Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 07-27-2009, 03:07 PM

Betrayal by Joan Acocella, the New Yorker dance and cultural critic, is an essay and review of a new book by Susan Gruber, Judas: A Biography (or via: amazon.co.uk).

The essay contains some observations on liberal theology versus fundamentalism which might be of interest to this forum, although not strictly related to Biblical interpretation.

Quote:

Susan Gubar, a professor of English at Indiana University, has labored for years in the service of historical justice. With Sandra M. Gilbert, she wrote “The Madwoman in the Attic” (1979) and the three-volume “No Man’s Land” (1989-94), basic sourcebooks for those who, in the nineteen-eighties and nineties, were trying to put together a history of women writers omitted from the Anglo-American canon. Since that time, she has written on the literature of the Holocaust and of American racism. Now she has produced “Judas: A Biography (or via: amazon.co.uk)” (Norton; $27.95). Refreshingly, the book takes a cold view of the Gospel of Judas. Why all this fuss, Gubar asks, about a positive representation of Judas? There have been many such representations of him, she says, together with negative ones. That winding history is the subject of her book.

. . .

Between the mid-twentieth century and the present, Gubar’s effort to make sense of the history of Judas representations breaks down, because the evidence is too sparse, and too ambiguous, in the modern manner. But the book hits trouble long before it arrives at the modern period, and I think this is because it is essentially an amateur enterprise. Gubar is a literary scholar. Judas is far less important in literature than he is in the visual arts and, needless to say, theology. Again and again, Gubar fails to see her evidence in its proper context. Renaissance artists, she says, turned away from the “earlier stylized portrayals” of the Judas kiss, and began producing more realistic representations, with closeups and facial expressions. That would be an interesting fact about Renaissance paintings of Judas if it were not true of all Renaissance paintings. ....

Vinnie · 07-28-2009, 12:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Betrayal by Joan Aconcella, the New Yorker dance and cultural critic, is an essay and review of a new book by Susan Gruber, Judas: A Biography (or via: amazon.co.uk).

The essay contains some observations on liberal theology versus fundamentalism which might be of interest to this forum, although not strictly related to Biblical interpretation.

Quote:

Susan Gubar, a professor of English at Indiana University, has labored for years in the service of historical justice. With Sandra M. Gilbert, she wrote “The Madwoman in the Attic” (1979) and the three-volume “No Man’s Land” (1989-94), basic sourcebooks for those who, in the nineteen-eighties and nineties, were trying to put together a history of women writers omitted from the Anglo-American canon. Since that time, she has written on the literature of the Holocaust and of American racism. Now she has produced “Judas: A Biography (or via: amazon.co.uk)” (Norton; $27.95). Refreshingly, the book takes a cold view of the Gospel of Judas. Why all this fuss, Gubar asks, about a positive representation of Judas? There have been many such representations of him, she says, together with negative ones. That winding history is the subject of her book.

. . .

Between the mid-twentieth century and the present, Gubar’s effort to make sense of the history of Judas representations breaks down, because the evidence is too sparse, and too ambiguous, in the modern manner. But the book hits trouble long before it arrives at the modern period, and I think this is because it is essentially an amateur enterprise. Gubar is a literary scholar. Judas is far less important in literature than he is in the visual arts and, needless to say, theology. Again and again, Gubar fails to see her evidence in its proper context. Renaissance artists, she says, turned away from the “earlier stylized portrayals” of the Judas kiss, and began producing more realistic representations, with closeups and facial expressions. That would be an interesting fact about Renaissance paintings of Judas if it were not true of all Renaissance paintings. ....

You'll learn just about all there is to know about the historical Judas here. That is, not very much.

Vinnie

Toto · 09-14-2009, 08:58 PM

Somewhat belatedly (in internet time), Robert Eisenman has posted a comment on this article at the Huffington Post.

Redemoninzing Judas

He relates his question to a panel at the 2007 SBL:

Quote:

At that point, as there seemed to be no further questions, I gathered my courage, stood up, and asked, "What makes you think any are historical and not just retrospective and polemical literary endeavors of a kind familiar to the Hellenistic/Greco-Roman world at that time? Why consider one gospel superior to the another and not simply expressions of retrospective theological repartee of the Platonic kind expressed in a literary manner as in Greek tragedy? The Gospel of Judas was clearly a polemical, philosophical text but, probably, so too were most of these others. Why not consider all of them a kind of quasi-Neoplatonic, Mystery Religion-oriented literature that was still developing in the Second Century and beyond, as the Gospel of Judas clearly demonstrates?"

A sort of hushed silence fell on the three hundred or so persons present in the audience, because there was a lot of interest in this Gospel at that time, as I continued: "Why think any of them historical or even representative of anything that really happened in Palestine in the First Century? Why not consider all Greco-Hellenistic romantic fiction or novelizing with an ax-to-grind, incorporating the Pax Romana of the earlier Great Roman Emperor Augustus, as other literature from this period had and, of course, the anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish legal attachments which were the outcome of the suppression of the Jewish War from 66-73 CE?"

"The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were masters of such man/god fiction and the creation of such characters as Osiris, Dionysus, Asclepius, Hercules, Orpheus, and the like as the works of Hesiod, Euripides, Virgil, Ovid, Petronius, Seneca, Apuleius, et. al. demonstrate. Why not consider all of this literature simply part of this man-God/ personification literature, in this instance incorporating the new Jewish concept of "Salvation" -- "Yeshu'a"?"

At this point Chair Williams finally cut in, gave an answer on behalf of what he claimed to be (and I believe him) "the whole panel" -- that, "Tradition affirmed they were." This he seems to have considered sufficient for me -- one of the few non-Christians in the room who might have enough knowledge to say something meaningful or precise enough to matter.

mountainman · 09-15-2009, 02:51 AM

Quote:

And here is the key point for everyone:
the upshot of this necessarily-brief discussion was
how few "orthodox Gospels" (meaning, Matthew, Mark, Luke, etc.)
had come to light from the Second Century (the single example cited
being a possible fragment of the Gospel of John from papyrus trash
heaps in Egypt) but,
on the other hand, how many heterodox.

Did this mean that more people were reading "sectarian Gospels"
at that time, not "orthodox" ones?

Discussion on the answer of this question then
tangentiated to discussion about "history" ...

Quote:

The answer of the more conservative scholars on the Panel (Chair Michael Williams of the University of Washington, DeConick, Robinson, et. al) was, "Not really but that, in any case, the Gospel of Judas was less historical than they" -- a conclusion echoed by Ms. Acocella above.

Backing up from this tangentiation we are left with the question
posed by the author ...

Why does a statistical analysis of the evidence from the papyri
produce more heterodox gospels than canonical?

Any ideas? Perhaps Oxyrhynchus was some kind of "Gnostic settlement" or "Heretics' Haven".

robto · 09-15-2009, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Why does a statistical analysis of the evidence from the papyri
produce more heterodox gospels than canonical?

Any ideas? Perhaps Oxyrhynchus was some kind of "Gnostic settlement" or "Heretics' Haven".

Didn't Bauer demonstrate that Egyptian Christianity was Gnostic before it became orthodox? At least, that the Gnostic roots in Alexandria go back further than the orthodox roots? If this was true of Alexandria, it seems reasonable that the same was true of Oxyrhynchus.

Toto · 09-15-2009, 01:31 PM

April DeConik responds to Eisenman's slurs about her (She's not a "conservative.")

dog-on · 09-16-2009, 12:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeConick

My studies of the Gospel of Thomas have led me to conclude it contains a very old kernel gospel that pre-dates Paul and likely Quelle in the forms we have it in Matthew and Luke.

Really? I wonder what she bases this on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeConick

But it contains an essential "missing" piece to the puzzle of early pre-Pauline Jerusalem Christianity.

Another gem...

Toto · 09-16-2009, 12:51 AM

I expect DeConick explains this in her book Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas: A History of the Gospel and Its Growth (or via: amazon.co.uk), which can be previewed on google books

mountainman · 09-16-2009, 12:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

April DeConik responds to Eisenman's slurs about her (She's not a "conservative.")

Her chronology for "Early Christian Literature" is very conservative.
By that I mean very very early - things are afoot very early if we
are to assess April's assessment of gThomas

Quote:

•The Kernel Thomas originated from the mission of the Jerusalem Church between the years 30-50 CE.
•It was taken to Edessa where it was used by the Syrian Christians as a storage site for words of Jesus

It makes me wonder whether she has ever made comment about the Edessa saga
concerning the correspondence between JC and the King of Edessa, and Eusebius'
serendipitous "find" of these letters "in the archives" during the early fourth century,
almost three centuries after the event.

dog-on · 09-16-2009, 01:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

April DeConik responds to Eisenman's slurs about her (She's not a "conservative.")

Her chronology for "Early Christian Literature" is very conservative.
By that I mean very very early - things are afoot very early if we
are to assess April's assessment of gThomas

Quote:

•The Kernel Thomas originated from the mission of the Jerusalem Church between the years 30-50 CE.
•It was taken to Edessa where it was used by the Syrian Christians as a storage site for words of Jesus

Indeed.

But she claims to be a historian, so she must have the evidence and not be simply relying on tradition.

Somehow, I doubt it...

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09-15-2009, 01:31 PM	#6
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	April DeConik responds to Eisenman's slurs about her (She's not a "conservative.")

09-16-2009, 12:51 AM	#8
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	I expect DeConick explains this in her book Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas: A History of the Gospel and Its Growth (or via: amazon.co.uk), which can be previewed on google books

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