Gospel Fragments Book

FINAL REVIEW: Roughly ten years ago Philip Jenkins wrote an exceptional work, arguing that the academic equivalent of "special interest groups" had hijacked the scholarly study of early Christianity and its associated texts. Whether conservative or liberal, feminist or anti-Semite, the people associated with these movements have, Jenkins argued, shoehorned their own prejudices, agendas and hang-ups into the field in an attempt to turn what should be an objective examination of existing evidence into a vehicle for their own wish-fulfillment and social engineering. In writing this book, Philip Jenkins was actually voicing much of what scholars like Lawrence Schiffman and Frank E. Peters (and myself!) have been saying for the last 30 years. Far from seeking to uncover the historical Jesus or the historical early Christianity, these groups have been on a quest to uncover an "acceptable Jesus", one whose teachings and followers reflect the wishes of these modern groups. This is why the Jesus & early Christianity they "discover" are conveniently devoid of Jewishness and heirarchies and supernaturalism and judgment and traditional gender norms - and why both are so amenable to Western Buddhists/Hinduists, neo-pagans, anti-war protesters, feminist theologians, survivalist movements, conspiracy theorists, anti-Catholics and anti-Semites.

This is a brilliant analysis of the trends in popular culture and academia which have given birth to a popular belief that the four "canonical" gospels are actually later confabulations -- a movement championed by the so-called "Jesus Seminar" and numerous other pseudo-academic organizations. Jenkins carefully analyzes the history of the scholarship alongside the history of the public's fascination with that scholarship and demonstrates how, more often than not, what the public is told to believe by scholars reflects neither the evidence nor even the academic consensus, but rather the ideological biases of the most vocal or sensationalist members of the academic fringe.

The fact of the matter is that the earliest Christian documents we presently possess are some of the writings of Paul (aka: Saul of Tarsus) and the earliest "gospels" we presently possess are the four currently in the New Testament. This is what all of the evidence, including that within the texts themselves and from extra-"canonical" contemporary sources, clearly demonstrates. The so-called "Q" Gospel does not actually exist -- it is a thought-exercise, a hypothetical which subsequent generations of scholars reified, despite there being no copy of it in existence, nor references to it in contemporary sources, and despite the fact that most modern reconstructions have been the products of internecine conflicts in an academic community more interested in justifying modern philosophies than uncovering historical facts. The Gospel of Thomas which we posses is itself clearly a Gnostic text, uncovered in a collection of Gnostic documents from the third-to-fourth century at the earliest. And the portrait of Gnosticism which most audiences are given nowadays is an idealized, romanticized vision constructed largely out of certain scholars' desire to create an alternative Christianity which better reflects their own modern beliefs and attitudes. The deep-seated elitism, anti-Jewishness, misogyny, anti-historicism and sexual-repression which characterized so much of ancient Gnosticism gets brushed aside because it does not fit what some modern scholars are looking for. And those two ("Q" and Thomas) are the BEST CANDIDATES when it comes to competing with the antiquity and historicity of the four canonical gospels -- every single other "gospel" or analogous text that has been uncovered has been much later than those two (and therefore MUCH later than the big four) and far less relevant to the study of early Christianity. This dating is important, as Jenkins notes, because the conclusions certain scholars are asking us to draw are the functional equivalent of saying "Well, that 1992 romance novel about the 1754-1763 French & Indian War MUST be more accurate than this memoir from a soldier who fought in that War." If you've heard otherwise, that's because you've been misinformed and the source of that misinformation can usually be traced back to a scholar with a pet theory he/she values so much that it erases his/her objectivity.

What is more, much of the popular scholarship on the New Testament has actually been motivated by the bitter resentment some of these scholars have been bringing with them from their personal lives -- and the scholarship in general is STILL influenced by anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic sentiments.

Likewise, the media has itself contributed to the misrepresentation of ancient history and the academic consensus, and Jenkins takes them to task for this. He does not attribute it to some nefarious plot against religion or Christianity (in fact, he is openly contemptuous of that claim), but rather to the simple fact that members of the media exist to further their own existences. Journalists exist to sell subscriptions and move copy, just as publishers exist to sell books; these groups are simply pushing what sells best, and are more often than not completely ignorant of everything that is going on in the academic world. Many reporters and publishing houses may actually believe that the representatives of the academic fringes are in fact the representatives of mainstream academia! It's not necessarily their fault that people want to buy/read/hear/watch things which are sensationalistic and erroneous, just as it is not necessarily their fault that some scholars are more interested in having their own ideas accepted by mainstream society than in having ideas which reflect the evidence at hand. His only real criticism of the media is its willingness to present ANYTHING given to it regarding religion -- including tales that the Dead Sea Scrolls contained Chinese characters, that Jews/Catholics/scholars were holding up the translation & publication of the Scrolls because they feared "shocking" revelations contained therein, or that the entire New Testament is actually a coded manual on mushroom consumption and masturbation -- as factual and historically accurate. An atheist acquaintance of mine, who is now working on her doctorate in religious studies, assured me twenty years ago that the Dead Sea Scrolls contained accounts of Jesus' bisexual activities. The fact that the complete translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls were, by then, readily available at any bookstore, did not prevent the media's early presentation of conjecture and fable from firmly taking root in her mind. Thus Jenkins, like so many of us, argues that publishers (especially the major publishing houses) need to hold writers on religion to the same standards to which writers on history or science are held.

Jenkins also does a remarkable job of explaining where the boundaries between personal ideological bias and legitimate cultural/academic/theological inquiry exist -- for instance, he is highly critical of feminist theologians' attempts to super-impose their beliefs back onto ancient Christianity by erroneously claiming antiquity for documents which are demonstrably recent, but not of their assertions that the contributions of ancient Christian women have been dismissed or marginalized over the last fifteen hundred years, nor of their claims that ancient documents could shed light on the actual status of women in early Christianity. And while he criticizes the political and social liberal ideologues who seek to "reinterpret" the evidence to fit their own agendas, he is equally critical of political and social conservatives for the same thing, and urges both to separate their beliefs from the evidence at hand.

These are all things most of us in the field of religious studies have been arguing for decades, and there is so much more to the work than the elements which I have described. Jenkins has simply distilled them into a single statement and articulated them masterfully.

Where Jenkins fails is in his inexplicable focus on Mormons and Mormonism. Does it make sense to include a comment on or a reference to Mormon beliefs in a book on extra-New-Testamental "gospels"? Absolutely! Does it make sense to include a comment on or a reference to Mormon beliefs in EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER, regardless of relevance to the subject at hand? No. No it does not. And what makes even less sense is for a scholar who spends 9 chapters indicting (quite successfully!) other scholars for their poor scholarship, and for letting their ideological prejudices influence their work, to then GET HIS INFORMATION ABOUT MORMONS WRONG! In one baffling example, Jenkins uses Shakers and "nineteenth century Mormons" as examples, contextually implying that both groups had died out -- and while the Shakers had (at the date this book was written) a single-digit membership, Mormons numbered in the millions. A far better analogue would have been the Oneida Community or the Millerites (though even the Millerites had their successors).

Jenkins clearly has an axe to grind and views Mormons (here I am speaking of every religious sect which claims descent in some form from the religious organization founded by Joseph Smith Jr., especially The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) with a particular and intense loathing. No other sect receives as much attention (or acrimony) from Jenkins as does Mormonism, and groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Christian Scientists, and the Shakers all receive little more than a passing mention. There was even one comment he made which included a footnote referencing, not actual Mormon doctrines or scholarly articles about Mormonism, but well-known non-academic anti-LDS activists! He wound up falling into one of the same traps he so successfully points out to others -- that of assuming to be accurate and objective whatever is on a bookstore/library shelf. Several of the statements/comments he makes are, as a result, fallacious and these weaken the integrity of his work and the force of his argument.

If he had been able to swallow his clear antagonism towards Mormons, this might have been a five-star book. As it is, the rest of it constitutes an exceptional analysis of the problems plaguing modern scholarship on early Christianity and Second Temple Judaism. I may be assigning this to my students next year, though I'll have to include a caveat -- and that caveat alone lost this book a star.




INITIAL REVIEW: Jenkins' work feels, so far, like something I might have written. One of my main problems with the field of Religious Studies is the tendency of scholars to champion their own beliefs and prejudices behind a pretense of objectivity; I've often described myself as a champion of the corrective as a result. This is why I enjoyed Rodney Stark's "Cities of God", especially his exposure of the contradictions in modern scholarship on Gnosticism (Fagels' willful ignorance of Gnosticism's profound misogyny is called out in both Stark and Jenkins' books).

The first chapter of Jenkins' book ably demonstrates the ways in which the current "quest" to uncover the historical Jesus is really just a reflection of the thoughts, feelings and opinions of very modern, very biased Western academics who are either blind to their own subjectivity or are feigning blindness because they care more about their own interpretations than verifiable historical fact. So far he is not saying that these thoughts/feelings/etc. have no place in discussions of religion -- he merely feels that they are more akin to sectarian and religionist writings, out of place in serious, academic examinations which are supposed to require objectivity. He sees the "quest" academics as engaged in a marketing campaign rather than intellectual inquiry, and I cannot disagree with him.

My only issue so far is his apparent decision to make frequent reference to "Mormonism" when drawing parallels to modernity, and even this wouldn't bother me if he had bothered to do a better job of researching "Mormon" history, theology, etc. His mistakes are small, but significant, as when he brings up the 1980s Mark Hofmann forgery case in an attempt to demonstrate anti-Catholic sentiment in popular culture. His decision to omit important information from his description of the case, misrepresent other elements, and then interpret the events based on his omissions and misrepresentations, makes me question HIS commitment to objectivity. If he brings up Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. I feel I'm going to have to do more research to make sure he isn't fudging facts relevant to THEM either.