievers; it just shows who is comfortable enough to say they don’t believe out loud. “There are many more people of color, there are many more women who identify as atheists,” she says. “There are many people who attend church who are still atheists.”

Several atheist and humanist organizations have launched advertising

campaigns aimed at making skeptics more comfortable not believing.

| PHOTOGRPAH BY ANNE CHADWICK WILLIAMS/SACRAMENTO BEE/MCT VIA GETTY

Expanding the Ranks

What’s sometimes called the New Atheism picked up in the mid-2000s. These were years of war, when Islam was painted as a threat and Christianity infused U.S. policy, abroad and domestically, most visibly in faith-based ballot initiatives against same-sex marriage.

In the U.S., many state legislators are still using a narrow interpretation of Christian morals to deny services to gay people and appropriate restrooms to people who are transgender.

But the national backlash to religious legislation has become faster and fiercer than ever before. Europeans seem set on addressing Islamophobiaand the forces that could create tension with the “rapidly growing rest.”

And compared to past campaign seasons, religion is taking a backseat in this year’s U.S. presidential election. Donald Trump is not outwardly religious (and his attraction of evangelical voters has raised questions about the longevity and the motives of the religious right). Hillary Clinton has said “advertising about faith doesn’t come naturally to me.” And Bernie Sanders is “not actively involved” in a religion. Their reticence about religion reflects the second largest religious group in the country they hope to run. Aside from Ted Cruz, the leading candidates just aren’t up for talking about religion. The number of Americans who seek divine intervention in the voting booth seems to be shrinking.

For all the work secular groups do to promote acceptance of nonbelievers, perhaps nothing will be as effective as apathy plus time. As the secular millennials grow up and have children of their own, the only Sunday morning tradition they may pass down is one everyone in the world can agree on: brunch.