Archaic Christianity

I did it. Last night at around 11:45 I read the closing of the gospel. I would have blogged it last night, but as it was I had already posted four times yesterday, and two were quite lengthy. I needed something to post today anyway.

I've made quite a bit of progress since my report on chapters 16, 17, and 18. I expect to finish up reading the entire thing today. This document is a very quick read. The Greek is definitely on the easy side of the spectrum.

In my last (substantive) post I discussed a few things from the Protoevangelium of James 16, 17, and 18. I must give props to Nathan Stitt for linking τὸ ὕδωρ τῆς ἐλέγξεως κυρίου, "the water of the conviction of the Lord", with Numbers 5:11-31. I think you're right. Note this quote from that passage:

So last night and this morning I read through three more chapters of the Protoevangelium of James. Some thoughts:

This morning I read through the 14th and 15th chapters of the Protoevangelium of James (abbreviated Prot. Jas. by the SBL Handbook of Style, btw...). There was one difficulty and I found a few interesting things. For context, chapter 14 is Joseph's inner dialogue on what he's going to do about the mysteriously pregnant Mary. Chapter 15 is Annas the scribe's discovery of a big (ὀγκωμένην) Mary and the scandal that brings up.

So I read another chapter of the Protoevangelium of James, chapter 10. I ran into two words in the chapter that I had to go to LSJ for, which is rare for this document. Both were verbs, and this is a good reason why all you Greek-geeks out there need to learn your rules for verb formation. When a word doesn't show up in a Bibleworks search, you're stuck, unless you can crack that nut with your brain.

Well, he had a σκέπαρνον ("axe") anyway. So I read only one more chapter (#9) in the Protoevangelium of James today. My cold/flu/crud pretty much kept me down today.

I stayed home from work yesterday due to illness and continue to do the same today. I managed to keep busy, but only with activities that involved sitting. On top of some (English) reading yesterday I was able to make it through three more chapters of the Protoevangelium of James. I'll begin my chapter 9 reading this morning.

Saturday I finished reading through the fifth chapter of the Protoevangelium of James. Just in case you are not familiar with it, it is an apocryphal gospel probably written sometime in the middle to late 2nd century. "Proto" means "first" or "early" and "evangelium" means gospel. "Of James" means..."of James"...obviously. The title given does not claim it is the first written but a reference to the fact that it is a gospel of the birth of Jesus. It actually begins with the birth of Mary.