The Gospel of the Hebrews had apostolic claims, distinctive theology, and Jewish-Christian readers, and none of it was enough to save it from the orthodox bonfire.
Thanks much for this. As a non-Christian, I mourn what has been lost. I like to think that some of my favorite bits of Matthew come from this older tradition, but that has no basis in scholarship.
Thanks, Seth, glad you liked it. And I agree with you on the losses.
The Dead Sea Scrolls case still stings the most for me. One of the great manuscript finds of the twentieth century, and the early custodians treated it like a private collection. A small circle of scholars sat on the material for decades, parceling out access to favored students, dragging their feet on publication, and basically holding the wider field hostage. Some of those fragments weren't fully published until the 1990s, almost fifty years after the initial discovery.
And that's just the access problem. The physical handling was its own disaster. Scotch tape on ancient parchment. Fragments stored in cigar boxes. Pieces shuffled around, mislabeled, sometimes lost outright. The Copper Scroll had to be cut into strips with a saw because nobody figured out a better way to unroll it.
What we ended up with is still extraordinary, but you can't help wondering how much sharper the picture would be if the early years had been handled with anything close to professional care.
This is something I'm planning to write about separately.
Thanks much for this. As a non-Christian, I mourn what has been lost. I like to think that some of my favorite bits of Matthew come from this older tradition, but that has no basis in scholarship.
Thanks, Seth, glad you liked it. And I agree with you on the losses.
The Dead Sea Scrolls case still stings the most for me. One of the great manuscript finds of the twentieth century, and the early custodians treated it like a private collection. A small circle of scholars sat on the material for decades, parceling out access to favored students, dragging their feet on publication, and basically holding the wider field hostage. Some of those fragments weren't fully published until the 1990s, almost fifty years after the initial discovery.
And that's just the access problem. The physical handling was its own disaster. Scotch tape on ancient parchment. Fragments stored in cigar boxes. Pieces shuffled around, mislabeled, sometimes lost outright. The Copper Scroll had to be cut into strips with a saw because nobody figured out a better way to unroll it.
What we ended up with is still extraordinary, but you can't help wondering how much sharper the picture would be if the early years had been handled with anything close to professional care.
This is something I'm planning to write about separately.