Friday, June 30, 2017

Apocalypse of Peter (Greek text)

Back in 2005, I transcribed a Greek text of the Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim fragment, from Erich Klostermann's edition) and uploaded to the web. I updated the files in 2007 and 2009 and for a couple of years I have been meaning to make some corrections to the text in the files. I am very grateful to Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Schütt for pointing out several typos in the original files. They are now all corrected and I think we have a pretty accurate version, but please let me know if you spot anything else that's in need of correction. They are found in the same spot here:


Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim Fragment) [PDF]

Update (5 July 2017): Please see comments (below) for some helpful updates and bibliography on the Apocalypse of Peter from Wolfgang Grünstäudl.



Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Who Was Jesus? (1977) is Now Online

I have blogged my fascination with the 1977 BBC documentary Who Was Jesus? on a couple of occasions (Caird, Flusser and Cupitt on Who Was Jesus? (1977) and Who Was Jesus? (1977)) and I've been really keen to see it for many years. I remember listening to my mum's audio recording of the series as a youngster; I have always been intrigued by Don Cupitt, whose views were something of a cause célèbre when I began theological study; my interest in the history of documentaries on the Bible is always growing; and perhaps more than anything I was very excited about the possibility of seeing one of my beloved teachers, John Fenton, on film. So when Peter Armstrong released a twenty minute clip back in 2013, there was some hope that there might be more on the way. Now that has happened!

Peter Armstrong, the producer of Who Was Jesus?, has now put all two hours of the documentary online for all to view for free. It's in two parts and it's fascinating in all sorts of ways:

Who Was Jesus?







Part 1 is in many senses the documentary proper. It includes the earlier released clip of the conversations with George Caird and David Flusser, but it also features an enjoyable exchange with Anthony Birley about the existence of Jesus, and the conversation with John Fenton I mentioned above.

Part 2 is largely Cupitt's reflections on what he has discovered in part 1, along with exchanges with Michael Green (including a great shot of him putting a board outside St Aldate's Church in Oxford, with Christ Church in the background), Christopher Butler, and Brian Hebblethwaite, all three of whom had recently contributed to The Truth of God Incarnate, the book written to counter The Myth of God Incarnate, to which Cupitt had contributed along with John Hick, Michael Goulder, Dennis Nineham, Frances Young and others.

In some respects the documentary appears rather dated. The scholars are almost all British white males of a certain age, and the interviews with them go on for long segments -- they are nothing like the twenty-second soundbites we get now. But in other respects, the documentary covers a lot of ground, and I can't help thinking that today's fast-paced documentaries lose something of the grace and space that Cupitt is given to develop his thoughts. Cupitt is a charming and compelling guide -- intrigued, troubled and personally engaged in the subject matter he is exploring.

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Summer Seminar with Prof. Robert Cargill and me in Minnesota

There is still time to book for the Biblical Archaeology Society's Summer Seminar event with Prof. Robert Cargill and me at St Olaf College in July. Here are the details:

St Olaf College Summer Seminar with Robert Cargill and Mark Goodacre

St. Olaf College
Northfield, Minnesota
July 16 – July 22, 2017

The Biblical Archaeology Society invites you to join us this summer at our ever-popular St. Olaf program on the beautiful campus of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Our featured speakers are BAR’s new associate editor, Dr. Robert Cargill of the University of Iowa as well as Dr. Mark Goodacre of Duke University, one of our most popular and engaging speakers. These two dynamic presenters will be our scholars-in-residence for the week, and their 20-lecture program promises to be an exciting window into the latest research in the field of Biblical archaeology . . .

Read more . . .

I am taking as my topic "Gospel Truth? A Historical Investigation of the Gospels" (lecture titles and abstracts here).  I am very much looking forward to spending time with Prof. Cargill as well as those of you who are planning to join us! 

Monday, June 26, 2017

Paul of Tarsus (1960) clips in The TV That Made Me

Almost ten years ago, I blogged about the forgotten BBC TV Series, Paul of Tarsus (1960), starring Patrick Troughton (Paul of Tarsus (1960); More on Paul of Tarsus (BBC, 1960); Paul of Tarsus (1960): More details). In the intervening years, I have never had any success in viewing this, but at last we can actually now see some brief clips.

In an episode of The TV That Made Me, Brian Conley interviews Anne Widdecombe about her favourite television, and she cites Paul of Tarsus as her earliest TV memory. I've excerpted the relevant section of the episode and uploaded to Youtube here:





The clips are tantalizingly brief, but what we see of Troughton playing Paul suggests that his performance was marvellous. It's also nice that The Passion (BBC / HBO, 2008) gets a mention at the end.

Many thanks to Tony Bellows for alerting me to this episode of The TV That Made Me. It was recently repeated, but the original broadcast was on BBC1 on 20 August 2015.