Antiquitopia

There have been several discussions of the project spearheaded by Hal Taussig called A New New Testament .  See the description here: It is time for a new New Testament.   Over the past century, numerous lost scriptures have been discovered, authenticated, translated, debated, celebrated. Many of these documents were as important to shaping early-Christian communities and beliefs as what we have come to call the New Testament; these were not the work of shunned sects or rebel apostles, not alternative histories or doctrines, but part of the vibrant conversations that sparked the rise of Christianity. Yet these scriptures are rarely read in contemporary churches; they are discussed nearly only by scholars or within a context only of   gnostic  gospels. Why should these books be set aside? Why should they continue to be lost to most of us? And don’t we have a great deal to gain by placing them back into contact with the twenty-seven books of the traditional New Tes...

As someone who, on the one hand, has and highly enjoys teaching broad core curricular courses (e.g., Columbia University's Literature of the Humanities) that stretch you as both instructor and student, allowing a broader view of things than is typical in teaching and especially research, and, on the other hand, always attempts to familiarize students with texts outside of "canon" (whether strictly understood in terms of the biblical canon or more loosely in terms of a "literary canon"), I find the following statement by Edward Said quite striking: We must therefore read the great canonical texts, and perhaps also the entire archive of modern and pre-modern European and American culture, with an effort to draw out, extend, give emphasis and voice to what is silent or marginally present or ideologically represented...in such works.  Culture and Imperialism , 66. He is understanding "canonical" in the broader sense--the "great books" point of...

I have been perusing Jonathan Culler's Literary Theory , and he makes an observation that I have also suspected for a while: ...theory has reinvigorated the traditional literary canon, opening the door to more ways of reading the "great works" of English and American literature. Never has so much been written about Shakespeare; he is studied from every angle conceivable, interpreted in feminist, Marxist, psychoanalytic, historicist, and deconstructive vocabularies. Wordsworth has been transformed by literary theory from a poet of nature to a key figure of modernity. What have suffered neglect are "minor" works that were regularly studied when literary study was organized to "cover" historical periods and genres. Shakespeare is more widely read and vigorously interpreted than ever, but Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher, Dekker, Heywood, and Ben Jonson--Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists who used to surround him--are little read today. (p. 64; emphas...

This is the third installment on chapter 2; there is one more to come. To see what I have written before, just follow the "Richard Bauckham" or "Jesus and the God of Israel" tags back. In this part, Bauckham turns to canonical criticism. Note that we have not engaged any passage of any length in this chapter since Deuteronomy! B claims that, contra MacDonald, not everyone who perceives monotheism in ancient documents is influenced by the Enlightenment. He suggests that Second Temple and NT scholars are more immune. I disagree: they too have a tendency toward Enlightenment universalizing categories and, too, often employ evolutionary or progressivist models. Nonetheless, he still, I think wisely, keeps to his language of “exclusive Yahwism.” Shifting from pre-exilic Israelite historical models and their usage for current theology, he shifts lenses to canonical criticism. This criticism does not engage with what a text might have originally meant, but how it...