THE PSCO SESSION last night had something over 30 attendees. Here's some of what happened, based on my hastily scrawled notes. I shall try to represent accurately what I heard (and in one or two cases I asked people after the session to make sure I had it right), but if I get something that you said wrong, drop me an e-mail and I will correct it. As always, I will refrain from quoting anyone who asked not to be quoted.

Bob Kraft opened with some observations on the Seminar and the history of the study of the "parabiblical literature." He noted in passing that Montague Rhodes James, best known in our circles for being a prolific publisher of parabiblical literature, is known in wider circles mainly for his ghost stories. A Google search of his name verifies this.

The first panelist was George Nickelsburg (University of Iowa - retired), who spoke on Enoch and Abraham. I missed the first part of his comments on Enoch in my notes, but he did say that Enoch is interesting for being in competition with the Moses tradition and even "stealing" from it (e.g., opening lines of the Book of the Watchers, where material from the Moses tradition is put in the mouth of Moses. As for Abraham, there's lots of later interest in the Aqedah (binding of Isaac): Paul and James duel over its meaning (does it show his faith or his works?) and the Testament of Abraham uses him as an example of someone who doesn't have faith. Traditions migrate among the stories of the patriarchs (e.g., Job traditions are applied to Abraham in Jubilees). Curiously, although Enoch has no real biography, he becomes typified as a model righteous person.

My comments went according to script and you can read them in Wednesday's entry below.

Brannon Wheeler (University of Washington) spoke about traditions about the prophets in the Qur'an and early Islamic exegesis. The Qur'an and early Islam grow out of late antiquity and the full range of traditions about the prophets should be looked at - they can be mutually illuminating. He had three main points, with examples. (1) Qur'anic material sometimes gives a different perspective than that of Jewish or Christian exegesis. (2) One could argue that later texts sometimes have traditions ealier than what we find in earlier texts. Pseudepigrapha and parabiblical literature in some cases are post-Qur'anic. (3) Jews and Christians also borrowed from Muslims.

Kim Haines-Eitzen (Cornell) spoke on the female figure of Thekla in early Christianity. This is not an area I know much about (I don't think i've even read the Acts of Paul and Thekla) and so my notes on her comments are not very coherent. Her (Kim's, not Thekla's) interests are in religious identity as seen through the lens of "textual communities," and in the preservation, copying, and transmission of particular texts, and in what the material form of books can tell us about their use, interpretation, and production. The earliest fragments of Thekla material are often in miniature codices, perhaps for use in pilgrimage. She also mentioned an episode in which Thekla baptized herself when she was thrown into a tank of killer seals. I think I heard that right.

My jet lag was catching up with me fast at this point and most of the discussion didn't make it into my notes. I did get a few things on the discussion of Enoch. George floated the idea that there was a developing tendency in late antiquity to focus sacred traditions on persons, unlike in the Bible. He also said that Enoch is a name looking for a tradition. He also asked why certain figures disappear from the traditions, citing as an example the the way that the Watchers story and Enoch are dropped from the fourth centuries on in Christian circles as an explanation for the origin of evil, with the Adam and Eve story replacing them for that subject. This led to a discussion of Augustine's need of an anthropological explanation as part of the reason, the question of whether there was already discomfort with Enoch in Christian circles before the fourth century (e.g., Origen), whether Enoch was entirely dropped in the Greek traditions, and what kinds of interest n Enoch there were in Egypt.

A number of people also gave me leads for additional material relating to the Rechabites, for which I am grateful.

That's about all I can squeeze from my notes. The PSCO secretary also taped the session, so maybe we can look forward to a more thorough summary in due course.