Review of Hal Taussig's A New New Testament

Taussig, Hal (ed.), A New New Testament: A Bible for 21^st Century, Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts. New York, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. 603 pages. $32.00.  

Hal Taussig, with the collaboration of nineteen church leaders and scholars, has taken on an ambitious project – to collate a new New Testament which includes other texts from the time period of the New Testament in order to find new meaning within and without the standard texts of the New Testament. Taussig is to be congratulated for not only presenting these texts with introductions, but also spending the time to describe the process by which this project began and how it came to its conclusions. The book, then, can be assessed on two levels – first on its content as a contribution to the scholarly and pastoral study of religion and second on its methods and goals of the group of scholars who developed the book.

The book as a whole has some laudable elements but Taussig pushes these elements to their extreme end. To do this does show a certain type of integrity in that any “hidden agenda” is quite frankly stated outright. However, many of these agendas are not necessary and the book at times can be considered far more clever than wise. This review will reveal some of the quite valuable aspects and goals of the volume, some of the scholarly merit and challenges to the text’s integrity as it stands, as well as some of the more questionable goals for the book’s use in modern society.

Brief Description of the Contents of A New New Testament

The book is a collection of the 27 New Testament texts along with 10 other texts not traditionally held in New Testaments: The Prayer of Thanksgiving, The Gospel of Thomas, The Odes of Solomon, The Thunder: Perfect Mind, The Gospel of Mary, The Gospel of Truth, The Prayer of the Apostle Paul, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, The First Letter of Peter to Philip, The Apocryphon (or Secret Book) of John. It also includes several appendices which hold a historical and practical background to the collections of texts, study guides for group study, resources for extracanonical literature, and introductions to each of the books with very brief bibliographies attached.

The collection is grouped according to type rather than traditional order. Taussig addresses some of the problems with this approach (such as the Gospel of John) could easily have fit into the category of “Gospels Featuring Jesus’s Teaching,” “Literature in the Tradition of John with an introductory set of prayers,” or (where it is placed) in “Gospels, Poems and Songs Between Heaven and Earth.” The reason Taussig has organized the collection in this way is so that the extracanonical literature would be more vibrantly compared with the New Testament if it was set within the framework. This openness to reorganization also allowed Taussig to put some texts together in the New Testament that make good sense (for instance, The Gospel of Luke and Book of Acts are finally set one before the other to show it as a two volume work).

The collection also begins each section with an early Christian prayer. The goal of this organization is to show that people in worship used these texts from their very beginning devotionally.[1] To accomplish this goal, he uses The Prayer of Thanksgiving, The Prayer of the Apostle Paul, and The Odes of Solomon which he divides into four parts simply so that every section can have its own prayer. It is surprising that all of the prayers selected are extracanonical when there are also prayers within the New Testament itself that could have been used (The Lord’s prayer being the most obvious example).

Taussig emphasizes the goal of the book is to increase understanding (and spiritual behavior) about the early Jesus movements (seeing them as varied) through these texts in the first several centuries in a balanced manner. He insists that the new books included are not more important than the old.[2] In so doing, he did not follow the original plan of removing some of the New Testament texts, which had been presented for an analogous project headed by Robert Funk in 1996.[3] However, he equally asserts that in the first several centuries of the Jesus movement, there is no reason to think that the books which did not eventually make the New Testament were read any less than the books which did make the New Testament.[4]

One of the goals of the book is to display the diversity of the Jesus movement both by comparing those outside the New Testament with those inside, as well as seeing the diversity within the New Testament itself.[5] To this end, the short introductions to each of the texts included emphasize some themes that would be in contrast to one another. The most common themes discussed as kind of “red threads” throughout the texts are in relation to gender, inclusion/exclusion of Jews and gentiles, the manner in which one unites with God, and responses to persecution.

The “companion” at the end of the text provides essays which discuss relevant topics to the use of the book as a whole. The essays cover the following topics: “The Discoveries of New Documents from Old Worlds” (discussing the challenge with ancient manuscripts both within and without the New Testament), “The books of A New New Testament: an overview” (discussing the goals of the book as a whole), “Two Surprising Stories: How A New New Testament came to be” (discussing the canonization process of the traditional New Testament as well as the process by which this volume was created), “What’s in A New New Testament” (discussing several key conclusions that can be drawn for a 21^st century audience from the collection as a whole), “Giving birth to A New New Testament and retiring the idea of Gnosticism” (discussing the scholarly problems with the category of Gnosticism and the implications if they are not dismissed as heresy), “A Rich Explosion of Meaning” (discussing the practical value of this text and conclusions that can be drawn from it by showing similarity between the Traditional New Testament and the extracanonical books), and an “Epilogue” which uses Taussig’s anecdotal experience for his view of how the text will be received and used.

The translations in the text are from two main sources. The New Testament texts are based upon the Open English Bible (an updated version of the 20^th Century Bible) which is freely accessible and not in copyright. The editors then adapted this translation where they felt it needed aid. The particular issue mentioned is in the case of gendered language that the updaters tried to make as inclusive as possible while still being faithful to the text.[6] The translations of the extracanonical texts came from a variety of sources with two key rules (the gendered one as mentioned above), but also with the principle that this text would have no transliteration – something that is nearly unique in the texts that come from Nag Hammadi.[7]

The selection of texts came about by a group of ecclesiastical leaders and scholars who met for the final time in New Orleans in 2012. The counsel (as it was made to mimic a church counsel) was attended by 19 members (with one who could not make the meeting but did provide opinions in the project). To the books credit, these figures are not only listed but a brief description of each member is included in the text.[8] The 10 additional texts were selected based upon two main principles: 1. It had to be dated no later than 175 C.E. and 2. That it had a significant spiritual contribution for the 21^st century in dialogue with the traditional New Testament. Some texts were difficult decisions because of these two principles. For instance, The Diary of Perpetua was seen as spiritually significant, but was outside the time frame for the project. 1 Clement was within the timeframe, but it was not seen as providing enough of a contrast to the existing texts for it to be included.

Finally, the main stated goal of the book is to provide new spiritual insights for Christians (and non-Christians) in the 21^st century. The concept of opening possibility for new texts to be included in one’s spiritual life could lead to new spiritual discoveries and insights particularly around issues that are often accused of being outmoded (such as gender, human rights, exclusivity, ecclesiastical authority, etc.).[9]

Merits of the book

Some aspects of this book are quite valuable. The most valuable aspect is the emphasis on diversity within both the early Jesus movement and the New Testament. As a teacher of the New Testament, my goal is always encouraging students to see diversity within the New Testament. The 27 books that make up the canon are wildly different. The fact of the matter is that if Christians wanted a very concise and clear exposition of their faith with no tensions or contradictions, they could have simply adopted one book as their holy book. Instead, there are at least 66 of them (including the Old Testament) with very different themes and theologies. There are ways that people have attempted to read them together so that contradictions are lessened, but no one denies the fact that they are diverse. The Book of Hebrews, for instance, presents a different kind of theology than found anywhere else in the New Testament (presenting Jesus as a high priest making the sacrifice of himself in the Platonic “heavenly temple”).

Taussig’s method of emphasizing the diversity – through the addition of other texts is probably a very good strategy for showing people how to read these texts. When one sees other texts, to which one probably is not as devotionally attached, it is easier to learn the strategy of how to read them critically. After doing this, then a reader could move back to the canonical texts with this new skill set.

The other side of inclusion of several other texts of the New Testament undoes some of the unintended consequences of canonization. When a set group of texts are selected as “special” then that by nature, makes other pieces of literature as less special and less important. This seems less of an issue with general literature as much as literature from the first several centuries of the Jesus movement about Christianity. These texts are somehow always seen as the ones which “didn’t make it” rather than just being pieces of literature like any other. While some (such as Taussig himself) might argue that discouraging the value of other texts was in fact some of the goals of canonization, other scholars would disagree. A canon is simply a rule or measure. It is not that other texts cannot be viewed, it is that when they are viewed, they are measured against that standard. That being said, there is no doubt that there were a number of texts that were circulating in the first several centuries of the Jesus movement which were simply not to be read. Some of those texts (such as the Apocryphon of John) were definitely on that list.[10]  However, it would be a gross overstatement to think that anyone would have criticized another Christian for reading 1 Clement. Therefore, Taussig’s book does help avoid that problem. By presenting the New Testament alongside other works, the other works might be able to be seen in a more valuable light than they had previously.

Another valuable point to this book is its intended audience. It clearly is written for those who have no idea that these other texts even exist, much less have a strong opinion about them. As a teacher, I can never condemn the bringing of new material to a group so that learning can be possible. It is true that there is a vibrant literary collection from early Christianity and this book might well bring out ten works which would not generally be known.

Further, this collection is a better collection than many for the task of it being viewed by a larger audience due to the restrictions placed on the counsel for selecting which books would be included. Most collections are of The New Testament and other Early Christian texts. Usually most all of the texts which Taussig’s counsel included are included; however, others are also included in a maximalist type of way. For instance, Bart Ehrman’s The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader includes twenty five additional texts including rather disputed ones such as The Secret Gospel of Mark. I generally would applaud Ehrman’s maximalist approach in a teaching setting (after all, just because everything is included it does not mean it needs to be all assigned). However, if the goal is for a wider audience who is not necessarily reading this text with others (either in a classroom or a community), including some of these strange and disputed secondary writings might keep them from getting too excited about the idea of reading other early Christian texts. Here, Taussig’s project might be helpful as one of the major criteria was that the texts included dialogue in some way with the New Testament itself.

The final value of this volume is his practical view of “Gnostic” texts. By placing some of the texts alongside the New Testament that some might consider “Gnostic,” he shows the actual difference between these texts and the New Testament itself. To be fair, even a casual reader will see striking differences between The Apocryphon of John and the New Testament. However, not as many will see as many between The Gospel of Thomas or The Gospel of Truth. Further, even from just those three texts, it will be clear to a reader that these are not the same thing. The category of Gnosticism is outdated and unwieldy.[11] This practical display is probably far more important than the essay Taussig wrote on the topic (to which I will respond below).

Challenges to the Book

 The book, as discussed above, does have practical value. However, there are serious challenges both in the scholarly data presented as well as some of the ecclesiastical suggestions made by Taussig.

The largest challenge practically for this book, which unfortunately might undo some of the practical merits of the book, is the main goal of the text to be for spiritual formation in alternate ways. Taussig claims that this book was written to find new ways of being religious: “A New New Testament’s more diverse picture of Christian beginnings supports the possibility that Christian practice and belief in our day might birth new and different ways of seeing God, morality, worship, human sexuality, and work.”[12]

The spiritual element that one might discover, however, Taussig finds to be 21^st century spritiaulity that was always present in Christianity, only lying dormant. He sees in this book the “possibility of claiming twenty-first century new meanings inherent in the first- and second-century Christ movements.”[13] As a historian, I have serious question how many of these 21^st century ideals were truly present in the first century. While there are plenty of theories of texts in literature which might suggest that if something is in the text, it does not matter if it was originally intended or not; however, Taussig does not present the texts like this. He presents a new history – there really were other types of theology that would match up very well with 21^st century mindsets about inclusion, human rights, and response to conflict, it is only the later suppressors of that theology that has led for it to be forgotten until the past twenty years. This view can be challenged. While it is very possible that women had a much larger role to play in the first several decades of the Jesus movement than later on (as can be seen in the New Testament itself), it is not clear to me that a full scale gender equality at all levels of Christian organization (a point Taussig wants to make as it is a 21^st century issue) existed in the first century at any time. The fact that it might have been slightly “better” does not equate with the present ideal.

Further, the spiritual priority of this book does not show very much respect or understanding with the concept of a book of faith. When Taussig off-handedly suggests that ten other texts ought to be read alongside the New Testament for spiritual insight merely because they are as old as the New Testament, almost any reader would recognize that this is not sufficient. The argument is not that there were not other older books that were later suppressed (of course there were – if there were no other choices, then obviously there would be no need for a standard canon). However, a book of faith is a mythos that is created by a community for meaning and identity. It is not so easy to simply suggest adding some new books to this collection.

Taussig, in his essay about the creation of the New Testament,[14] tries to show the ambiguity present in the creation of the New Testament and the creation of these other texts and argues that as the sources are equally ambiguous, there should be no problem. However, for a book of faith, its source is often not as important as its use. In fact, one glaring mistake Taussig makes in that chapter is he does express that the only criterion used in selecting the New Testament was use. Consider, for example, Eusebius’s famous discussion about which books were included in the New Testament (a citation that Taussig quotes in full). Eusebius categorizes them based upon use – he has three groups- those which everyone accepts and uses, those which some people accept and use, and those which no one accepts and uses. The source of the text is not discussed. It is not as if the church depended desperately upon the traveling companion of Paul who was a physician to give credence to a ministry of Jesus (given that Paul never knew Jesus and shows little knowledge of the historical Jesus in his writing).

Finally, this lack of respecting the true issue behind the idea of a book of faith loses his core audience – Christians. Throughout the book, he states that the problem is that certain texts are simply ignored by churches. This is not only true for the extracanonical books in the New Testament, but he says the same thing about Hebrews and Jude.[15] His spiritual goal of the book is mostly relevant to those who already have a spiritual connection with the traditional New Testament. However, because he does not begin from the concept of a book of faith, he does not have a convincing argument as to why they ought to open that book and allow for other texts to be included.

In addition to this practical concern, there are also several scholarly concerns about both the accuracy of some of the book’s claims on both the diversity within the Jesus movement and the New Testament itself.

The first major challenge is the presentation that Taussig promotes about the process of canonization. He claims that no true “New Testament” was developed until the 7^th-9^th century.[16] However, he only counts that which is in an actual book. He notes that Jerome had all of the same sources in the fourth century for the Latin Vulgate, but it was developed in at least two volumes.[17] The challenge to this idea is, of course, that the number of volumes is due not because they saw the New Testament as having many books – only because of convenience in the production of books.

The inaccuracy is further developed when he claims that “it is highly improbable that there were any separate collections of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament in the first four hundred years of Christian Tradition.”[18] While it is not exactly clear when he begins “the Christian Tradition,” it is reasonable to assume it begins somewhere near the year 30 C.E. at the approximate death of Jesus. Most scholars would place Codex Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Vaticanus within that timeframe (in addition to some others). While it is true that some of these texts included 1 and 2 Clement, the difference was not great. The only way that Taussig’s claim is technically accurate is that all three of these manuscripts are not separate – they have an Old Testament connected to it.

Lastly on this point, Taussig argues that the issue was not settled even by the 9^th century but that Martin Luther brought the issue to the forefront again by attempting to remove The Book of James and The Apocalypse of John from the Bible. The Council of Trent in 1560, then was the reaction to this to keep this from gaining traction.[19] The problem with this claim, of course is that while Luther did challenge these books because he felt they did not present his concept of grace fully enough, his translation of the Bible (which was the standard for a very long time) had these books included. What was truly at issue at the Council of Trent on the issue of the canon were not these, but the so called “Apocrypha” – the handful of books that were in the Greek version of the Old Testament but not in the Hebrew Bible. Luther felt that these were helpful books, but not scripture. The New Testament – Taussig’s point of discussion – was not discussed much at all.

It is likely that Taussig stretched these facts to their extreme to try and paint an overly aggressive picture of the diversity possible within the books of the New Testament. However, this type of pushing the boundaries to the extreme begins to look ridiculous to the outside observer and he runs the risk of being dismissed. The worst of all of this is that he could have made the same point without the exaggerations. His first several pages of the chapter discussing the early development of canon and list is mostly accurate. That alone should provide the reader with the idea that there was, at one time, diversity in the components of the New Testament.

In addition to this inaccuracy there are many mistakes throughout the introductions to each text of the New Testament. Some of these mistakes are simply errors[20] whereas others are due to his emphasis on diversity among texts. The latter issue presents itself most strikingly with his comments on The Gospel of Matthew. Consider the following comment about the Gospel of Matthew’s relationship with Judaism: “In view of the many ways Christians have put down and done harm to Jewish  people in the past 1,900 years, it is a treasure to have the New Testament include such an explicit endorsement and spiritually rich exploration of Judaism.”[21] This presentation of the Gospel of Matthew, as any expert in the field knows, is only half true. While it is true that Jesus is the new Moses who interprets Torah, it is also the book which has some of the most anti-Jewish moments in it. The end of the narrative (the “great commission”) makes it clear that the book is directed for use among gentiles rather than Jews. There is good reason to think that the Gospel Of Matthew might well consider the Jesus movement as the ancestor’s of Abraham (and thereby those not included in the Jesus movement are not). However, the religion of the group of gentiles is probably akin to the religion of Paul’s opponents in Galatia – those who think Gentiles should become proselyte Jews when joining the Jesus movement. Therefore, Taussig’s comment is one half correct, but ignoring the other half makes his introduction misleading. It is likely he has done this to promote diversity and tension between books and in so doing, reduces diversity and tension within books. If the Gospel of Matthew can be painted as the “pro-Jewish” one, it can be contrasted with the Gospel of John as the “anti-Jewish” one (never minding that neither text is so simply for or against the Judaism).

A further scholarly confusion in this text is his chapter on “Gnosticism.” As mentioned above, he should be applauded for practically challenging the concept of Gnosticism for the largest cohort who hold on to the category – the general public rather than specialists. However, his chapter on the topic does not portray the complexity of the issue.[22] First, he puts so much emphasis on Karen King’s work, that he spends more time parroting her than fully explaining the problem. He mentions Michael Williams a few times, but never cites the text (even though Williams’s book on the topic was written a full 7 years before King’s). The actual problem with the category Gnosticism is not so much “retiring” it (as both King and Williams suggest) but rather, what can be done after the fact.

The challenge of dismantling the category of “Gnosticism” and still moving forward as a scholarly field has significant challenges. While nearly all scholars are happy to recognize that Irenaeus’s large cache of “knowledge falsely-so called” is not a single group and that any category suggesting that Marcion, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Apocryphon of John are all the “same” is foolish. The writings are simply too diverse for such a statement. However, the scholarly solution to this problem has not been sufficiently provided. Michael Williams has adopted a rather optimistic view that new categories can be used so long as we know what we are doing when using them. Karen King has presented a more pessimistic view that the name of the category has changed, but the actual function of it has not – the texts are compared to other texts that used to be considered “Gnostic” thereby ensuring the category exists while at the same time not claiming it.[23] Ismo Dunderberg’s Beyond Gnosticism, for instance, does a brilliant job of analyzing some key components of the fragments of Valentinus. However, it should be noted that nearly every single comparison with these fragments are the very same texts that used to be present in the old category of Gnosticism. The functional difference, then, is simply the name Gnosticism has left us, but the idea in practice persists.

Finally, Taussig unnecessarily attacks Elaine Pagels’s work, The Gnostic Gospels. He claims that Pagels suggests, through her attempt at making the Nag Hammadi library known to the larger world, a category that brings forward the old clichés of Gnosticism.[24] While it is probably true that some of her work is used by others for that end (Taussig discusses the modern “Gnostic” religious movement, for example), Pagels’s own work hardly has this view. When The Gnostic Gospels was written, she was comfortable using the category of Gnosticism (as even Williams and King were at that time!), but her point in the book is the diversity among materials in Nag Hammadi, not how they fit neatly in one category. If he truly wanted to find the culprit for this, he should have looked to Hans Jonas’s famous book, The Gnostic Religion written well before the Nag Hammadi library was discovered.

In addition to these scholarly problems, there also are some concerns with the texts themselves as presented by Taussig. First, his use of the Open English Bible has problems. While I suspect that the main reason for using this translation was simply that it was out of copyright and free to reproduce. Further, not only is it free to reproduce, but when one looks at the Open English Bible itself, anyone is welcome not only to copy it, but change any element where he or she sees fit. Indeed, the preface to the translations of A New New Testament states this is the reason it was selected.

The problem with this free Open English Bible is that it is not a very reliable translation. The Open English Bible is a “language updated” version of the Twentieth Century Bible developed in 1901 (and later revised in 1904). The Twentieth Century Bible was prepared to be a “plain English” translation of the Bible in contrast to the Victorian type translations that were made in the past. It was not a bad version – in fact, many of the catchy phrases that are in the New Revised Standard Version were based on this translation. However, the Twentieth Century Bible was based on what was the best Greek text of the time. Now, there are far superior Greek texts and the translation has become obsolete.[25] The Open English Bible has simply used that inferior text and updated the language. Taussig and company, then, have taken this updated version and updated it again. The steps between the Greek and the actual text have become so great that serious question can be asked as to the validity of the text itself. 

For those texts not in the New Testament, Taussig has used a variety of different translators to provide the translation – some of which are not bad. However, there are some major flaws in the production of them. First, Taussig introduced chapter and verse numbers for texts that never had them before now. While I sympathize with the frustration of not having as easily organized of a numbering system as the New Testament, when chapters are introduced, it by definition creates punctuation and paragraph breaks which are not present in the text. It gives Taussig the freedom to lead the reader to a particular conclusion (as he does with Thunder: Perfect Mind by suggesting that the final section is merely an “Appendix”).[26] Further, he does not provide the brackets for scholarly reconstruction of texts. When working with Nag Hammadi texts, it is imperative that readers know what words are in the text and which are reconstructed. While I rarely question the reconstructions presented by the experts in Nag Hammadi, to simply omit them completely is irresponsible scholarship. People deserve to know what is truly in the texts and what scholars think is in the texts.

Therefore, as a whole, I am glad that Taussig’s book exists. However, I wish he would have scaled back many of his comments so that the value of his idea (to have a volume which presented Nag Hammadi and New Testament texts side by side) could be more easily grasped. Here, readers will have to get beyond some of the strange suggestions by the book in order to be able to gain the value. Had Taussig simply followed the preface written by John Dominic Crossan, he would have triumphed greatly:

I conclude by thinking – and asking you to think as well – about gain and loss. I gave you only two examples where I think our traditional New Testament has lost something precious. It would have been better, for example, to have both Timothy and Thecla in there as confrontational challenges rather than Timothy alone. Better for the New Testament, better for Christian history, better for women, and, yes, better also for men.[27]

Crossan’s approach is not complicated by any calls to new spiritual enlightenment –simply one encouraging dialogue and challenge (which he does think would make a difference in people’s lives, just not the way that Taussig does). This is the value of these texts for the New Testament – they ought to have been used that way. Taussig went farther than Crossan by trying to suggest that this will be a new Bible for spiritual seekers. Unfortunately that is unlikely. It is far more likely that it will be used and appreciated by a very liberal base who like the idea of difference (but I highly doubt they will seriously gain spiritual insights for their own identity from texts hitherto unknown to them).

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[1] Taussig, A New New Testament, xxxi.

[2] Ibid., xix.

[3] Ibid., 509-510.

[4] Ibid., xxiv.

[5] Ibid., 519.

[6] Ibid., xx-xxi.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid., 555-558.

[9] Ibid., 519.

[10] See Lance Jenott and Elaine Pagels, “Antony’s Letters and Nag Hammadi Codex I: Sources of Religious Conflict in Fourth-Century Egypt” Journal of Early Christian Studies, 18 (4), 557-589. 

[11] As first discussed by Michael A. Williams, Rethining “Gnosticism”: An Argument for Dismantling A Problematic Category Princeton University Press, 1996.

[12] Taussig, A New New Testament, 520.

[13] Taussig, A New New Testament, 519.

[14] Ibid. 500-509.

[15] “But Hebrews has been mostly ignored by official Christendom; in a real way, it has been treated as if it were not really discovered, even though it was included in the traditional New Testament” Taussig, 383.

[16] Ibid., 507.

[17] Ibid., 506-507.

[18] Ibid., 506.

[19] Ibid., 507-8.

[20] For instance suggesting that Paul’s epistle to the Galatians was not written to the city of Galatia, but instead to all “Gauls” everywhere – Taussig, 294.

[21] Ibid., 25.

[22] Ibid., 529-536.

[23] I am indebted to my good friend, Alexander Kocar, Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University, for this insight into the field of Nag Hammadi and related studies.

[24] Ibid., 532-536.

[25] Bruce Metzger, The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 106-110.

[26] Taussig, A New New Testament, 185.

[27] Ibid., xv.