Storytelling,orality and embodiment in New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures,volume 2

Abstract

In this review of the second volume of New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, published by Eerdmans in 2020 and edited by Tony Burke, the author praises the clarity and rigour of the translations and their introductions in the volume. She highlights the value of these texts for modern readers as a glimpse of the range of stories and imaginative thought of early Christians, particularly considering what these texts might reveal through the lenses of orality and storytelling, on the one hand, and embodied experiences (physical spaces, objects, healing, ritual, etc.), on the other.

The task of collecting and translating New Testament Apocrypha is truly a ‘labyrinth’ – a term that is used in the introduction to the first volume of New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures (Burke and Landau, 2016: xiv). The two volumes of New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures represent a substantial contribution to early Christian studies, and I congratulate Tony Burke on bringing the carefully edited second volume to fruition.

One of its most valuable aspects is that it highlights fragments of the worlds of followers of Jesus over the early centuries – sometimes elite but often (I suspect) non-elite – of how they understood and experienced their various contexts, their imaginations and the stories they told. I often tell students when we encounter apocalyptic literature that the ancient Christians and Jews had no Netflix and no Marvel movies. They had storytelling, including apocalyptic imagination. In this volume, we encounter stories about heroes, like the apostles Peter and Thomas and John, about Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Jesus. We encounter stories born out of curiosity not only about the characters in the stories surrounding Jesus, and about Pilate and Joseph of Arimathea and Judas, but also about the ‘good bandit’, the Magi, and even the archangels Michael and Gabriel. I use ‘story’ loosely here, not only for strictly narrative texts or stories with action contributing to an immediate plot, but also for the many texts containing dialogues and descriptions that are in some sense fragments of stories.

Of the many, many things that I could discuss from this rich array of texts and discussions of texts in the volume, in this review I discuss the book as a whole, and then consider two main themes: first, how orality and storytelling might be woven into the discussion of apocryphal texts and, second, how we might think about the embodied experiences that these texts reveal.

Format and technical questions

I begin with praise for the functionality of the book. The introduction points the reader back to the first volume, with its very helpful introductory section, including definitions and the justification for these volumes. The introduction in the second volume rationalizes the categories used to classify the texts and then provides a short summary of the contents, sketching each text in brief and thus demonstrating the breadth of texts in the volume (Burke, 2020). In each chapter, the translator begins with a discussion of content, genre, provenance, date, theological orientation or significance, and specific sources, general translation notes and a bibliography.

I appreciate two things in particular about the chapter format: one is the excellent summaries and discussion notes that provide a valuable sense of what to expect, so that the reader can engage the primary text more deeply. The second is that there is not a rigid formula for how each text is introduced; each translator or set of translators tailors the introductory elements to the text itself, which I find very helpful in preparing to read the primary text. Most introductions to specific texts within the volume are around seven to nine pages long, and the texts themselves vary from a few pages to almost 50 (The Investiture of the Archangel Michael). One exception is the first entry in the section designated as ‘Apocalypses’ – Philip L Tite’s (2020: 355–375) lengthy and informative discussion on The Dialogue of the Revealer and John. For 20 pages, Tite elucidates cosmology, thematic connections and the nature of ‘gnostic dialogue’ (361), along with the question-and-answer construct of this and other apocalypses in the volume, and the fraught nature of the term ‘gnostic’ as modern scholars have used it. The Dialogue itself is a mere two half-pages of fragmentary text (376–377) but, in addition to excellent preparation for reading this primary text, Tite provides a neophyte reader with clear and helpful context for engaging other similar texts as well.

I have a few small, mostly technical questions. First, I wonder how it was decided that some texts (but not others) would be presented in parallel columns, and what the perceived advantage to the reader might be. I was especially curious about The Investiture of the Archangel Michael because it seemed like most of the differences could have been dealt with in footnotes, as occurs in other chapters. Second, I noted that one translator used the term ‘Hebrew Bible’ (Pardee, 2020: 265) but others used the phrase ‘Old Testament’ (e.g. Brannan, 2020: 385; Čéplö, 2020: 344). Since the nomenclature for sacred texts matters in these volumes, I was curious about this inconsistency. Third, I was impressed by the range of expertise in the ancient languages. I wondered if there were fewer or different challenges in editing this aspect of the volume compared to the first. Finally, there are many helpful canonical cross references and the occasional noncanonical reference (like a reference to Life of Adam and Eve, 6–8 in The Investiture of the Archangel Gabriel, 7.4; see Jenott, 2020: 572). Of course, intertextuality is key to this enterprise of understanding New Testament Apocrypha. I wonder if more cross references could be useful. For example, texts like 1 Enoch or The Shepherd of Hermas or The Acts of Paul and Thecla (e.g. Mary Magdalene baptizes like Thecla does; The Life of Mary Magdalene, 12.2, 13.5) are prominent possibilities. I am curious how the decision was made about what cross references to add or leave out – although perhaps, ‘to paraphrase Ecclesiastes (12:12), of making [cross references] there [would be] no end’ (Burke, 2020: xiii).

My final point on the format relates to classifying the texts into five sections (gospels, acts, epistles, apocalypses and church orders). In doing so, this volume functions to problematize the categories as much as to provide order. The most glaring example is the lone example of an epistle that is clearly not really an epistle! I appreciate that the categories have flexibility, as in the case of John of Parallos’s Homily against Heretical Books following directly after The Investiture of the Archangel Michael. The Homily demonstrated a clearly divergent view of the usefulness of the story of Michael. (As an aside, although I liked the story of Michael, the Homily reminded me of what I might write if I were asked to write about the influence of a literal reading of something like the Left Behind series: I might use such phrases as ‘they have abandoned the light of the holy Scriptures of the prophets, apostles, and all the fathers’ (2.5) and such books are ‘full of curses and bitterness . . . without knowing the destruction within them’ (2.6).) The conundrum of classification also had me thinking about how these volumes are serving to open doors rather than force new or previously unknown texts into a contrived framework. This reflects, I think, a shift in scholarship that has been occurring for some time – a flourishing of possibilities rather than the search for an a singular ‘objective’ truth.

Orality and storytelling

As I read this volume, I thought a lot about imagination and creativity, particularly with regard to storytelling and orality. Good storytellers tell stories in ways that cater to the audience, and stories are modified as audiences ask different questions and have different experiences through time. I am struck by how what we have labelled as ‘apocalyptic’ imagination is woven through almost all of these texts, no matter what the genre: good and evil, angels, the Devil, dualism, judgment, reviews of history from Adam and the Creation, and, of course, revelation from God of that which was once hidden. If we consider the fluidity of orality, it makes sense that these elements will be woven into many stories and texts because they were prominent avenues of expressing storytellers’ views of the time and space in which they lived.

In the work that is understood to be the prequel to these volumes, JK Elliott (1993: 165) suggested: ‘As with many apocryphal writings, the motive for the original composition was to satisfy the curiosity of those who found the canonical biblical writings inadequate’. ¹ As I read through this volume, I found myself wondering about how the oral tradition of storytelling among those for whom these tales were important both influenced and was influenced by these written texts. ² On the one hand, the oral stories influenced what was written down. I want to suggest that what Elliott calls ‘the motive for the original composition’ – and for subsequent compositions in various contexts – did relate to curiosity but that at least some stories may not have been written originally to satiate that curiosity but rather to record already well-loved oral renditions and variations. The probability that the apocryphal acts were thought of as ‘the true lives of the apostles’ for many Christians would attest to this (Burke, 2020: xvi). This is not a new idea. Dennis R MacDonald (1983), for example, theorized that the canonical letters to Timothy and Titus were written in response to oral tales, which eventually were written down in the text we know as The Acts of Paul and Thecla. Due to low levels of literacy in the majority of the population through Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, there must have been great power in a well-told and oft-repeated oral tale. But recent work on the power of orality in social interaction and community coherence and conflict (see the essays in Hearon and Ruge-Jones, 2009), as well as work on social memory (e.g. Kirk, 2018), could provide a fruitful lens for reading these texts. Indeed, some of these texts are framed as homilies, which implies oral delivery. The Homily on the Passion and Resurrection, ostensibly associated with Evodius of Rome, said to be a disciple of Peter, demonstrates an instance of oral transmission that carries authority.

Some tales (with their excellent translations) betray how a storyteller might have told such a tale. Imagine a storyteller’s expressive rendition of these excerpts, set after Jesus’s death and before the Resurrection, from The Book of Bartholomew, translated by Christian H Bull and Alexandros Tsakos:

Now Joseph of Arimathea buried the body of the Son of God. He provided it with much precious incense and placed it in the new tomb. And Death came up from hell and said, ‘Now where is this soul that has recently left? It has not been brought to me in hell. For look, I have been searching for it for two days, and I have not found it’. . . . And Death said to his son, Pestilence, ‘Perhaps this soul has been brought to you, to hell? It has recently died, perhaps it has been registered by you? Perhaps you have accounted for it under its appropriate number? Tell me, for I am profoundly distressed! I do not understand what has happened today’ . . . [Turning to the corpse of Jesus, he says,] ‘Tell me then, who are you? . . . I have no power against you. What are you, O dead one? For you have disturbed me greatly and you have undone me. I am the one who undoes everyone! Behold, now I do not understand what kind of being you are’. And Jesus uncovered the shroud that was on his face, looked at Death, and laughed at him. Death looked at the laughing Savior and was disturbed. He ran away and fell upon the earth along with his six sons. Once again, Death got up and walked back to the corpse of Jesus, although he was afraid and disturbed . . . Again, Jesus looked at Death and laughed. And again Death said to him, ‘Who are you? Tell me! Perhaps you are the firstborn of the Father, the holy lamb. Truly, you are not he! If you were he I would recognize you, and you would not have been left behind like this’. (Bull and Tsakos, 2020: 100–101; 4.1–2a, 6, 8, 9, 10)

This would have been an excellent tale to narrate aloud, perhaps inspiring the written version.

On other hand, what was written down also influenced the continued repetition of oral tales that were popular, the most obvious examples being the canonical narratives and characters themselves that show up in the texts in this volume. In The Rebellion of Dimas, Dimas is identified from the outset as the ‘good’ bandit, crucified alongside Jesus. The son of a Judean procurator, sworn to obey, he disregards his father’s orders by letting a poor family leave Israel for Egypt, even though he was told to let no one through. It was, of course, Joseph, Mary and Jesus, whom we know from Matthew’s story, leaving left for Egypt to escape Herod’s killing of young boys (Matt. 2:16–18). As a result of his actions, Dimas’s father disowns him and he turns to a life of banditry, eventually ending up being crucified beside Jesus; as the story ends, he ‘became his partner in bliss’ (14).

There is also the story of The Healing of Tiberius, the emperor, who seeks out Jesus through his emissaries. Although Jesus has been killed by Pilate (which he gets in trouble for), they find an image of Jesus that was created by the woman who was healed ‘from a flux of blood’ (9.3), presumably the one who touched Jesus’s garment while he was on his way to the house of the synagogue leader with the dying daughter (Mark 5:25–34). In this story, her name is Veronica, and her precious image of Jesus heals Tiberius (Healing of Tiberius, 9–10, 13).

These stories clearly connect important characters and create backstories in imaginative ways. For those who heard, wrote and read these stories, I would think that the origins per se were hardly of interest; rather, stories around complex characters mattered in the storytellers’ own contexts and lived experiences. As stated in the introduction to the second volume of New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, the goal is ‘no longer simply to reconstruct the original text . . . but to examine the various forms a text takes throughout its transmission history’ (Burke, 2020: xiv). The transmission history, I suggest, includes the oral history, and perhaps guides us toward why such stories and images were popular (Hopkins, 2020: 147). They were part not only of a living tradition, of ritual practice (Dilley, 2020: 191) and doctrine, but also of formation and reflection of imagination and world views, stories told in the flickering candlelight before bed or while walking to market, milling grain or baking bread. We may also ask more questions about the gendered nature of storytelling and written script.

The interactions between the sorts of texts collected here and the texts of other religious traditions offer additional ways to bring orality into the conversation. For instance, the story of The Life of Judas clearly reflects the Oedipus myth (foretold to kill his father, Judas is abandoned by his parents, then, later in life, unbeknownst to him, marries his mother), but Brandon W Hawk and Mari Mamyan (2020: 214) note that there is no direct literary path from the Greek and Roman mythology to western medieval culture (see also Gibbons and Burke, 2020: 467, 468–469n29). Oral transmission is probable. In The Adoration of the Magi, the bright light emitted from a piece of Christ’s stone cradle when it is thrown down a well is said to be the beginning of ‘the Magi honor[ing] fire to this very day’ (lines 55–65). According to Adam Carter Bremer-McCollum (2020: 7), this pronouncement is an anachronistic reference to the origins of practices in Zoroastrianism. It is most likely oral knowledge of Zoroastrian practices and beliefs that leads to this pronouncement. Interactions with Islam in medieval texts may be literary, as in the fall of the Devil in The Investiture of the Archangel Michael (3.29–35), since this rendition of the story is found in a number of places in the Quran (see Lundhaug, 2020: 503n20). On the other hand, the story of the Devil being stoned in The Investiture of the Archangel Michael (11.15), as well as in A Homily on the Life of Jesus and His Love for the Apostles (17.15; see also Lundhaug, 2020: 503n21), involves ritual and tradition, which tend to be based in oral transmission rather than text (Lundhaug, 2020: 503–504; Pettipiece, 2020: 27, 40na). The story of Mary conceiving by the Holy Spirit by mouth in The Investiture of the Archangel Gabriel (7.15), which is paralleled in minority Muslim exegetical traditions in the ninth century (Jenott, 2020: 562), could have been influenced by literary or oral sources, or both.

Finally, there is a pervasive theme of vehement anti-Jewish sentiment within some texts, particularly those belonging to the ‘Gospels and related traditions of New Testament figures’ section (e.g. A Homily on the Passion and the Resurrection, 8–12, 32–34; The History of Philip; see Kitchen, 2020: 296). Stephen CE Hopkins (2020: 149) notes the paradox of Judaism in many of these texts: they are ‘reverent’ and ‘dependent’ on Jewish history but clearly demonstrate the development of anti-Jewish sentiment among Christians in the Middle Ages. It strikes me that the intensity within the anti-Jewish texts was likely to be reflected in real relationships between Christians and Jews at that time, to a greater or lesser degree, and thus also in oral stories and conversation (or lack thereof). In a post-Holocaust world, with the ongoing complexities in Israel and Palestine, and in an increasingly polarized and polarizing world recovering from a pandemic, the deep roots of anti-Jewish sentiment in Christian history are worthy of further consideration in the pursuit of interfaith cooperation, reconciliation and healing today.

Embodied experiences

Orality also implies an embodied state of storytelling and listening, further revealing a glimpse of the lived experiences of those who valued these texts and the stories they represent. Many apocryphal texts reveal the importance of the embodied experiences connected to these stories. Some reveal physical spaces – imagined, like the typical post-Resurrection location of Jesus teaching his disciples on the Mount of Olives (Bonar et al., 2020: 427), or real, like churches (A Homily on the Building of the First Church of the Virgin). Exile (removing someone from their home and familiar space) is a recurring theme. For example, Dimas, the bandit who is crucified next to Jesus, is rejected by his family because he lets the exiled family of the child Jesus go free (The Rebellion of Dimas, 19.3.5, 24.2.3); Pilate is exiled by the Emperor Tiberius as a punishment for killing Jesus, then again by Nero for being circumcised (The Healing of Tiberius, 11.7, 18.1); Domitilla, the cousin of Emperor Domitian, is exiled for her ascetic faith along with Nereus and Achilleus (The Acts of Nereus and Achilleus, 10.4).

Other texts point to the importance of physical objects. The Legend of the Holy Rood Tree follows seeds from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden through to the tree that becomes the cross, with a fascinating and imaginative survey of Jewish history and various manifestations of the tree (Hopkins, 2020: 146). Physical objects or aural words could repel evil, including the demons that would threaten a pregnant woman in The Travels of Peter (3.1–3; Walters, 2020: 290). The tangible elements of the eucharist in The Investiture of the Archangel Gabriel – namely, the bread and wine representing ‘the body and blood of Christ’ (5.14, 17, 25) – remain almost universal sacred objects within contemporary Christianity (Jenott, 2020: 571), albeit objects that are consumed, thus becoming part of the practitioner’s body. ³

There are stories of healing and resurrection (e.g., the raising of Thomas’s son from the dead in The Book of Bartholomew, 21.1–2). The oddest healing story is probably The Acts of Thomas and His Wonderworking Skin, which is not about an animal skin but his own flayed skin, which he places on others to heal them until it is later placed back on his own body.

There are instances in these texts of embodied experiences as they relate to age (e.g. ‘noble matrons and venerable virgins’ in The Acts of Nereus and Achilleus, 15.13), intergenerational relationships (e.g. Dimas and his father in The Rebellion of Demas, 7–11) and also generations of Christians (as in Pervo, 2020: 241, 244). Other texts in the volume demonstrate a range of attitudes toward the physical world and the body; some affirm marriage (e.g. 2 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John, 6.6) and childbearing (The Travels of Peter, 1–3). Others express strong support for asceticism and virginity, extending so far as to include a personification of virginity (The Acts of Nereus and Achilleus, 8.1–20). The stark horrors of abuse and isolation, and the dangers in marriage and childbearing that Nereus and Achilleus (notably men) put forth in the hope of convincing Domitilla, the cousin of Emperor Domitian, not to marry reflect a (male) view of the female body that rejects sexuality and motherhood (The Acts of Nereus and Achilleus, 3.1–4.9, 5.5, 7.3–12).

Throughout the volume, we catch glimpses of other ways in which these Christians perceived and experienced their own embodied existence in time and what mattered to them: relationships, healing, charity, days of celebration or commemoration, judgment, sacred spaces and sacred objects that connected their present to the past.

Conclusion

In conclusion, admittedly, these texts were recorded because they were more than just stories. They related to ‘imperial policy and public opinion’ (Rice, 2020: 170); they archived what was important to document; and they edified their readers and hearers (Lundhaug and Abercrombie, 2020: 484). However, the ‘invention of Christian tradition’ (Rice, 2020: 170) did not happen in a vacuum. It was an organic process involving the telling of stories in real times and places, and we can see small pinpricks of light shining through the veil of history in these texts. This volume and its predecessor, as well as future volumes, not only connect some of these dots through themes, characters, genre and traditions, but also allow us to discover more dots in the form of more New Testament Apocrypha.