The Half-Assed Historian
After a few months of reading the blog of my friend, The Committed Critic, I feel as though I should rename my blog The Half-Assed Historian. I think that I have decided that the focus of my academic career will be history. Particularly, I am interested in the history of religion, which is to say, in most cases, the history of religion, politics, war and various other types of ugliness.
Though I have decided (tentatively) on what I will focus my studies, I feel as though I will never have the sort of commitment displayed by my friend The Critic. Although, I do believe that I am headed toward some more committed tendencies (I haven’t touched my X-Box controller in about a month).
That being said, my friend told me he would be interested to hear what I thought about some of the non-canonical texts that I am reading in my Women in Early Christianity class. Though most of you will not find this interesting in the least, I think I’ll give my opinion on the two that I’ve read so far.
The Gospel According to Mary (Magdalene?)
This Gospel (technically a post-resurrectional dialogue), in my scholarly opinion, is weird. First of all it suffers from severe incompleteness. The most complete manuscript we have is a 5th century Coptic Codex. Coptic is an Egyptian language and a Codex is a book. In this manuscript we are missing the first 6 pages and pages 11-14 of the Gospel. The two earlier manuscripts (3rd Century Greek manuscripts) are in much worse shape. Because we are missing so much of the text it is hard to tell exactly what is going on. There are also translation issues since it has been translated from the original language, Greek, to Coptic and then to English.
It appears that some or all of the disciples are having an experience with Jesus post-resurrection in which Jesus is giving them some teaching. It is hard to tell whether it is after resurrection and before the ascension or if it is simply a time, after the ascension, in which Jesus came back to share some words of wisdom. Shortly after we pick up the story on page 7 Jesus leaves the disciples. They are sad and Mary stands up to comfort them.
It is called the Gospel of Mary because it is pretty clear that most of the time Mary is speaking about things that Jesus told her but never told the rest of the disciples because Jesus loved Mary more. It is unclear which Mary is talking, though I am in the Mary Magdalene camp. It could be Mary the mother of Jesus but for several reasons I find that unlikely.
Overall, I find the Gospel of Mary to be awkward, partly because it is incomplete and partly because the theology is unfamiliar. I like this book for the value it places on women and the fact that it is clear that women’s role was being debated even at this early date (not sure when it was written, but certainly prior to the 3rd century). I find it very plausible, from both canonical Gospel accounts and non-canonical accounts, that women, including Mary Magdalene were disciples and apostles to Jesus. It seems clear from this work that at least one sect of Christianity was dealing with the role of women, and seem to be for women taking a very prominent role in the life of the church.
If you haven't read it, it's worth taking a look at. Here is the link one more time.
This is getting pretty long, being committed takes a lot of time. So, later this week I’ll write about the Gospel of Thomas, which I really like.
Though I have decided (tentatively) on what I will focus my studies, I feel as though I will never have the sort of commitment displayed by my friend The Critic. Although, I do believe that I am headed toward some more committed tendencies (I haven’t touched my X-Box controller in about a month).
That being said, my friend told me he would be interested to hear what I thought about some of the non-canonical texts that I am reading in my Women in Early Christianity class. Though most of you will not find this interesting in the least, I think I’ll give my opinion on the two that I’ve read so far.
The Gospel According to Mary (Magdalene?)
This Gospel (technically a post-resurrectional dialogue), in my scholarly opinion, is weird. First of all it suffers from severe incompleteness. The most complete manuscript we have is a 5th century Coptic Codex. Coptic is an Egyptian language and a Codex is a book. In this manuscript we are missing the first 6 pages and pages 11-14 of the Gospel. The two earlier manuscripts (3rd Century Greek manuscripts) are in much worse shape. Because we are missing so much of the text it is hard to tell exactly what is going on. There are also translation issues since it has been translated from the original language, Greek, to Coptic and then to English.
It appears that some or all of the disciples are having an experience with Jesus post-resurrection in which Jesus is giving them some teaching. It is hard to tell whether it is after resurrection and before the ascension or if it is simply a time, after the ascension, in which Jesus came back to share some words of wisdom. Shortly after we pick up the story on page 7 Jesus leaves the disciples. They are sad and Mary stands up to comfort them.
It is called the Gospel of Mary because it is pretty clear that most of the time Mary is speaking about things that Jesus told her but never told the rest of the disciples because Jesus loved Mary more. It is unclear which Mary is talking, though I am in the Mary Magdalene camp. It could be Mary the mother of Jesus but for several reasons I find that unlikely.
Overall, I find the Gospel of Mary to be awkward, partly because it is incomplete and partly because the theology is unfamiliar. I like this book for the value it places on women and the fact that it is clear that women’s role was being debated even at this early date (not sure when it was written, but certainly prior to the 3rd century). I find it very plausible, from both canonical Gospel accounts and non-canonical accounts, that women, including Mary Magdalene were disciples and apostles to Jesus. It seems clear from this work that at least one sect of Christianity was dealing with the role of women, and seem to be for women taking a very prominent role in the life of the church.
If you haven't read it, it's worth taking a look at. Here is the link one more time.
This is getting pretty long, being committed takes a lot of time. So, later this week I’ll write about the Gospel of Thomas, which I really like.
Labels: Feminism, History, Non-canonical texts
posted by Cody at 4:32 PM
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