GRGR: Gnostic gospels and suppressed, secret histories

[Doug Millison]

A while back we had some discussion that spun off TRP's allusion in GR to
the Gospel of Thomas (p. 537). Some of this discussion touched on the
issues of suppression of texts by the powers-that-be, and on an idea that
seems to animate much of TRP's writing:  secret histories.  Thanks to
Terrance, I learned of a  listserve called XTalk, a moderated discussion
among Biblical scholars with an emphasis on New Testatment and early
Christian origins. A very lively discussion! A current XTalk thread focuses
on precisely this question of the suppression of the Gnostic and other
gospels that were later determined to be heretical or otherwise not fit for
the official canon.  Here's a recent (today's) XTalk post that discusses
how such books might be "suppressed":

>
>This is precisely the point of my previous posts. As the son of a
>librarian I regard any book-burning as a sin. But as a teacher I also
>know that most people won't read something unless it is recommended or
>assigned. A canon is an assigned bibliography. I would never bother to
>read 2 Thessalonians or 2 Timothy if I weren't teaching a course whose
>bibliography was partially determined by the NT canon proposed by
>Athanasius of Alexandria.
>
>Unless a work got included in a canon people would stop reading it &
>since the audience that favored that work were excluded from the great
>churches their numbers shrank & fewer copies of the works they favored
>were needed. So as time passed & books wore out eventually nobody
>thought it was worth the time, effort & expense to make new copies. This
>just verifies T.S.Eliot's eschatology: "This is the way the world ends,
>not with a bang but a whimper."
>
>
>The type of "ruthless suppression" of non-canonical texts that I was
>talking about did not often entail posses of orthodox book-burners
>scouring the private libraries of upper Egypt. All it took was a league
>of influential bishops who said -- as I say every semester to my class
>-- "that book [e.g., the KJV] is not on my syllabus (= canon) &
>therefore cannot be used in this course." But when I go to bookstores
>like Borders or Barnes & Nobles I am always struck by the fact that
>books I ban for academic purposes are apparently best-sellers with all
>those people who have never taken my course.
>
>Likewise there are myriads of Bible-related websites that are not
>included in the links on my VRI or Mark G's NT Gateway.  The purpose of
>our e-canons is precisely to lead people to use those sites that we feel
>are academically respectable.  But what we include is pre-determined by
>our educated preconception of what constitutes material & tools of value
>to the scholar. The more scholars we convince to link to or recommend
>our web-guides, the more influential our canons of academic religious
>resources. But we don't go around advertising those websites that we
>personally feel are unworthy. Also since we webmasters regularly
>plagiarize each other's recommendations it is quite noticeable that as
>time passes works on my e-syllabus come more & more to resemble those on
>Mark's & vice versa. That's how canons get formed.
>
>So over the long haul in the history of the church all it took was a web
>of influential church leaders who accepted the same required texts &
>passed on the grape-vine rumor that works like GThom or GPeter or GMary
>were worthless distortions at best & the source of dangerous ideas at
>worst & the latter were systematically ignored or (if someone called
>attention to them) explicitly rejected as "spurious" without a fresh or
>fair re-reading.
>
>
>Mahlon H. Smith,         http://religion.rutgers.edu/mhsmith.html
>Associate Professor
>Department of Religion
>Rutgers University
>New Brunswick NJ
>
>Into His Own: Perspective on the World of Jesus
>http://religion.rutgers.edu/iho/
>

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