'Noncanonical' Religious Texts in Early Judaism and Early ChristianityLee Martin McDonald, James H. Charlesworth This volume draws attention to ancient religious texts, especially the so-called 'non-canonical' texts, by focusing on how they were used or functioned in Early Judaism and Early Christianity. The contributors are biblical scholars who have chosen one or more Jewish or Christian apocryphal or pseudepigraphical texts, with the aim of describing their ancient functions in their emerging social settings. These show the fluidity of the notion of scripture in the early centuries of the Church and in Judaism of late antiquity, but they also show the value of examining the ancient religious texts that were not included in the Jewish or Christian biblical canons. These chapters show that there is much that can be learned from examining and comparing these texts with canonical literature and evaluating them in their social context. No ancient text was created in a vacuum, and the non-canonical writings aid in our interpretation not only of many canonical writings, but also shed considerable light on the context of both early Judaism and early Christianity. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Reflections on the Theological Relevance of Early Jewish Literature | 9 |
A Preliminary Survey of Christian Literature found in Oxyrhynchus | 25 |
The Case of 2 Baruch | 51 |
Chapter 4 The Coptic Arabic and Ethiopic Versions of theTestament of Abraham and the Emergence of the Testaments of Isaac and Jacob | 61 |
Chapter 5 The Son of David in Psalms of Solomon 17 | 71 |
Chapter 6 The Enochic Library of the Author ofthe Epistle of Barnabas | 87 |
Chapter 7 Ruminating on the Canonical Process in Light of a Bodmer Papyrus Anthology P72 | 103 |
Chapter 10 The Place of the Shepherd of Hermas in the Canon Debate | 161 |
Chronology Theology and Liturgy | 175 |
Chapter 12 The Child Mary in the Protevangelium of James | 195 |
Chapter 13 Purity Piety and the Purposes of theProtevangelium of James | 205 |
The Saint Justina Legend andthe Reception of the Christian Apocrypha in Late Antiquity | 221 |
Selected Bibliography | 233 |
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Chapter 8 The Hebrew Gospel in Early Christianity | 115 |
3 Corinthians Pseudepigraphy and the Legacy of Ancient Polemics | 153 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abraham Acts of Paul ancient Apocryphal Acts Apostles Arabic Athanasius Barnabas Baruch Bible Biblical Canon Bodmer Bodmer papyri Canon Debate Charlesworth childhood Christ Christian letter collection context Coptic Corinthians Cyprian documents early Christian Early Judaism Ebionites Enoch Epiphanius Epistle Eusebius fourth century fragment Gospel according Gospel of Matthew Greek Hebrew Gospel holy Ibid included Irenaeus Isaac Israel Jerome Jerome’s Jesus Jewish John Judaism Jude Justa Kraft lectionary Lord Luke manuscripts Mary Mary’s Matthew McDonald messiah Miscellany narrative Odes of Solomon ofthe Old Testament original Oxyrhynchus P.Bodm P.Oxy passage Paul and Thecla Paul’s Peter Phileas priest prophets Prot Protevangelium of James Psalms of Solomon Pseudepigrapha Qumran quotations recension reference ritual purity Sahidic scholars scribe scripture second century Shepherd of Hermas story Strycker Syriac temple Testuz textual third century tradition translation Turner’s University Press virgin words written