Renaissance thinkers were entranced by the idea of finding ancient manuscripts and texts that would illuminate the history of religion and of spiritualities broadly defined, and in many cases they invented the evidence they wished they could have found legitimately. Such activities became very intense at the turn of the seventeenth century. In light of that, it seems really paradoxical that at exactly this time, one powerful group of Christians could have found a sizable hoard of quite authentic documents hitherto unknown to them, and which genuinely did throw light on the early Church – and yet they decided to destroy those texts en masse, in a dreadful act of scriptural cleansing. What did they think they were doing?I had forgotten about this one, although Philip covered it some years ago and I also noted it here. What a sad story.[...]
This Anxious Bench post is a continuation of Professor Jenkins's Lost and Found Scriptures series. For earlier posts, see here and links.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
