As a medievalist, I greatly appreciated Burke’s sensitivity to studies of apocrypha that look beyond the first four centuries of Christian history. Like recent collaborative projects that eschew chronological boundaries (More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and More Christian Apocrypha [co-edited by Burke]), several sections of Secret Scriptures Revealed demonstrate the benefits of including later apocrypha, transmissions, and witnesses for understanding the subject. The most poignant considerations to bring this out are in Burke’s discussions of different attitudes toward biblical canon and apocrypha across time and cultures (e.g. 14-16), and his emphasis on the importance of manuscript libraries (32-6). Burke’s claims about the significance of apocrypha nod toward the long history of Christianity, not just their role in late antiquity but also through the medieval, early modern, and modern periods, right up to the present day.Via Apocryphicity. Just to be clear, Tony Burke is co-editor of the More Christian Apocrypha Project but not the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project. And regarding the latter, we don't eschew chronological boundaries, but we have a later one than the Charlesworth and Sparks pseudepigrapha volumes and we try to explain clearly why we go beyond it when we do.
More on Secret Scriptures Revealed and related matters here, here, here, and links.
