For those of us who are concerned with spiritual development, we are living in a very interesting age. Not only are we confronting the need to modify our language and images to convey the new demands of our new cosmology, along with the demands for a greater epistemological rectitude, we are bathed in an ocean of equality and grace, that we, every small entity of the world, or creation, are due equal respect. We have finally uncovered, in a scientifically disciplined way, many of the early sources, or near sources, of our religions. It is therefore not surprising that the old canons are being revised and added to.
Actually, for Christians, this is nothing new. It took about 500 years for the basic canon we now have to be formulated and accepted in the West. It differs from that accepted in the East. In smaller details it was not very solid until the influence of the printing press froze the corpus, about 400 years ago. Still different versions and translations are now being published, and if the translators are intellectually honest their comments for choosing one sense or one work over another will be valuable reading.
Now we have the option of using a source for New Testament works that includes many useful versions of the extra canonical Christian literature written before 175 CE. Hal Taussig, a fellow of the Westar Institute and longtime participant in the Jesus Seminar, has gathered a group of our national spiritual leaders to design and publish, with the support of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a work called “A New New Testament.” It includes all the traditional books of the canon plus 10 other early works representing many of the 30 or so schools of Christianity that were vying for both their existence and for acceptance on the part of the Jewish and Gentile societies. Taussig has been interviewed by the editors of The Fourth R journal, Fall 2013.
Taussig was asked why is he publishing “A New New Testament” that contains works outside the traditional canon. He pointed out that he, and many scholars, especially those connected with the Jesus Seminar, believed that, “there are very important materials in many of the [early] documents… that really change the ways we can understand the Jesus and Christ movements of the first two centuries.” There have been many recently discovered books. Many people who have read and studied them tell, “how important these documents are for [their]spiritual renewal and practice.” With the process of canonization having been centuries long and complex, he decided to call the work “A” rather than “The” NNT. Quite reasonably he believed that the revision should not become “The definitive” collection of works, employing an exclusive model for a task better left inclusive and incomplete.
Taussig used a collaborative model, also used by the Jesus Seminar, to decide on the content of the ANNT. With grants from the publisher he was able to convene a council of 19 scholars and lay persons well known for their spiritual leadership in the U.S. They were not paid, and many were not of a solely academic profession. Three were from the Seminar: himself, Karen King, and John Dominic Crossan. They all agreed that scholarly considerations should not trump all other considerations. The method of deciding what books to include, as well as procedural matters, was similar to that of the Jesus Seminar. After much discussion and counter argument, each council member was given an equal number of votes and could cast any amount for the works they believed worthy. Thus they could not only vote an acceptance of a work, but also give it a weight, depending on how important the voter felt including it was. This made the process transparent and removed much of the power biases that notoriously were present in the traditional canonization process.
Taussig also was asked what difference the inclusion of the non-canonical works is making. He points out that it is much easier to see that the original canon is not flawless, that it contains ideas that many could not accept, as do the new works. ANNT also is seen as valuable because it contains many more sayings of Jesus, almost one third more, thanks mainly to the inclusion of the Gospels of Mary and Thomas. With the presence of the Gospel of Mary we are offered a whole new view of the role and importance of women in the early movement, countering the anti-feminine attitude of the old canon in which many writers, to court the Jewish leaders who, in the name of the purity laws, were rather misogynistic. A third benefit was appearing: ANNT now contains many more prayers than the original canon, giving us more examples of the complex relationship we have with God, as well as many more vivid and poetic images with which to express this relationship.
Taussig answers two criticisms, that several of the new books are Gnostic, and that with the inclusion of such diverse material, Christianity will lose its unity and become too diverse. First, he points out that to call The Gospel of Thomas “Gnostic” is name calling, using a concept that is not well defined and is “very inexact”, and is generally “sloppy scholarship informed by the heresy baiting” that was rife in the formulation of the traditional canon. As to the problem of disunity, he points out that we today have many approaches to Christianity and that many work well together. Diversity can be good, and unity may become too solid, limiting our faith. He also points out that unity usually can be seen only with a selective reading of the traditional canon, leaving out many passages that would expand our beliefs. He does advance good arguments in support of this view in his other works.
Again, we are at a time that we can no longer see religions as static, exclusive, or the truth in the face of other believers. Rather than see this diversity as something to avoid, maybe we can accept it, thereby leading to an acceptance of people and their beliefs which differ from ours. Maybe diversity is a necessary plank in the religious platform that sustains humanity.
