RS 353E final exam

UT Austin Prof. Landau

Secret Gospel of Mark — what is it?

Excerpts of an expanded 'secret' version of Mark's Gospel, quoted inside a letter of Clement of Alexandria to Theodore (Clement active c. 200 CE).

Secret Gospel of Mark — discovered when, where, by whom?

1958, by Morton Smith, in the library of Mar Saba monastery (Judean desert outside Jerusalem; founded 5th century, still occupied).

Secret Gospel of Mark — physical form of the manuscript

Greek cursive (minuscule) handwriting copied into the blank end pages of a book printed in 1646; hand dated by experts to the 17th–18th century.

Secret Gospel of Mark — where is the manuscript now?

Missing. Transferred to the Greek Orthodox patriarchate library in Jerusalem c. 1976–77; last seen 1983; we work from Smith's photographs.

Morton Smith — who was he?

Ordained Episcopal priest, Columbia professor, provocative and anti-religious; author of Jesus the Magician; discovered SGM 1958; died 1991.

Secret Gospel of Mark — when did Smith first present it publicly?

Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting, December 1961, New York.

Secret Gospel of Mark — Smith's book

The Secret Gospel, Harvard University Press, 1974.

Secret Gospel of Mark — Clement's account of its origin

Mark, Peter's follower, came to Alexandria after Peter's death and produced an expanded Gospel for the spiritually advanced; Carpocratian heretics corrupted it with additions like 'naked man with naked man,' which Clement says is not genuine.

Secret Gospel of Mark — the famous excerpt (plot)

In Bethany, a woman whose brother died begs Jesus for mercy; a loud cry from the tomb; Jesus rolls away the stone, takes the young man by the hand, raises him; the young man 'looking at him, loved him'; after six days he comes at evening 'wearing a linen cloth over his naked body' and spends the night while Jesus teaches him 'the mystery of the kingdom of God.'

Secret Gospel of Mark — canonical parallels

Raising of Lazarus (John 11); the naked young man in a linen cloth who flees at Jesus' arrest (Mark 14:51–52); Clement places the excerpt in Mark 10.

Morton Smith's own dating of Secret Mark

Very early — written less than 50 years after Jesus' death — showing Jesus teaching in secrecy and possibly in physical/homoerotic relationships with disciples.

Arthur Darby Nock on Secret Mark

Smith's Harvard mentor; dated it not to the first century but probably the fifth century — 'they were making all sorts of stuff up' then.

Stephen Carlson's forgery argument

SGM is a modern forgery by Smith; the 'salt losing its saltiness' phrase supposedly describes free-flowing table salt, an anachronism pointing to the Morton Salt Company — an inside joke signed 'Morton.'

Alleged motives for Smith forging Secret Mark

A prank on pious scholarly enemies, or self-legitimation by a gay scholar (Bart Ehrman also leans forgery).

Smith & Landau's conclusion on Secret Mark (know this)

(1) Not a 20th-c. forgery — the intricate Greek cursive would be nearly impossible for a non-native speaker in a pre-existing book; hidden clues are far-fetched; Smith was no prankster. (2) Not 1st century — the letter knows later traditions (Mark founding the Alexandrian church, unattested before 4th c.). (3) Composed at Mar Saba itself, c. 5th–7th century, amid controversies over same-sex monastic pairs.

Secret Mark — why does the 'naked man with naked man' phrase matter?

Clement says the Carpocratians added it; the monastic-composition theory reads the text as defending a positive homoerotic bond between Jesus and the youth against licentious distortion.

Secret Mark — lessons for studying apocrypha (Landau's 'apocryphal initiation')

Apocrypha often survive in one or few manuscripts (vs. thousands of NT MSS); scholars need obscure languages/scripts and travel to remote libraries; the field is inherently controversial.

Gospel of Jesus' Wife — relevance to Secret Mark

A proven modern forgery with crude letters — contrast case showing what a real forgery's handwriting looks like vs. SGM's expert cursive.

Q Gospel — what is it?

A hypothetical lost collection of Jesus' sayings used independently by Matthew and Luke; no manuscript has ever been found.

Q — what does the name stand for?

First letter of German Quelle, 'source.'

Synoptic Gospels — which ones and why the name?

Matthew, Mark, Luke — 'same viewpoint'; extensive verbatim overlap implies a literary relationship; John sits apart.

Synoptic Problem

The question of how to explain the literary relationship (verbatim agreements and differences) among Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Markan Priority

Mark was written first; Matthew and Luke each used Mark independently, without knowing the other's work.

Peter's Confession exercise — what does it show?

Mark's version is simplest ('You are the Christ'); Matthew adds ('Son of the living God,' rock/keys speech); Luke adds differently ('the Christ of God') — Matt and Luke embellish Mark independently and differently → Markan Priority.

Double tradition

Material found in Matthew and Luke but absent from Mark (e.g., Beatitudes, 'On Anxiety'/lilies, 'brood of vipers') — the home of Q.

Triple tradition

Material found in all three synoptics — Matthew, Mark, Luke.

Why must Q be a written source?

Stunning verbatim agreement in Greek in double-tradition passages — e.g., 'brood of vipers' speech differs only by fruit/fruits; 'Consider the lilies' differs only by 'of the field' — requires a written document.

Luke's prologue as evidence for Q

'Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account…' (Luke 1:1–4, addressed to Theophilus) — Luke knew multiple earlier written sources.

Two-Source Hypothesis

Markan priority + Q: Matthew and Luke each independently used two sources, Mark and Q.

Minor agreements

Places where Matthew and Luke agree against Mark (e.g., both add 'a person having taken it' in the mustard-seed parable; both add 'Who is it that struck you?') — the main objection to the two-source hypothesis; defenders call them coincidental identical edits of Mark.

Farrer–Goodacre theory

Anti-Q hypothesis (Mark Goodacre, Duke, The Case Against Q): Mark first; Matthew used Mark; Luke used Matthew — no Q needed.

Landau's objections to Farrer–Goodacre

(a) Luke would have had to reject Matthew's whole infancy narrative and invent a different one; (b) Luke would have had to take Matthew's Q-material and scramble its order completely.

John Meier's caution about Q (the 'mantra')

Scholars should repeat daily that 'Q is a hypothetical document whose exact extension, wording, originating community, strata, and stages of redaction cannot be known.' (Meier accepts Q.)

Papias of Hierapolis — possible Q hint

Early 2nd-c. bishop (surviving in fragments): 'Matthew composed the sayings (logia) in the Hebrew tongue, and each one interpreted them as best he could' — a sayings collection attributed to Matthew that doesn't match our Matthew.

Kloppenborg — who is he?

John Kloppenborg, world's leading Q expert, author of Q, the Earliest Gospel (course textbook).

Beatitudes case study — which gospel preserves Q's wording?

Kloppenborg: Luke is closer to Q — raw social-economic states ('Blessed are you who are poor… hungry now… weep now') plus Woes ('Woe to you who are rich'); Matthew spiritualizes ('poor in spirit,' 'hunger for righteousness'), adds blessings, drops woes.

How is Q cited by scholars?

By Luke's chapter-and-verse, since Luke usually preserves Q's wording (e.g., Q 6:22–23 = Luke 6:22–23).

Kloppenborg's redactional strata of Q

Q1 = sapiential layer (six wisdom speeches); Q2 = apocalyptic/judgment layer (five judgment speeches); Q3 = biographical layer (e.g., temptation narrative). Critics call it a house of cards that conveniently strips judgment material from Jesus.

Q's profile #1 — setting

A rural Galilean Jewish gospel (villages, not urban centers).

Q's profile #2 — miracles

Miracles aren't about Jesus' specialness — they're signs that the Kingdom of God is arriving.

Q's profile #3 — Jesus' death

Jesus dies as a prophet (prophets are always killed), not as an atoning sacrifice.

Q's profile #4 — resurrection

No clear resurrection account — maybe none, maybe an assumption into heaven.

Q's profile #5 — ethics

Social/economic, not cultic: subsistence, debt relief, communal reciprocity — 'The reign of God… consisted precisely in food and drink, in debt relief, in mercy and justice' (Kloppenborg).

Crossan's 'Trojan horse' quote about Q

Q was acceptable as a source 'within the safe intracanonical confines of Matthew and Luke,' but the Q Gospel is 'a Trojan horse, an extracanonical gospel hidden within two intracanonical gospels' — an early, independent, noncanonical gospel on which two canonical gospels depend.

Dating of Q

If real, first century — possibly earlier than Matthew/Luke; a candidate for the earliest gospel.

Gospel of Thomas — what is it?

114 sayings of Jesus with almost no narrative — a 'sayings gospel'; whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death.

Gospel of Thomas — manuscript witnesses

One complete Coptic manuscript (Nag Hammadi Codex II) + three Greek fragments from Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. 1, 654, 655).

Oxyrhynchus — what and where?

Egyptian town ~100 miles south of Cairo ('sharp-nosed fish'), an early Christian center; its garbage mounds (30–50 feet tall) yielded thousands of papyrus fragments excavated 1896–1904 by Oxford scholars.

Logia Iēsou

'Sayings of Jesus' — the label given to the unidentified Oxyrhynchus gospel fragments before Nag Hammadi revealed they were the Gospel of Thomas.

Nag Hammadi Library — the discovery

1945, Egypt: 13 Coptic codices surfaced on the Cairo antiquities market, reportedly found in a sealed clay jar, possibly buried by monks — perhaps in response to Athanasius' Festal Letter of 367.

How were the Oxyrhynchus fragments identified as Thomas?

When the complete Coptic text from Nag Hammadi (ending with the title 'The Gospel according to Thomas') was published ~50 years after the fragments were found, scholars recognized the same text in Greek.

Gospel of Thomas — dating range

Fiercely debated: proposals range c. 50 to 150 CE.

Papyrus — why Egypt?

Writing material from the pith of the papyrus plant (Nile marshes); survives almost only in Egypt's arid climate.

Thomas Saying Category 1 — parables WITH canonical parallels

E.g., Saying 9, the Sower: same parable as Mark 4 but no allegorical interpretation — is Thomas more primitive (Mark added the explanation) or secondary (Thomas stripped it)?

Thomas Saying Category 2 — parables WITHOUT parallels

E.g., the woman with the broken jar of meal (Saying 97); the Parable of the Assassin (Saying 98): a man practices stabbing his wall, then kills the powerful man.

Thomas Saying Category 3 — protological sayings

Not future end-times but a return to humanity's original state ('realized eschatology'); Saying 37: 'When you strip naked without being ashamed… like little children' — back to Eden.

Thomas Saying Category 4 — gnostic/mystical sayings

Jesus as the light, Jesus as everywhere; but Thomas lacks the full gnostic myth (no evil creator), so calling it 'gnostic' is contested.

Thomas Saying Category 5 — encratic sayings

From enkrateia (self-control): abstinence from sex, alcohol, meat; 'Blessed are the solitary and the elect'; Saying 87: 'Wretched is the body that depends on a body.'

Thomas Saying Category 6 — weird sayings

Saying 7 (the lion and the human eating each other — mastering your evil passions?); Saying 40 (a grapevine planted 'outside the Father' will be uprooted — a dig at rival Christians?).

Thomas Saying 12 — why it matters for dating

Disciples ask who will lead after Jesus departs; Jesus: 'You will go to James the Righteous, for whose sake heaven and earth came to be.' James the Just led the Jerusalem church and was martyred c. 62–65; Jerusalem destroyed 70 — exalting James may envision his lifetime.

Evidence for a LATE date of Thomas

The mystical light-sayings fit late 2nd/early 3rd century Christianity; if dependent on the synoptics, Thomas postdates them (c. 125–150).

April DeConick's kernel hypothesis

Thomas grew from an archaic core (perhaps 50s–60s) that accreted sayings over time into the 2nd–3rd century — Landau prefers the image of a snowball. Sayings collections have no plot, so new material attaches easily.

Gospel of Thomas — significance (why it's the most important apocryphal gospel)

The only apocryphal gospel with a serious claim to be as old as or older than the canonical gospels; proves the 'sayings gospel' was a real genre, supporting Q's plausibility.

Gospel of Thomas vs. Q — the key contrast

Thomas: independent, attested text, apocryphal. Q: hypothetical, embedded within the canon. Both are sayings gospels.

Gospel of Thomas — ancient attestation

Quoted by 2nd–3rd century writers (1 & 2 Clement, Epistle of Barnabas, Origen, Clement of Alexandria) — it circulated widely, then vanished.

Is Thomas gnostic?

Contested: mystical and encratic, yes; but it lacks the full gnostic myth (no ignorant creator of the material world) — contrast the Secret Revelation of John.

Gospel of Peter — what is it?

Fragmentary passion and resurrection narrative; the only ancient gospel that narrates the resurrection itself — famous for the giant Jesus and the walking, talking cross.

Serapion of Antioch — who and what story?

Bishop of Antioch c. 200 CE; visiting Rhossus, he casually approved reading the 'Gospel of Peter'; back home he learned it was a favorite of the Docetae, read it, found most acceptable but several passages open to heretical misconstrual, and banned it in a letter — quoted by Eusebius (Church History, 4th c.), who frustratingly omits the objectionable passages.

Docetism / Docetae

From Greek dokeō, 'to seem/appear': the belief that Jesus only appeared human — no real eating, pain, or emotion; a divine being in human disguise.

Gospel of Peter — modern discovery

Winter 1886/87: French archaeologists found a Greek parchment codex in a monk's tomb in Akhmim, Egypt (6th–7th century); now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

What else is in the Akhmim codex?

The Apocalypse of Peter, part of 1 Enoch (Book of the Watchers), and a martyrdom of St. Julian — all texts about death/afterlife, fitting for a burial.

Gospel of Peter — state of the text

The codex is complete but the GPeter portion is an excerpt: begins mid-sentence ('But none of the Jews washed their hands…') and breaks off mid-sentence; the copyist worked from an already-fragmentary exemplar.

Gospel of Peter — authorship clue

First-person narrator: 'But I, Simon Peter, and Andrew my brother…' — matching a gospel attributed to Peter.

GPeter point of contact #1 — Matthew

Only Matthew has Pilate washing his hands (27:24–26); GPeter opens with Pilate inviting others to wash too — the Jews and Herod refuse, deepening their guilt (echoing Matt 27:25 'His blood be on us').

GPeter point of contact #2 — Luke

Only Luke has the penitent thief (23:39–43); in GPeter the good thief rebukes the crucifiers: 'We have suffered like this for the evil things we did, but this one, the Savior of the people — what wrong has he done you?'

GPeter point of contact #3 — John

Only John mentions breaking legs to hasten death (19:31–32); GPeter reverses it — the executioners order the thief's legs NOT broken 'so that he would die in torment.'

GPeter point of contact #4 — Mark

Matches Mark's original ending (16:6–8): the women find the opened tomb, a bright young man inside, and flee in fear.

GPeter — the resurrection scene (quote it)

Guards watch the sealed tomb (guards = Matthew-only detail); a great voice from heaven; skies open; two radiant men descend; the stone rolls away by itself; three men emerge, two supporting the third — the two angels' heads reach the sky, but the head of the one they lead rises above the skies (giant Jesus); a cross follows behind them; a voice from heaven: 'Have you preached to those who are asleep?' The cross answers: 'Yes.'

Harrowing of hell

The tradition that Jesus, between death and resurrection, descended to preach to/liberate the dead — echoed in GPeter's 'Have you preached to those who are asleep?' and in the Apostles' Creed.

GPeter — possibly docetic passages

v. 10: Jesus crucified 'silent, as if he had no pain' (docetic? or heroism, per Crossan); v. 19: 'My power, O power, you have left me behind,' then 'he was taken up' (divine Christ leaving the human shell? or a variant of the cry of dereliction).

Crossan on Gospel of Peter

GPeter's passion/resurrection is independent of and earlier than the canonical accounts — the 'missing link' behind them all.

Landau's view on Gospel of Peter (know it)

The points of contact with all four gospels make priority unlikely; the author had oral familiarity with the canonical gospels (heard them read aloud) and creatively retold the passion from memory — likely 2nd century, a kind of gospel harmony.

Gospel of Peter — probable date

First half of the 2nd century; assigned scholar: Paul Foster.

Protevangelium of James — what is it?

An infancy gospel centered on Mary — her 'origin story'; original Greek title: 'Birth of Mary.' Attributed to James (presented as Joseph's son / Jesus' stepbrother); late 2nd century.

Protevangelium — where does the name come from?

Coined c. 1500s by French humanist Guillaume Postel ('first gospel'), who reintroduced the text to Western Europe.

Gelasian Decree

5th-century Western condemnation list that banned the Protevangelium in the Latin West — because Joseph is a widower with grown children (the West later wanted Joseph a perpetual virgin too). Never condemned in the Greek East; absorbed in the West into the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew.

Protevangelium — manuscript situation

Hundreds of manuscripts — wildly popular, the opposite of the fragment situation.

Why do infancy gospels exist?

Only Matthew and Luke have infancy narratives (Mark starts at the baptism; John at the beginning of time); their historicity is doubted (late layer, mutual contradictions, Greco-Roman biographical convention of invented childhoods); early Christians wanted the gaps filled.

Matthew vs. Luke infancy contradictions

Luke: Nazareth home, census to Bethlehem, manger, shepherds, return to Nazareth. Matthew: apparently Bethlehem home, magi/star, Herod's massacre, flight to Egypt, only later settling in Nazareth.

ProtJas — Joachim and Anna

Wealthy, kind, childless, grieving; an angel announces Anna 'HAS conceived' while Joachim prays in the wilderness — the best manuscripts say 'has conceived,' hinting Mary's own conception may be as miraculous as Jesus'. Still the traditional names of Mary's parents (St. Anne).

ProtJas — Mary's Temple childhood

At age 3 Mary is sent to live in the Jerusalem Temple — something no human does — fed daily by an angel; at age 12 the priests remove her before menstruation would defile the Temple.

ProtJas — Joseph's selection

Joseph, an elderly widower with grown children, is chosen as Mary's guardian; he protests he'll be a laughingstock but is threatened with God's anger; he leaves her at home while building houses — and she becomes pregnant.

ProtJas — the bitter-water ordeal

Priests accuse Joseph of seducing Mary; both swear innocence and pass the ordeal (drink tainted water; the guilty die/miscarry) — exonerated.

ProtJas — the birth: harmonization and additions

Harmonizes Matthew and Luke's birth stories, adding the donkey that carries Mary to Bethlehem and the cave on Bethlehem's outskirts; ends with the flight to Egypt.

ProtJas — supernatural birth signs

Joseph narrates in first person how time freezes while he seeks a midwife (birds motionless, a river stopped); a bright cloud fills the cave, concealing the birth itself.

ProtJas — the two midwives

The first announces 'a virgin has given birth'; the second (a doubting-Thomas figure) insists on physically testing Mary's virginity — her hand is consumed by fire, then healed by the baby Jesus. Graphic insistence on Mary's perpetual virginity.

ProtJas — significance for Christian tradition

Foundational for Mariology: Mary's miraculous conception (proto-Immaculate Conception), Temple childhood, perpetual virginity, the names Joachim & Anna; the cave tradition behind Constantine's Church of the Nativity (4th c.); and the donkey — the most pervasive Christmas detail, absent from every canonical gospel.

Infancy Gospel of Thomas — what is it?

Stories of Jesus' childhood, ages 5–12 — the 'missing years'; original title: 'The Childhood Deeds (Paidika) of our Lord Jesus Christ'; probably 2nd century. NOT related to the sayings Gospel of Thomas.

Paidika

'Childhood Deeds' — the original title of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

IGT — the two versions

Greek A (longer, later) vs. an earlier, shorter form preserved in Syriac and early Latin; the early version LACKS the 'good' miracles found in Greek A — there is no 'maturation' arc; Jesus doesn't grow out of misusing power.