I'M OFF TO OTTAWA for a conference on Christian Apocryphal Texts, organized by Professor Pierluigi Piovanelli at the University of Ottawa. I leave from Edinburgh very early tomorrow morning. I'll have Internet access in Ottawa, so blogging should continue -- once again, as time permits.

I'm presenting a paper entitled "More Christian Apocrypha," and you can read it by clicking on the link. It's a summary of the texts being published by the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project which can be classed as "Christian Apocrypha" (a term that is defined in the paper). This paper goes with my earlier one, "More Jewish Pseudepigrapha," which was presented in July in Edinburgh at the Internation SBL conference, and which you can read by clicking on the link. The two presentations together will give you an overview of most of the texts in the project, barring a few of pagan origin and one or two transmitted in Muslim circles. I hope to publish the two papers together in updated and expanded form, so I have stripped the footnotes. You get the draft text for free.

With the kind permission of the organizer, I post the conference program below.

Christian Apocryphal Texts for the New Millennium
Achievements, Prospects, and Challenges



International Workshop on Christian Apocryphal Literature
University of Ottawa, Faculty of Arts
Department of Classics and Religious Studies



Ottawa (ON), September 29, 30, and October 1st, 2006


Friday, September 29, 2006

6:00-7:00 PM: Welcome cocktail: Department of Classics and Religious Studies, Arts Building, first floor





Saturday, September 30, 2006

Arts Building, room 509, fifth floor

Pierluigi Piovanelli presiding

9:00-9:30 AM: Opening
9:30-10:00: Lorenzo DiTommaso (Concordia University), “Jewish Pseudepigrapha and Christian Apocrypha: Definitions, Boundaries, and Points of Contact”
10:00-10:30: Timothy Beech (St. Paul University), “Unraveling the Complexity of the Oracula Sibyllina: The Value of a Socio-Rhetorical Approach in the Study of the Sibylline Oracles”

10:30-11:00: Coffee breack

11:00-11:30: Michael Kaler (McMaster University), “Gnostic Irony and the Adaptation of the Apocalyptic Genre”
11:30-12:00: Robert R. Phenix, Jr. (Saint Louis University), “The Problem of the Source of Balai’s Sermons on Joseph and the Nachleben of Pseudepigraphical Joseph Material”
12:00-12:30: James R. Davila (University of St. Andrews), “More Christian Apocryphal Texts”

12:30-2:00: Lunch


Paul-Hubert Poirier presiding

2:00-2:30 PM: Louis Painchaud (Université Laval), “À propos de la redécouverte de l’Évangile de Judas”
2:30-3:00: F. Stanley Jones (California State University), “Jewish Tradition on the Sadducees in the Pseudo-Clementines”
3:00-3:30: Annette Y. Reed (McMaster University), “New Light on ‘Jewish-Christian’ Apocrypha and the History of Jewish/Christian Relations”
3:30-4:00: Dominique Côté (University of Ottawa), “Orphic Theogony and the Context of the Clementines”

4:00-4:30 Coffee break

4:30-5:00: Nicole Kelley (Florida State University), “Pseudo-Clementine Polemics against Sacrifice: A Window onto Religious Life in the Fourth Century?”
5:00-5:30: Timothy Pettipiece (University of Ottawa), “Manichaean ‘Apocrypha’? From Mani to Manichaeism”
5:30-6:00: Theodore De Bruyn (University of Ottawa), “The Power of Apocryphal Narratives in Late Antiquity: The Testimony of Amulets”





Sunday, October 1st, 2006

Arts Building, room 509, fifth floor

Theodore De Bruyn presiding

9:00-9:30 AM: Tony Chartrand-Burke (University of York), “Researching the New Testament Apocrypha in the Twenty-First Century”
9:30-10:00: Peter W. Dunn (Faculté de Théologie Evangélique de Bangui), “The Acts of Paul as an Experimental Control for the Criticism of the Acts of the Apostles”
10:00-10:30: François Bovon (Harvard University), “The Revelation of Stephen or the Invention of Stephen’s Relics (Sinaiticus graecus 493)”

10:30-11:00: Coffee break

11:00-11:30: Dennis R. MacDonald (Claremont Graduate University), “The Gospel of Nicodemus (or, the Acta Pilati) as a Christian Iliad and Odyssey”
11:30-12:00: Cornelia Horn (Saint Louis University), “From Model Virgin to Maternal Intercessor: Mary, Children, and Family Problems in Late Antique Infancy Gospel Traditions”
12:00-12:30: Stephen J. Shoemaker (University of Oregon), “Mary in Early Christian Apocrypha: Virgin Territory”

12:30-2:00: Lunch

Dominique Côté presiding

2:00-2:30 PM: Craig A. Evans (Acadia Divinity College), “The Apocryphal Jesus: Assessing the Possibilities and Problems”
2:30-3:00: Ian Henderson (McGill University), “The Usefulness of Christian Apocryphal Texts in the Research on the Historical Jesus”
3:00-3:30: Adriana Bara (Université de Montréal), “The Convergence between Canonical Gospels, Apocryphal Writings and Liturgical Texts in Nativity and Resurrection Icons in Eastern Churches”

3:30-4:00: Coffee break

4:00-4:30 Paul-Hubert Poirier (Université Laval), “La Prôtennoia trimorphe (NH XIII,1), le Livre des secrets de Jean et le Prologue johannique”
4:30-5:00: Pierluigi Piovanelli (University of Ottawa), “Using Labels and Categories in a Responsible Way: The Making and Evolution of Early Christian Apocryphal Texts with the Gospel of Mary as a Test Case”
5:00-5:30: Final Discussion and Conclusion