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Gospel of James
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Gospel of James
The Gospel of James (or the Protoevangelium of James) is a second-century infancy gospel telling of the miraculous conception of Mary, the mother of Jesus, her upbringing and marriage to Joseph, the journey of the couple to Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, and events immediately following. It is the earliest surviving assertion of the perpetual virginity of Mary, meaning her virginity not just prior to the birth of Jesus, but during and afterwards, and despite being condemned by Pope Innocent I in 405 and classified as apocryphal by the Gelasian Decree around AD 500, became a widely influential source for Mariology.
The Gospel of James was well known to Origen in the early third century and probably to Clement of Alexandria at the end of the second, so is assumed to have been in circulation soon after circa 150 AD. The earliest manuscript of the text (Papyrus Bodmer 5) dates to the third or fourth century.
The author claims to be James the brother of Jesus by an earlier marriage of Joseph, but his identity is unknown.
Early studies assumed a Jewish milieu, largely because of its frequent use and knowledge of the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures); further investigation demonstrated that it misunderstands and/or misrepresents many Jewish practices, but Judaism at this time was highly diverse, and recent trends in scholarship do not entirely dismiss a Jewish connection. In fact, it has been argued that Mary’s temple service reflects real practices allowing women such access, such as accused adulteresses, veil-weavers, and Nazirites. The “weavers of the veil,” known from Jewish sources like the Apocalypse of Baruch (“the virgins who spin fine linen”), were virgin girls, matching Mary’s role in the text. There is Scriptural evidence of young women working at the tabernacle and each of the temples (1 Samuel 2:22, Exodus 8:38, 2 Ezra 2:65), certainly living nearby if not on premises. It is likely that they were unmarried.
Its origin is probably Syrian, and it possibly derives from a sect called the Encratites, whose founder, Tatian, taught that sex and marriage were symptoms of original sin.
The gospel is a midrash (an elaboration) on the birth narratives found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and many of its elements, notably its very physical description of Mary's pregnancy and the examination of her hymen by the midwife Salome, suggest strongly that it was attempting to deny the arguments of docetists, Christians who held that Jesus was entirely supernatural. It also draws heavily on the Septuagint for historical analogies, turns of phrase, and details of Jewish life. Ronald Hock and Mary F. Foskett have drawn attention to the influence of Greco-Roman literature on its themes of virginity and purity.
Scholars generally accept that the Gospel of James was originally composed in Greek. Over 100 Greek manuscripts have survived, and translations were made into Syriac, Ethiopic, Sahidic Coptic, Georgian, Old Church Slavonic, Armenian, Arabic, and presumably Latin, given that it was apparently known to the compiler of the Gelasian Decree. The oldest is Papyrus Bodmer 5 from the fourth or possibly third century, discovered in 1952 and now in the Bodmer Library, Geneva, while the fullest is a 10th-century Greek codex in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
The first widely printed edition (as opposed to hand-copied manuscripts) was a 1552 edition printed in Basel, Switzerland, by Guillaume Postel, who printed his Latin translation of a Greek version of the work. Postel also gave the work the Latin name Protevangelion Jacobi (Proto-Gospel of James) because he believed (incorrectly) that the work antedated the main gospels of the New Testament (proto- for first, evangelion for gospel). Emile de Stryker published the standard modern critical edition in 1961, and in 1995 Ronald Hock published an English translation based on de Stryker.
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Gospel of James
The Gospel of James (or the Protoevangelium of James) is a second-century infancy gospel telling of the miraculous conception of Mary, the mother of Jesus, her upbringing and marriage to Joseph, the journey of the couple to Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, and events immediately following. It is the earliest surviving assertion of the perpetual virginity of Mary, meaning her virginity not just prior to the birth of Jesus, but during and afterwards, and despite being condemned by Pope Innocent I in 405 and classified as apocryphal by the Gelasian Decree around AD 500, became a widely influential source for Mariology.
The Gospel of James was well known to Origen in the early third century and probably to Clement of Alexandria at the end of the second, so is assumed to have been in circulation soon after circa 150 AD. The earliest manuscript of the text (Papyrus Bodmer 5) dates to the third or fourth century.
The author claims to be James the brother of Jesus by an earlier marriage of Joseph, but his identity is unknown.
Early studies assumed a Jewish milieu, largely because of its frequent use and knowledge of the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures); further investigation demonstrated that it misunderstands and/or misrepresents many Jewish practices, but Judaism at this time was highly diverse, and recent trends in scholarship do not entirely dismiss a Jewish connection. In fact, it has been argued that Mary’s temple service reflects real practices allowing women such access, such as accused adulteresses, veil-weavers, and Nazirites. The “weavers of the veil,” known from Jewish sources like the Apocalypse of Baruch (“the virgins who spin fine linen”), were virgin girls, matching Mary’s role in the text. There is Scriptural evidence of young women working at the tabernacle and each of the temples (1 Samuel 2:22, Exodus 8:38, 2 Ezra 2:65), certainly living nearby if not on premises. It is likely that they were unmarried.
Its origin is probably Syrian, and it possibly derives from a sect called the Encratites, whose founder, Tatian, taught that sex and marriage were symptoms of original sin.
The gospel is a midrash (an elaboration) on the birth narratives found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and many of its elements, notably its very physical description of Mary's pregnancy and the examination of her hymen by the midwife Salome, suggest strongly that it was attempting to deny the arguments of docetists, Christians who held that Jesus was entirely supernatural. It also draws heavily on the Septuagint for historical analogies, turns of phrase, and details of Jewish life. Ronald Hock and Mary F. Foskett have drawn attention to the influence of Greco-Roman literature on its themes of virginity and purity.
Scholars generally accept that the Gospel of James was originally composed in Greek. Over 100 Greek manuscripts have survived, and translations were made into Syriac, Ethiopic, Sahidic Coptic, Georgian, Old Church Slavonic, Armenian, Arabic, and presumably Latin, given that it was apparently known to the compiler of the Gelasian Decree. The oldest is Papyrus Bodmer 5 from the fourth or possibly third century, discovered in 1952 and now in the Bodmer Library, Geneva, while the fullest is a 10th-century Greek codex in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
The first widely printed edition (as opposed to hand-copied manuscripts) was a 1552 edition printed in Basel, Switzerland, by Guillaume Postel, who printed his Latin translation of a Greek version of the work. Postel also gave the work the Latin name Protevangelion Jacobi (Proto-Gospel of James) because he believed (incorrectly) that the work antedated the main gospels of the New Testament (proto- for first, evangelion for gospel). Emile de Stryker published the standard modern critical edition in 1961, and in 1995 Ronald Hock published an English translation based on de Stryker.
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