Review of a “New New Testament”: Part 2
I have been working through an extended review of the new book by Hal Taussig called A New New Testament (Houghton Mifflin, 2013) which adds 10 “new” apocryphal books to the existing 27 books of the New Testament. In my prior post, I examined the promotional language on the inside cover flap. In this post, I will focus on the introduction to the book (xxxiii-xxvii) where Taussig offers his apologetic for this ambitious project.
1. Taussig opens his defense with the following statement:
… Continue reading...This New New Testament is not simply the produce of one author. The ten added books have been chosen by a council of wise and nationally
Apocrypha and Canon in Early Christianity
… Continue reading... A Further Response to Brice Jones
In a prior post, I responded to Brice Jones’ original critique of my chapter in The Early Text of the New Testament. He has taken a moment to respond on his website here. I want to thank Brice for this interesting and stimulating interaction. Certainly anyone should be thanked who is willing to read and interact with a $140 book! I will offer just a few final reflections here.
I only want to address the following paragraph where Brice summarizes his complaint:
… Continue reading...The main difficulty that I find with your essay is your move from a few select passages that do not refer to attitudes toward reproduction
Brice Jones Reviews The Early Text of the New Testament
Over at his website, Brice Jones just reviewed The Early Text of the New Testament (Oxford, 2012), edited by myself and Chuck Hill. In general, he offers a positive summary, “Overall, this book is an important addition to our field and thus is to be recommended to anyone interested in the text of the New Testament.”
However, Brice was critical of my own essay, “Early Christian Attitudes to the Reproduction of Texts,” arguing that it had a “theological agenda.” Not sure what he meant by theological agenda, since he never gets specific about where I do this in the article. He does, however, express disagreement over my analysis of … Continue reading...
Review of a “New New Testament”: Part 1
There has been much chatter recently about the new book by Hal Taussig called A New New Testament (Houghton Mifflin, 2013). It intends to combine the traditional 27 books of the New Testament along with 10 apocryphal writings from early Christianity. As I observed in a prior post, there is nothing particularly “new” about this sort of project—it has been tried again and again since the time of Marcion.
This post is the first installment of my review of this book, with many more to come. We will focus here just on the promotional description on the inside cover flap. This is an unusual place to begin a book … Continue reading...