H'm. Helpful tip from the Guardian

This could be very handy. Especially these days. Especially the bit about ability to wring complex meanings from a single line. Must bone up a bit on creating intellectual frisson.

What Joseph saw

In the Ethiopic birth narrative, The Road to Bethlehem, Joseph went off to find a midwife "and as he went along the road, the earth trembled, and the oxen and sheep stood looking up into heaven." This is a brief reference to miraculous events accompanying Jesus' birth.

According to the Protevangelion of James, this is what Joseph saw:

XVIII. I And Joseph found a cave there and brought Mary into it, and set his sons by her: and he went forth and sought for a midwife of the Hebrews in the country of Bethlehem.

2 Now I Joseph was walking, and I walked not. And I looked up to the air and saw the air in amazement. And I looked up unto the pole of the heaven and saw it standing still, and the fowls of the heaven without motion. And I looked upon the earth and saw a dish set, and workmen lying by it, and their hands were in the dish: and they that were chewing chewed not, and they that were lifting the food lifted it not, and they that put it to their mouth put it not thereto, but the faces of all of them were looking upward. And behold there were sheep being driven, and they went not forward but stood still; and the shepherd lifted his hand to smite them with his staff, and his hand remained up. And I looked upon the stream of the river and saw the mouths of the kids upon the water and they drank not. And of a sudden all things moved onward in their course.

What Joseph saw is the miraculous effects of Jesus' birth on nature in which what normally happens is suspended. This is a way of speaking about the virgin birth to which the fleeting reference in the Ethiopic story alludes. In the icon of my previous post, the shepherd reports these astonishing event to Joseph since he had seen the sheep and tried to use his staff. (I must acknowledge with gratitude help from Prof. Diane Apostolos-Cappadona on this point).

These two posts show that two details in an Ethiopic story of Jesus' birth belong to what we would call noncanonical material. However, the Ethiopic canon of scripture contains many more books than our canon. It is probable that The Road to Bethlehem also includes oral traditions found also in the Protevangelion of James.

Joseph and the Shepherd

Another detail from the next paragraph of the Ethiopic nativity story The Road to Bethlehem is as follows:

Joseph looked around, and he saw a cave where animals were kept and he led Mary to it. Then he went off to find a midwife. As he went along the road, the earth trembled, and the oxen and sheep stood looking up into heaven.

Since this paragraph doesn't actually mention a shepherd, here's an icon that shows the scene to which this paragraph alludes (the animals are behind the shepherd on the right). Why does the earth tremble? Why do the animals stand looking into heaven? (Discussion in the post to follow in a day or so :)

Mary's Vision While Pregnant with Jesus

I've been perusing (from the library) A Synopsis of the Apocryphal and Infancy Narratives assembled by J. K. Elliot (Brill, 2006). It includes material from three newly published and unfamiliar Irish texts: a poetic version of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and nativity stories in the Leabhar Breac ("The Speckled Book" dated to 1411) and the Liber Flavus Fergusiorum (texts first edited by Martin McNamara in 2001 in the Corpus Christianorum Series Apocrypha 13 and 14).

Under the heading "Mary's Vision of Two Peoples" the Protevangelion of James 17:2 (or 12)records:-

And (Joseph) saddled the ass, and put her upon it, and Joseph and Simon followed after her, and came near Bethlehem, within three miles. 6 Then Joseph, turning about, saw Mary sorrowful, and said within himself, "Perhaps she is in pain through That which is within her." 7 But when he turned about again, he saw her laughing, and said to her, 8 "Mary, how does it happen that I sometimes see sorrow and sometimes laughter and joy in your face?" 9 And Mary replied to him, "I see two people with my eyes, the one weeping and mourning, the other laughing and rejoicing."

Pseudo-Matthew 13 has a similar version:-

When, therefore, Joseph and Mary were going along the road which leads to Bethlehem, Mary said to Joseph: 'I see two peoples before me, the one weeping, and the other rejoicing.' And Joseph answered: 'Sit still on thy beast, and do not speak superfluous words.' Then there appeared before them a beautiful boy, clothed in white raiment, who-said to Joseph: 'Why didst thou say that the words which Mary spoke about the two peoples were superfluous? For she saw the people of the Jews weeping, because they have departed from their God; and the people of the Gentiles rejoicing, because they have now been added and made near to the Lord, according to that which He promised to our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for the time is at hand when in the seed of Abraham all nations shall be blessed.'

The Leabhar Breac 66-7 has a version of this story as does the Liber Flavus 66:

'O father,' said Simeon, 'the maiden is speaking and I do not know whom she is addressing.' 'I think that she is suffering from tiredness and distress,' said Joseph. And when Joseph looked at Mary he saw that she was alternately sad and joyful. 'How is it, girl', he said, 'that at one time you are grieving while at another time you are happy?' 'I see two peoples,' she said, 'one of which is in mourning and the other in gladness and sacred scripture tells us to weep with the mournful and to rejoice with the joyful.' Joseph told her to go to bed and rest. 'O Simeon,' said he, 'Annoint the virgin's feet with oil.'

Now listen to a modern nativity story from Ethiopia, The Road to Bethlehem, (Macmillan 2000) loaned to me by Jemonde Taylor who was in Ethiopia in January:

Some months later, Herod the king sent out his officers to bring each person into their own city. So Joseph brought a donkey, and he sat Mary on it, and they started out along the road to bethlehem. After they had been travelling for a while, Joseph turned and looked back at Mary, and she was smiling and laughing. "The baby is about to be born," she said. "What shall we do, where shall we go?" said Joseph.

It would be easy to pass over this paragraph if one was not aware of the long tradition of Mary's prophetic vision as her child is about to be born. In the tradition of the prophets Mary feels within herself the pain and the joy of God's verdict. Abraham Joshua Heschel taught us that the prophet is a person who holds God and humankind in one thought at one time, and at all times. All prophecy is one great exclamation: God is not indifferent to evil! God is always concerned. God is personally affected by what humanity does. God is a God of pathos, namely, feeling transformed into action. In Mary's case, this is the joy and sorrow of a birth that brings division as a consequence of it.

Epiphany in Lalibela

A report from the Guardian (UK) of Timkhat, feast of the Epiphany, in Lalibela complete with all-night vigil and baptism early next morning.

New York: City of Antiquities

Sotheby’s 6 December sale of the Judith H. Siegel Collection of historicist jewellery by Castellani and Giuliano totalled $7.4m, with only five lots left unsold. Once again, it came as no surprise that the highest price of the day should have been the $475,200 paid for Castellani’s glorious Egyptian Revival gold, scarab and micromosaic necklace and brooch. What elicited a gasp from the floor was the $234,000 paid for his copy of a Byzantine gold and micromosaic brooch which had been estimated at $10,000-$15,000.

The real McCoy stole the day at Christie’s antiquities sale on 7 December: an Egyptian sarcophagus complete with the mummy of one Neskhons. The former was extravagantly painted in hieroglyphs, as was the custom in the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1040-900 bc). It appears that the coffin was excavated in 1900 when Liberty H. Holden of Cleveland, Ohio, purchased Neskhons during his Egyptian tour and donated him to the Western Reserve Historical Society, which is now $1.14m (£576,650) richer.

From Apollo Magazine, February 2007. Are these treasures now to be in private collections invisible to the public eye?

Multispectral imaging reveals new texts from Oxyrhynchus

Using multispectral imaging, scholars at BYU have uncovered new material from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri collection: an unidentified Christian apocryphal Gospel, a new ending to the Gospel of Mark, a different version of two verses in the book of Philemon, and a missing section in Luke 22:43-44. Here's another account from Oxford of the way multispectral imaging clarifies unclear readings and noting that the Oxyrhynchus texts will be published in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, beginning with the next volume (LXIX). An article on the technical aspects is planned for Scientific American.

This project began with the excavation, in 1897-1907, of the town-site of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. The excavators, B P Grenfell and A S Hunt (both Fellows of Queen's College, Oxford), recovered more than 100,000 pieces, fragments and scraps of papyrus, mostly in Greek, dating from the Roman and early Byzantine periods; the Egypt Exploration Society, which funded the dig, deposited these in Oxford. Since then scholars have worked to catalogue, decipher and publish this material. The first volume of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri appeared in 1898, volume 67 in 2001; there are at least 40 more volumes to come.

The present Project Director is Professor P J Parsons (Christ Church). The papyri, some 2,000 published and mounted in glass, the rest conserved in boxes, are housed in a workroom adjacent to the Sackler Library, with their indexes, archives and photographic record. The workroom serves also as the office of the project's Researcher and Administrator, Dr Nikolaos Gonis.

The mass of unedited material represents the random waste-paper of seven centuries of Graeco-Egyptian life. About 10% is literary, i.e. the fragmentary remains of ancient books; the rest documents public and private (codes, edicts, registers, official correspondence, census-returns, tax-assessments, petitions, court-records; sales, leases, wills, bills, accounts, inventories, horoscopes, private letters).

Remember that P. Oxy. 1, 654 and 655 contain sayings attributed to Jesus and, on the basis of their similarity to parts of the Coptic text of 114 sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas, thought to be fragments of a larger sayings collection.

Women of the Early Church according to Pope Benedict

Yesterday, at the general audience, the Pope announced that the presence of women in the early church was in no way secondary.

On the plus side, he mentions the presence of women amongst the disciples in addition to the 12 male disciples: the prophetess (sic) Anna (cf. Luke 2:36-38), the Samaritan woman (cf. John 4:1-39), the Syrophoenician woman (cf. Mark 7:24-30), the woman with the hemorrhage (cf. Matthew 9:20-22) and the forgiven woman sinner (cf. Luke 7:36-50). Then he mentions the protagonists of some of Jesus' effective parables, for example, the woman who makes the bread (Matthew 13:33), the woman who loses the silver coin (Luke 15:8-10), or the vexing widow before the judge (Luke 18:1-8), in addition to the anonymous woman who anointed Jesus before his passion in Mark 14.

There are women who played an active role in the context of Jesus' mission: the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mary of Magdala, Joanna, Susanna "and many others" (cf. Luke 8:2-3) and who did not abandon Jesus (unlike the 12) at the cross. Mary Magdalene is first witness of the risen one and identified as "apostolorum apostola" by Aquinas in his commentary on John.

There are women prophets in Corinth as Paus attests in the Corinthian letter. Therefore, he says, the famous exhortation "the women should keep silence in the churches" must be relativized (1 Corinthians 14:34).

To bad he wants to leave unresolved Pauline contradictions: The much-discussed problem on the relationship between the first phrase -- women can prophesy in church -- and the other -- they cannot speak -- that is, the relationship between these two indications which are seemingly contradictory, we leave for the exegetes.

Paul in Romans 16 mentions Phoebe, a "diakonos" with genuine responsibilities (sic). But he completely ignores the designation "prostatis" Paul gives her. Rendering this term by "patron" or "founder" would be more accurate than the older "helper."

The Pope continues describing Rom 16: with delicate lines (Paul) recalls other names of women: a certain Mary, and then Tryphaena, Tryphosa and Persis, "beloved," as well as Julia, of whom he writes openly that they "have worked hard for you" or "have worked hard in the Lord" (Romans 16:6,12a,12b,15), thus underlining their intense ecclesial commitment. He completely omits Junia (Rom 16:7) identified until the 14th Century as a woman who along with Andronicus was a co-worker of Paul, of note among the apostles before Paul.

He refracts Gal 3:26-28, "the fundamental principle," according to which, for the baptized "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" though the prism of 1 Corinthians 12:27-30 in which specific functions identify distinct roles within the community. There is no compelling reason to interpret Gal 3 with reference to I Cor 12 nor has he provided one. However, its clear that the Pope can do exegesis when he wishes to avoid for example the implications of transcending social and ethnic and gender distinctions in Gal 3:26-28. He prefers rather to reinscribe distinctions in terms of functions which in regard to women he elsewhere calls "feminine holiness" or charisms.

One might also ask: What about discussing the impact of the Syrophoenician woman in Mark (the Canaanite woman in Matthew) or the Samaritan woman on Jesus' mission in John?

Valentine's Day "In the Garden"

In thinking of single people on Valentine's Day, Mahalia Jackson's version of "In the Garden" came to mind. You'll need Real Player to hear it. The song is under "Bonus Audio" as one of three files in a segment discussing Bill Henderson's book about hymns: Simple Gifts, Great Hymns, One Man's Search for Grace (2006).

You can hear this hymn in a variety of different ways: as a woman walks with her beloved in the garden; as a Christian person of faith walking with the Lord in the garden; as a lover with a beloved in the Song of Songs perhaps redeeming the story in the Garden of Eden; as Mary Magdalene meeting Jesus the gardener in the garden after the resurrection. Perhaps the story has something for everyone. Happy Valentine's Day!

The New Model of Christian Marriage: Priscilla and Acquila

On Feb 7th, Pope Benedict XVI, in his talk to the morning audience at the Vatican, attempted to remedy the dearth of models of married couples in the New Testament and early Christian tradition by proposing Priscilla and Acquila. He concluded his talk: "So we render homage to Aquila and Priscilla as models of a married life responsibly committed to the service of the entire Christian community. And in them we see the model of the Church, family of God for all times." But in case anyone noticed even the interesting detail that Priscilla is listed first in all references to the couple, he linked them to the Ephesian teaching about Christ and the Church.

Six New Things (Actually, One) in Chelsea, NYC

Gagosian Gallery, Sebastian + Barquet hold Newson-fest in Chelsea showrooms

Marc Newson is regarded as one of the most creative and influential designers of this generation. And, perhaps, several others as well. Sydney-born and entirely self-taught as an architect and designer, Newson produces giddily forward-looking furniture, glassware, lighting and luggage that have landed in the permanent collections of the world's top design museums, as well as Madonna videos. Last year, a Newson work commanded the most money ever paid at an auction for a work by a living artist. This month, you have not one but TWO opportunities to indulge in the quirky and funky world of Newson's aesthetic ... and they are right across the street from each other. The Gagosian Gallery is presenting a major exhibition of new, limited-edition works by Newson -- the first solo exhibition of Newson's talent in the United States. The works represent Newson's mind-boggling expertise at fashioning beauty from extreme treatment of materials like nickel and marble. Jan. 25 to Mar. 3. 555 W. 24th. 212.741.1111. Meanwhile, the design showroom Sebastian + Barquet inaugurates its new showroom on 24th Street with an exhibition of vintage furniture crafted by Newson. The pairing is ironic -- the exhibition hearkens to the past while Sebastian + Barquet's spectacular new showroom heralds Chelsea as the future epicenter of 20th and 21st century design. Opened Jan. 25. 544 W. 24th. 212.488.2245.