The Mysteries of the Kingdom

I had a student who raised a question when studying the Gospel of Judas—whether or not Judas had any relation to Secret Mark.  The reason is that they both turn a distinctive phrase:  “mystery/mysteries of the kingdom.” 

I appreciated the thought, and I had no answer at the moment, except that most scholars shy away from using Secret Mark in their reconstructions these days, given all of the speculation about it possibly being a modern forgery perpetrated by its discoverer, Morton Smith. 

I, nonetheless, had an itch in the back of my head to look back into the synoptic Gospels—if for no other reason than Secret Mark’s vocabulary and phrasing is rarely, if ever, distinctive (indeed, one of the arguments for it being forged is that it overuses typical vocabulary of Mark). 

So, I turned to the synoptics, and, interestingly, they rarely use the phrase.  “Mystery” and “Mysteries” may show up, and “kingdom” is all over the place, but the entire phrase “mysteries of the kingdom” is rarer; nonetheless, it appears in a conspicuous place:  the meditation on the nature of parables after the parable of the sower.

Mark 4:11:  “When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret/mystery of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables.’” (4:10-11)

Matt 13:11:  “Then the disciples came and asked him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’  He answered, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets/mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.’” (13:10-11)

Luke 8:10:  “Then his disciples asked him what this parable meant.  He said, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets/mysteries of the kingdom of God; but to others I speak in parables.”

Secret Mark:  “And when it was evening the young man came to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body.  He stayed with him that night, for Jesus was teaching him the mystery of the Kingdom of God.” (Secret Mark; Trans. Bart Ehrman, Lost Scriptures, 88)

Judas:  Jesus says to Judas:  “Separate from them.  I shall tell you the mysteries of the Kingdom.” (35.24-25; Trans. April DeConick) 

If I am missing other places, please forward them to me.  I have not double-checked, for example, the Gospel of Thomas, etc., for this phrasing. 

A couple things of note:  Mark and Secret Mark prefer the singular “mystery” (also translated as “secret”).  Matthew, Luke, and Judas all prefer the plural.  Matthew has the characteristic shift to “kingdom of heaven.”

The phrasing and framing of the rest of the passage has been most significantly reworked in Matthew, while Luke stays relatively close to mark. 

In all of the texts, it seems, this rare, conspicuous phrase works to define insiders from outsiders, who understands the mysteries and who doesn’t.  I don’t think this is a revelation to anyone, but it might be instructional to trace this delineation throughout different works to see what it means, or how this line may shift or even get lost.

The irony of Mark’s version is that just as Jesus defines the difference between insider and outsider—insiders are given the mystery/mysteries of the kingdom; outsiders get parables—is that immediately the difference is effaced.  With the key of understanding the mystery, they still do not understand the parable of the sower and Jesus has to explain it to them:

“And he said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable?  Then how will you understand all the parables?” (Mark 4:13)

The point is that they don’t understand all the parables, prompting Jesus’ explanation to them.  They are no better than the outsiders, until, for whatever reasons, the line that Jesus “explained everything in private to his disciples” (4:34), finally alleviates some of this effacement of the division of insider and outsider caused by the disciples’ failure of comprehension.

This is immediately alleviated in Matthew, however.  In the parallel to Mark 4:13, Matthew makes quite a shift:

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.  Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.” (Matt. 13:16-17)

Gone is the whiff of the disciples’ lack of understanding; Matthew turns it into its complete opposite:  they actually DO get it.  He then explains the parable not because of their lack of understanding, but their greater ability to apprehend.

Luke, also perhaps uncomfortable with Mark, drops the verse altogether instead of turning it into a positive affirmation as in Matthew, moving directly into the explanation of the parable. 

If in the synoptics, the “mystery/mysteries of the kingdom” delineates insiders from outsiders in understanding, Secret Mark is not far off from this meaning (whether you think it is an ancient texts—or how ancient—or a modern forgery).  There it still delineates insiders from outsiders in what appears to be an initiation, a very private audience with Jesus.  Is it an explanation of parables?  Perhaps it is impossible to tell.  Is it related to the fact that the figure has been resurrected, encoding, foreshadowing Jesus’ own resurrection (much like Lazarus does in John)?  Is it sexual?  We may not know the nature of the mystery, but its function is quite clear.

Finally, in the Gospel of Judas, Jesus relates this phrase just after Judas himself demonstrates his greater perspicacity than the other disciples through a confessional scene.

Judas [said] to him, “I know who you are and from what place you have come.  You came from the immortal Aeon of Barbelo, and the one who sent you is he whose name I am not worthy to speak.” (35.14-20; Deconick Translation)           

This, I think, is a brilliant repurposing of two traditions:  the mysteries of the kingdom tradition and the confession of Jesus’ identity tradition.  Firstly, how does the scene of revelation of mysteries work here?  I think it has a similar function as in the Gospels, but the line has moved.  Firstly, it separates Judas from the other disciples:  he gets it and they don’t.  On the one hand, the line still separates those who understand from those who don’t, but one the other hand instead of separating the inner core of disciples from everyone else, it is only one disciple who gets it and the most infamous one. 

Secondly, this is a scene clearly reminiscent of Peter’s confession in the synoptics and Thomas’s in the Gospel of Thomas.  In the synoptics, while others speculation who Jesus may be, Peter is the only one who grasps that Jesus is the “Messiah” (Mark 8:27-30; Matt 16:13-20; Luke 9:18-20).  In both Mark and Luke, this is passed over without comment; in Matthew, Peter is greatly praised, is given the “keys to the kingdom of heaven,” and we learn that Peter did not learn this from humans, but from the Father—it is a revelation.  In the Gospel of Thomas, Thomas confesses that “Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say what you are like” (13; Marvin, Nag Hammadi Scriptures: International Edition).  Jesus responds, “I am not your teacher.”  The point is likely that Jesus is divine, either because he is ineffable, or more likely that it would be blasphemy to say who Jesus is as the rest of the passage indicates.  Moreover, the point that “I am not your teacher,” again illustrates the Thomas received his knowledge and understanding from a higher source, like Peter in Matthew.

Likewise, in Judas, Judas shows greater understanding than the other disciples before Jesus reveals anything to him.  He receives it from a different source.  But, likely, it is his “star.”  The lines have shifted in potentially two ways:  firstly, the “mysteries of the kingdom” tradition that used to separate the disciples from everyone else now keeps the disciples themselves as outsiders, and Judas does this through the “super-perceptive disciple’s confessional” tradition.  Secondly, if one follows April DeConick’s interpretation (The Thirteenth Apostle), perception, understanding for Judas is not salvation.  His fate is tragic, full of pathos as who fully comprehends his own terrible fate, dictated by his star.  Here the line of knowing and ignorance does not indicate fully insider and outsider, since, if one follows the DeConick interpretation, Judas is a knowing outsider.  Mark may have jump-roped the boundary of insider and outsider, Matthew and Luke solidified it more clearly, but Judas resituates it to the point that there is no surrogate for the reader in the text itself; everyone is outside.

Time Stands Still

Today in my Gospels class we were reading the Proto-Gospel of James, which has a very fascinating depiction of time:

But I, Joseph, was walking, and I was not walking.  I looked up into the air, and I saw that it was greatly disturbed.  I looked up to the vault of the sky, and I saw it standing still; and the birds of the sky were at rest.  I looked back to the earth and saw a bowl laid out for some workers who were reclining to eat.  Their hands were in the bowl, but those who were chewing were not chewing; and those who were taking something from the bowl were not lifting it up; and those who were bringing their hands to their mouths were not bringing them to their mouths.  Everyone was looking up.  And I saw a clock of sheep being herded, but they were standing still.  And the shepherd raised his hand to strike them, but his hand remained in the air.  I looked down at the torrential stream, and I saw some goats whose mouths were over the water, but they were not drinking.  Then suddenly everything returned to its normal course. (pericope 18; translation Bart Ehrman, Lost Scriptures, p. 69)

This is the moment of Jesus' birth.  When Jesus comes into the world, the world stands still.  But at least one person, Joseph, had the consciousness to realize that time had frozen, even for just a moment.  It is, in my opinion, a beautiful passage; the imagery of things happening and not happening at the same time expresses the extraordinariness of the moment.  Jesus' birth affects time.  But whence and why this imagery?

Firstly, I am unaware of other places where Jesus (or someone else) causes time to stop like this.  In Joshua the sun stands still, but just the sun and not the entire temporal stream.  If someone else knows any traditions--Jewish, emergent Christian, Greco-Roman, etc.--I would love to hear about it.

Secondly, why this imagery?  I posed this question to my class.  It was not a rhetorical question, not a question for which I was seeking to elucidate a particular answer or set of several answers that I or other scholars had already thought of, but a question of me genuinely trying to figure this out.  They had some good ideas (and I will release their names if they would like me to do so; otherwise, I will protect their anonymity in the public forum).  But, please note, these ideas came from my brilliant students--not me.  One student suggested that the fact it happens to Joseph--that Joseph is the one cognizant of these events--is significant.  Indeed, the first-person singular of these events is quite striking (how often do we see from Joseph's point of view in the Gospels?).  So why is this significanct?  Because Mary already has reassurance that this child is of God since it is all happening to her; Joseph's experience is more indirect, and, therefore, needs more assurances.  The second idea is thinking more cosmically.  What happens when something beyond nature, beyond the quotidian world, breaks into this world?  What happens when a being who stands outside of time, steps into time?  Perhaps time would stand still because, with Jesus' birth, a residue of that other timeless world that comes into this world.  Or, perhaps, we could say that the otherworldly being coming into this world, creates a tear in the fabric of this reality, expressed here as a temporal disturbance in the flow of time.  What other ideas can we brainstorm for the stopping of the temporal flow when Jesus is born?

The Ink of Judas

The Gospel of Judas is back in the news with reports of how comparative ink analyses between Judas and more quotidian late-antique Egyptian documents (contracts, etc.) were used to help authenticate and date the Gospel.  By authenticate, I mean that it is an ancient document rather than a modern forgery, and, therefore, tells us important new information about ancient Christianity.  Looks like the ink comes from the third century CE.

New Gospel Fragment: Preliminary Notes and Hypothesis

I want to proceed with some preliminary notes.  They are basic, foundational, but lead to a working hypothesis of this fragment that, I hope, will help lead to a particular social context.   First, here is a reiteration of my translation from my previous post:

Line 1:  ...my mother gave me li[fe]...
Line 2:  ...the disciples said to Jesus...
Line 3:  ...deny.  Mary is worthy of it....
Line 4:  ..........Jesus said to them, "My wife....
Line 5:  ....... she will be my disciple and....
Line 6:  ...Let wicked people....
Line 7:  ...I dwell with her because...
Line 8:  .....................an image................

The first note is literary genre (or at least micro-genre).  This is a dialogue form.  In line 2, we have the introductory formula for speech--here, the disciples' speech to Jesus.  The fourth line, then, shows Jesus' response.  This fragment, therefore, presents us with a glimpse of a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples.  With the back-and-forth style, I think we can take an intuitive step and consider that before the disciples' speak in line 2, Jesus would likely be speaking beforehand; therefore, we can attribute line 1 to Jesus' speech.  I also think, though on slightly less firm grounds, that lines 5-8 are also all Jesus.  Is this a dialogue Gospel?  Or is it perhaps a sayings Gospel, like the Gospel of Thomas, with only occasional dialogue?  Or is it a narrative Gospel in which we happened to discover a dialogue portion?  I don't think we can know for sure. 

With Lines 1, 4-8 attributed to Jesus, and lines 2-3 attributed to the disciples, we can begin to unravel a few more things.  Firstly, something the disciples say prompt Jesus to affirm that "she" will be his disciple and he will dwell with her.  Such an affirmation may suggest a less-than-positive valuation in the disciples' statement.  This could, then, confirm the potential reconstruction of the negation at the end of line 3:  "Mary is not worthy of it."  What is she not worthy of?  Something Jesus was talking about beforehand.  Interestingly, the disciples' disapproval of Mary (if I am right), "not being worthy" (line 3), "Mary" (line 3), "life" (line 1), and Jesus' defense of her also shows up in Gospel of Thomas 114.  I think that having so many key terms and the dialogic structure being so close is not accidental. Indeed, it may be after Jesus is discussing "life" in line 1, that the disciples claim that Mary is not worthy of it (life, or eternal life, or aeonic life, etc.), and Jesus responds to the contrary.  On the other hand, "life" is masculine singular in line 1 and "it" in line 3 is feminine singular.  It appears to have a different antecedent that has been lost. 

This leads to another intuitive step:  Mary is to be identified with the "she" in Jesus' speech, and, likely, his "wife."  Since Thomas is more geared for celibacy, this appears to be a reuse or a re-channeling of Thomas 114 to non-celibate ends.  (I guess the opposite could be true; Thomas took a marriage saying in which Mary achieved life through divine marriage with Jesus and reworked it to fit its celibate perspective).

What about line 6?  It seems to interrupt the affirmations of Mary (if Mary is "she") in lines 5 and 7.  Let wicked people do what?  This is more of an intuitive leap, but I think it might have to do with the disciples' concerns.  Perhaps something about outsider perception.  What will other, evil, people say, do, or think?  Perhaps they are doing some of the "denying" at the beginning of line 3, which, recall, should still be part of the disciples' speech?  Jesus' response is an affirmation of Mary's inclusion in the face of outsider pressure, perceptions, etc.  Other people may think what he is doing with her is unseemly (more celibate-oriented early Christians), but he has good reasons.  (Indeed, typically linguistic signatures and narrative structures are adapted more closely by opponents to be reworked polemically to make the polemic clear:  as such, this would support that this writer is contesting the perspective of Thomas.)  Indeed, he begins to explain why he is with her, which supposedly would rebut the disciples' concerns and whatever evil people are doing--but it drops off.  Nonetheless, being with her is something done in spite of them.

Marriage, life, and image has led April DeConick to the Valentian concept of marriage, where human pneumatic marriage presages one's future marriage with one's angelic counterpart and mirrors the pleromic bridal chamber (about which she has written a few articles).  See also her follow-up post here.

Of course, we cannot know how directly it would refer to this.  It could be referring directly to an "image" of the bridal chamber, or it could be more proximately back to Genesis 1:26-27, where God made humans in his image and likeness (male and female).  Being with her, then, could be recapturing the original human image (male and female), which, then, slightly more indirectly would lead to a Valentinian concept of marriage. 

Finally, who is "my mother"? (And how lucky are we that it survives on the verso as well as the recto, though likely in a different part of the writing!)  It could be Mary, the mother of Jesus.  DeConick points to Gospel of Thomas 101, where his true mother gave him life.  If, indeed, the fragment is aware of the saying that appears in 114, perhaps it is aware of this one?  She notes that in Thomas the mother is likely a spiritual being.  One could also point to "the mother of life":  Eve, who receives quite a bit of attention in Gnostic sources, though mostly in Sethian ones.  Whoever it is, it is one who gives Jesus life:  it is likely the spiritual life that he passes along or awakens in his followers.

My preliminary hypothesis, therefore, partially agrees with DeConick's initial findings that this fragment demonstrates awareness either with Thomas 114 or at least the saying as it existed and got incorporated into Thomas (that is, may or may not know Thomas, but knows the saying).  I would push this a bit further, however.  I think the correspondences are conspicuous and likely meant to be so.  There are too many matching keywords and the literary progression is close.  It is a reference to an alternative tradition that the original audience / insiders ("disciples") and opponents ("evil people") would both be aware of, something both would be able to catch--and perhaps the opponents are the holders of the tradition referred to.  The fragment, therefore, adopts, adapts, and contests the saying we now find embedded in Thomas 114 to defend a marriage (perhaps envisioned as the Valentinian bridal chamber) against celibate, encratic Christians who would oppose it (such as the Thomas Christians).  If so, this should help us begin to locate the fragment not just within its theology and ecclesiology, but a particular social context where early Christian practices were contested and defended, particularly when focusing on issues of sex and marriage--quite hotly debated especially in the second century CE.

Again, this is a preliminary hypothesis.  As new information comes to light, as high resolution photos are released, as the debates begin to unfold, arguments will begin to sharpen and clarify, new hypotheses will arise, some will be modified, and others will be discarded.

Of course, this all also depends upon whether or not this fragment is truly ancient and not a modern forgery; see Jim Davila for all the reasons to maintain a skeptical attitude until more testing is complete.

See also Mark Goodacre's discussion; he notes, for example, that it is vaguely reminiscent of the "Three Mary's" logion in the Gospel of Philip 59 (something I had thought of when I saw it but forgot to note in my post).  

New Gospel Fragment: Photo, Transcription, Translation

Image of Papyrus:

(Photo:  Papyrus Fragment; Recto; Karen King 2012)

Coptic Transcription: (Key:  {reconstruction from corrupt letter}; [reconstruction from missing letters]); Additional Note:  I have been notified that not everyone can read the transcription--that the letters appear as boxes instead of letters.  I am not sure why this is happening since I used a unicode based font, but I'll see what I can do.

Line 1:  ⲛⲁ]ⲉⲓⲁⲛⲧⲁⲙⲁⲁⲩⲁⲥϯⲛⲁⲉⲓⲡ{ⲱ}[ⲛϩ

Line 2:  ]{ⲥ}ⲡⲉϫⲉ︦ⲙⲙⲁⲑⲏⲧⲏⲥ︦ⲛ︦ⲓⲥϫⲉ{ⲥ}[

Line 3:  ] ̣ ⲁⲣⲛⲁⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁⲙ︦ⲙⲡϣⲁ︦ⲙⲙⲟⲥⲁ[

Line 4:  ] ̣  ̣  ̣  ̣  ̣ ⲡⲉϫⲉ︦ⲓⲥⲛⲁⲩⲧⲁϩⲓⲙⲉⲙ{︦ⲛ}

Line 5:  ] ̣  ̣  ̣  ⲥⲛⲁϣ︦ⲣⲙⲁⲑⲏⲧⲏⲥⲛⲁⲉⲓⲁⲩⲱ[

Line 6:  ]{ⲓ}ⲙⲁⲣⲉⲣⲱⲙⲉⲉⲑⲟⲟⲩϣⲁϥⲉⲛⲉ[

Line 7:  ] ̣ ⲁⲛⲟⲕϯϣⲟⲟⲡⲛⲙⲙⲁⲥⲉⲧⲃⲉ{ⲃ}[

Line 8:                 ]ⲟⲩϩⲓⲕⲟⲛ[

The verso has far less that is legible, but notably has the word ⲧⲁⲙⲁⲁⲩ in the first line.

Translation:  Major Note:  Because this is the first look the scholarly community outside of a select few have to glimpse this fragment, I will not place too much emphasis on reconstructed letters unless there is good reason.  One should compare this translation with the pdf download of the paper given by Karen King and note April DeConick's translation.  I should note that until more testing is done and high resolution photographs are released, all textual transcriptions (above) and therefore translations (below) are tentative.

Line 1:  ...my mother gave me li[fe]...
Line 2:  ...the disciples said to Jesus...
Line 3:  ...deny.  Mary is worthy of it....
Line 4:  ..........Jesus said to them, "My wife....
Line 5:  ....... she will be my disciple and....
Line 6:  ...Let wicked people....
Line 7:  ...I dwell with her because...
Line 8:  .....................an image................

It is possible that line 3 ends with a negation (ⲁⲛ).  If so, it may have a translation of "Mary is (not) worthy of it," which would mirror Gospel of Thomas 114.

We do not know much about this fragment, and since it does not quite match any known writing, then we cannot know its literary context.  Indeed, missing letters and words could make a lot of difference in the reading (such as if there is a missing negation in line 4, etc.).

I am going to withhold any interpretations (or further interpretations since there is a certain amount of interpretation in translation and even transcription) after further consideration.

Did Jesus Have a Wife?

Breaking News:  At the 10th International Congress of Coptic Studies (meets every four years), Karen King has revealed the possible existence of a new gospel, of which only a fragment (in Coptic) survives, that says, "...Jesus said to them, My wife..."  Initial testing has suggested it is, indeed, ancient.  See discussion here, which contains a further link to King's paper.

April DeConick has a short comment on it here.  See more here and here, leading to other sites.

DeConick has a fuller translation of the fragment with discussion here.

Ehrman and Plese: Apocryphal Gospels

I just received a copy of Bart Ehrman and Zlatko Plese's collection of apocryphal gospels that you can purchase here. I am looking forward to flipping through the book. April DeConick has written a short review here.