Surprise

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Vox (1992)

  102 response with that kind of vagueness. You have to com mit yourself to a situation.' And I said, 'But you know there are thousands upon thousands of dirty tapes. ' She said, That's just it. Is it a classic that she may well have seen, or will it be something she probably hasn't seen? Will it be new to you or not? These little distinctions are crucial.' And she said, 'And also—if you specify a certain tape, then, you see, she reads the ad and she rents the tape and while she's watching it, the ad may become more and more interesting to her.' So I said, 'Golly, you're absolutely right. I do have to say which tape.' But I said, 'But I don't know which it should be. I know what tapes I like, but I don't know which particular tape would potentially be interesting to her.' And much to my sur prise, she had a suggestion. She said, 'Let me make a suggestion. A dubbed tape. A foreign dubbed tape.' And she explained why. She said it's because you've got more layers—you've got the graphic stuff going on, but you've got mouths saying Italian sex words or French sex words, and then American actors going ooh and ah, and usually the American actors who do the dubbing are somewhat better than the American actors who've got to both have sex and act. And no L.A. boudoir interiors, no L.A. fireplaces reflected in L.A. wineglasses, no Ron Jeremy. Again, that's not exactly what she said, but that was what she was getting at. And then she said, still in a very pragmatic way, she said, 'For instance, Atom Home Video distributes a few good dubbed ones.' So I clanked

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  When we were led by that majestic personage called the Mater D to our table in the garden, we were studied by other customers, and only after we’d sat down, ordered our oysters Rockefeller (with Pernod sauce on a bed of spinach), and sipped our daiquiris did we relax and look around. A gay bar, a cruisy toilet—that I understood, but a gay restaurant? The suggestion that gay men, like Negroes, might want to enjoy one another’s company astounded me. The city seemed like a Bring-Your-Own party that had gone on too long. Even children were still playing at midnight. A blind woman stood on a corner singing in a quavering voice the song my mother had sung to me at bedtime when I was a child: “I’ll be seeing you in apple-blossom time.” At stoplights cars shouldered each other out of the way, jockeying to gain a few inches at the starting gate. As we headed up Park Avenue in a taxi (Lou was treating), we leaned our heads back and looked up at the illuminated spires streaming past. At another stoplight a group of Puerto Rican teenagers dressed in baseball uniforms shouted at each other over the roof in raucous voices. In Chicago there’d been the Loop, but it had been virtually deserted after dark; here people seemed to live in the center city, and I expected to see lines of wash strung between skyscrapers. I got a job. I had to wait until the second week of September to start work and I wasn’t paid until six weeks after that, but at least I had a small purchase on this island. Lou staked me until I received my first check, for he was writing copy now for a top vodka account in a small agency. We both moved out of the Y into apartments, he into six rambling rooms on the Upper West Side, I into a tiny three-room railroad flat in the Village, on MacDougal above Houston. At school I’d already grown used to assuming and shedding disguises. In New York the costume ball continued. At work I wore a coat and tie and behaved with circumspection, but in the Village I dressed as a “hipster” (the new word). Lou had already taught me the hip vocabulary, but the old jazz hipster was being replaced by the image of someone young, white, innocent, loving, and permissive, someone who drank wine and smoked pot but avoided heroin, someone who put into spiritual practice the socialist injunctions against owning personal property; like the flowers in the field, this child toiled not. This evolution in style seemed to me a purely local phenomenon. I knew that the Detroit and Chicago of my childhood would never change. They represented the eternal, if distasteful, verities. I was sure that what was happening was only a new eruption of the old bohemian spirit. I’d found a job as a writer trainee for a national magazine.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  15 “But now bring me a musician.” And it came about while the musician played, that the hand (power) of the LORD came upon Elisha. 16 He said, “Thus says the LORD , ‘Make this valley (the Arabah) full of trenches.’ 17 “For thus says the LORD , ‘You will not see wind or rain, yet that valley will be filled with water, so you and your cattle and your other animals may drink. 18 ‘This is but a simple thing in the sight of the LORD ; He will also hand over the Moabites to you. 19 ‘You shall strike every fortified city and every choice (principal) city, and cut down every good tree and stop up all sources of water, and ruin every good piece of land with stones.’ ” 20 It happened in the morning, when the sacrifice was offered, that suddenly water came [miraculously] from the area of Edom, and the country was filled with water. 21 Now all the Moabites heard that the [three] kings had come up to fight against them, and all d who were able to put on armor, as well as those who were older, were summoned and stood [together in battle formation] at the border. 22 When they got up early the next morning, the sun shone on the water, and the Moabites saw the water across from them as red as blood. 23 And they said, “This is blood! Clearly the kings have fought together, and have killed one another. Now then, Moab, to the spoil [and the plunder of the dead soldiers]!” 24 But when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and struck the Moabites, so that they fled before them; and they went forward into the land, killing the Moabites [as they went]. 25 They destroyed the [walls of the] cities, and each man threw a stone on every piece of good land, covering it [with stones]. And they stopped up all the springs of water and cut down all the good trees, until they left nothing in Kir-hareseth [Moab’s capital city] but its stones. Then the [stone] slingers surrounded the city and destroyed it. 26 When the king of Moab saw that the battle was too fierce for him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through to the king of Edom; but they could not. 27 Then the king of Moab took his e eldest son, who was to reign in his place, and f offered him [publicly] as a burnt offering [to Chemosh] on the [city] wall [horrifying everyone]. And there was great wrath against Israel, and Israel’s allies [Judah and Edom] withdrew from King Jehoram and returned to their own land.

• From Vox (1992)

  51 it follow the line of the dress that you should be wearing to wear the necklace, but looking down at yourself you see that you really need to undo one more button, and you dart a glance at him—has he reached the same con clusion? Oh no, he has! He is shaking his head. He says, 'I think really you'll need to go down one more in order to wear your necklace.' So you unbutton one more but ton, and he responds by unbuttoning the last button of his fly. He doesn't do anything, he doesn't reach in, you almost couldn't tell that his fly was undone, if it weren't for the fact that you've just seen him undo it. Oh, he is a bold bastard! What is he up to? He takes the necklace in both his hands, by both ends, and he shakes it, indi cating for you to walk toward him, which you do. When you are standing close to him, he says, 'I think it'll be easier if you turn around. Then I'll be able to see the clasp.' So you turn around, and you see this necklace, your own handiwork, descend very slowly in front of your face, and you feel the dangly elements just touch your skin and you try to hold your shirt so it doesn't get in the way, but instead of doing the clasp, he lowers the necklace further and lets it accommodate itself to your breasts, and you hear him say, thoughtfully, 'Hmm, no, I really think the shirt has to come off entirely before I can evaluate this necklace. The green and black stars clash with the stones.' So you unbutton the shirt com pletely and let it fall off your arms. You're wearing a black cotton undershirty thing, with very thin shoulder

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Going thus and taking no manner of heed to his burden, he jolted it many a time now against one corner and now another of certain benches that were beside the way, more by token that the night was so cloudy and so dark he could not see whither he went. He was already well nigh at the door of the gentlewoman, who had posted herself at the window with her maid, to see if he would bring Alessandro, and was ready armed with an excuse to send them both away, when it chanced that the officers of the watch, who were ambushed in the street and abode silently on the watch to lay hands upon a certain outlaw, hearing the scuffling that Rinuccio made with his feet, suddenly put out a light, to see what was to do and whither to go, and rattled their targets and halberds, crying, 'Who goeth there?' Rinuccio, seeing this and having scant time for deliberation, let fall his burden and made off as fast as his legs would carry him; whereupon Alessandro arose in haste and made off in his turn, for all he was hampered with the dead man's clothes, which were very long. The lady, by the light of the lantern put out by the police, had plainly recognized Rinuccio, with Alessandro on his shoulders, and perceiving the latter to be clad in Scannadio's clothes, marvelled amain at the exceeding hardihood of both; but, for all her wonderment, she laughed heartily to see Alessandro cast down on the ground and to see him after take to flight. Then, rejoiced at this accident and praising God that He had rid her of the annoy of these twain, she turned back into the house and betook herself to her chamber, avouching to her maid that without doubt they both loved her greatly, since, as it appeared, they had done that which she had enjoined them.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  5 When Jesus saw their [active] faith [springing from confidence in Him], He said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 6 But some of the b scribes were sitting there debating in their hearts [the implication of what He had said], 7 “Why does this man talk that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins [remove guilt, nullify sin’s penalty, and assign righteousness] except God alone?” 8 Immediately Jesus, being fully aware [of their hostility] and knowing in His spirit that they were thinking this, said to them, “Why are you debating and arguing about these things in your hearts? 9 “Which is easier, to say to the paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your mat and walk’? 10 “But so that you may know that the c Son of Man has the authority and power on earth to forgive sins” —He said to the paralyzed man, 11 “I say to you, get up, pick up your mat and go home.” 12 And he got up and immediately picked up the mat and went out before them all, so that they all were astonished and they glorified and praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!” 13 Jesus went out again along the [Galilean] seashore; and all the people were coming to Him, and He was teaching them. Levi (Matthew) Called 14 As He was passing by, He saw Levi (Matthew) the son of Alphaeus sitting in the d tax collector’s booth, and He said to him, “Follow Me [as My disciple, accepting Me as your Master and Teacher and walking the same path of life that I walk].” And he got up and followed Him [becoming His disciple, believing and trusting in Him and following His example]. [Matt 9:9–17 ; Luke 5:27–39 ] 15 And it happened that Jesus was e reclining at the table in Levi’s house, and many tax collectors and sinners [including non-observant Jews] were eating with Him and His disciples; for there were many of them and they were f following Him. 16 When the scribes [belonging to the sect] of the g Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with the sinners [including non-observant Jews] and tax collectors, they asked His disciples, “Why does He eat and drink with h tax collectors and sinners?” 17 When Jesus heard this, He said to them, “Those who are healthy have no need of a physician, but [only] those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners [who recognize their sin and humbly seek forgiveness].” 18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting [as a ritual]; and they came and asked Jesus, “Why are John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fasting, but Your disciples are not doing so?” 19 Jesus answered, “The attendants of the bridegroom i cannot fast while the bridegroom is [still] with them, can they?

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  were studied by other customers, and only after we’d sat down, ordered our oysters Rockefeller (with Pernod sauce on a bed of spinach), and sipped our daiquiris did we relax and look around. A gay bar, a cruisy toilet—that I understood, but a gay restaurant? The suggestion that gay men, like Negroes, might want to enjoy one another’s company astounded me. The city seemed like a Bring-Your-Own party that had gone on too long. Even children were still playing at midnight. A blind woman stood on a corner singing in a quavering voice the song my mother had sung to me at bedtime when I was a child: “I’ll be seeing you in apple-blossom time.” At stoplights cars shouldered each other out of the way, jockeying to gain a few inches at the starting gate. As we headed up Park Avenue in a taxi (Lou was treating), we leaned our heads back and looked up at the illuminated spires streaming past. At another stoplight a group of Puerto Rican teenagers dressed in baseball uniforms shouted at each other over the roof in raucous voices. In Chicago there’d been the Loop, but it had been virtually deserted after dark; here people seemed to live in the center city, and I expected to see lines of wash strung between skyscrapers. I got a job. I had to wait until the second week of September to start work and I wasn’t paid until six weeks after that, but at least I had a small purchase on this island. Lou staked me until I received my first check, for he was writing copy now for a top vodka account in a small agency. We both moved out of the Y into apartments, he into six rambling rooms on the Upper West Side, I into a tiny three-room railroad flat in the Village, on MacDougal above Houston. At school I’d already grown used to assuming and shedding disguises. In New York the costume ball continued. At work I wore a coat and tie and behaved with circumspection, but in the Village I dressed as a “hipster” (the new word). Lou had already taught me the hip vocabulary, but the old jazz hipster was being replaced by the image of someone young, white, innocent, loving, and permissive, someone who drank wine and smoked pot but avoided heroin, someone who put into spiritual practice the socialist injunctions against owning personal property; like the flowers in the field, this child toiled not. This evolution in style seemed to me a purely local phenomenon. I knew that the Detroit and Chicago of my childhood would never change. They represented the eternal, if distasteful, verities. I was sure that what was happening was only a new eruption of the old bohemian spirit. I’d found a job as a writer trainee for a national magazine.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  lounging pajamas and angora high-heeled slippers. She draws and redraws her makeup. She smokes with a cigarette holder and languishes. We’re led to believe she’s ill, but of what no one is crude enough to ask. Buddy stops at the bar in town for a drink every evening to shoot the shit with the guys, but then hurries home to her better half. Isn’t it bizarre we find their marriage charming but we can’t endure the heterosexual original they’re aping?” As I listened to Maria, I absorbed each small wrenching of convention without a blink. The teasingly affectionate portrait of two such eccentrics stunned me, though I never let on. I knew I might be as diseased as they were—in fact, I had no doubt of it—but I’d never aired my neurosis as these women did, and if it were found out, I’d expect to be run to ground, not gently chided. But as the records spun, as Noel Coward talked about life coming to Mrs. Wentworth Brewster at the Bar on the Piccola Marina, when Marlene confessed that men clustered round her like moths to a flame and if they burned their wings she was not to blame, I felt plunged into a piquant world where sins were winked at, where in fact a juicy peccadillo was the price of admission. We sat in shabby rattan chairs under a naked light bulb inadequately screened by a lantern-shaped basket whose weave was too wide and let our eyes stray over the Ping-Pong table, the game of Chinese checkers, and the dart board, while just outside more and more moths, drawn by the light, or Dietrich, beat against the screens. Maria walked about restlessly as though she only half-believed her own daring words. We drove into town in her station wagon. It felt strange to be chauffeured by Maria, and I registered this new awkwardness, which certainly I had not known last winter. But then I’d still been her little Dumpling, whereas now I was, well, what I imagined the other colonists took me to be: bourgeois visitor, friend, possibly suitor. Yes, complete with bourgeois male anxiety about who drives the car. Maria led me in the slow dance at the bar, a noisy friendly hangout illuminated by the endless Niagara of the Miller’s High Life sign and by the bubbling jukebox. I was too young to be in a bar legally, but no one noticed and we drank beer after beer and danced to polkas or slow hillbilly songs. Maria said she loved the hillbilly songs because they were about grown-ups, adultery, divorce, heartache. With her, even loss sounded as glamorous as gain.

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  The vital issue of therapist transparency, hotly debated in the field, is analyzed, dissected, and stretched to its limits in this comic novel. I have just reread Lying on the Couch for the first time in years and am struck by many things I had long forgotten. First, though the plot is entirely fictional, it contains a great many real events from my life. This is not rare: I once heard Saul Bellow say, “When a novelist is born the family is doomed.” It is well-known that the characters of Bellow’s early life populate the pages of his fiction. I’ve followed suit. About a year prior to writing this novel, a friend of a friend attempted to swindle me by selling me shares of a company that, as I learned later, did not exist. My wife and I gave him $50,000 to invest. Though we soon received very official-appearing certificates of deposit from a Swiss bank, still there was something about him that aroused my suspicion. I took the certificates to a US branch of the Swiss bank and learned that the signatures were forged. Then I called the FBI and informed the swindler that I had done so. Just before my meeting with the FBI, he appeared at my door with $50,000 in cash. This event and this swindler were the inspiration for Peter Macondo in my novel, a con man who preys on therapists. But it was not just the con man: a great many other acquaintances, events, and parts of myself found their way into the novel. Details of my poker game are there (including caricatures of myself and other players). Because of my poor vision, I’ve stopped playing poker, but to this day when I have lunch with my old poker chums, they refer to one another by the names I had given them in the novel. Also, there is a patient (heavily disguised) who was particularly seductive to me in real life, as well as a sophisticated but arrogant psychiatrist who once supervised me. I also included a friend from my Hopkins days, Saul, who is Paul in the novel. Much of the furniture and art is real, including a glass sculpture Saul made and dedicated to me of a man looking over the edge of a bowl, titled “Sisyphus Enjoying the View.” The list is very long: pet peeves, books, clothes, gestures, my earliest memories, my parents’ history as immigrants, my games of chess and pinochle with my father and uncles—they’re all scattered throughout the novel, including my attempt to kick the grocery-store sawdust from my shoes. I tell a story about the father of a character named Marshal Streider, who is the owner of a small grocery store on Fifth and R Streets in Washington, DC.

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  I was escorted to a room by an assistant who asked me to undress and bathe, after which she covered me from head to toe with massage oil, at which point the masseuse, an extraordinarily beautiful naked woman, entered and began to massage me. After only a few minutes I realized that I had misunderstood the term full-body massage—it was not so much that my whole body was to be massaged, but that she massaged me with her whole body. At the end of the massage she smiled, bowed, and inquired in a most delicate fashion, “Is there anything else you might desire?” From Bangkok I traveled by bus to Chiang Mai, where I watched elephants at work clearing forests. I met a fellow traveler, an Austrian tourist, and we hired a guide to take us on a canoe trip up the Mae Kok River. We stopped at a native village to join the males as they sat in a circle enjoying their daily opium smoke, while the females, of course, did all the tribal work. My one experience with opium was not dramatic: simply a mildly mellow state of mind lasting for several hours. We continued on to Chiang Rei, passing along the way a host of fairyland crenelated temples that looked as though they might take flight at any moment. At Chiang Rei I walked on a bridge with other tourists connecting Thailand to Burma, where, halfway across, we met stern Burmese military guards. The guards permitted us to touch the barrier for a few moments so we could say we had been to Burma. Next I flew to the island of Phuket for a few days of beach walking and scuba diving, and then headed home to California. Though I loved this trip, I ultimately paid a price for it. Not long after I returned home, I developed a strange illness that plagued me for several weeks with fatigue, headaches, lightheadedness, and loss of appetite. All the paragons of the Stanford Hospital agreed that I had contracted some tropical disease, but no one ever figured out what it was. A few months later, when I had fully recovered, we celebrated with a brief trip to a Caribbean island where we had rented a cabin for two weeks. One of my first days there I took a nap on the couch, and I awoke covered with insect bites. By the following day I felt worse than I had on arriving home from India. We flew home, and the Stanford Department of Medicine spent weeks working me over for dengue fever and other tropical illnesses. Though they used every diagnostic test available to modern medicine, they never solved the puzzle of my illness. I remained ill for about sixteen months, barely able to get to Stanford each day and requiring a great deal of rest. One of Marilyn’s close friends told her later that many people thought I had suffered a stroke.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  seemed sort of relieved that I was carrying it. We continued on down the block, and he kept glancing at me sideways. “You West Virginia girls are one tough breed,” he said. “You got that right,” I told him. • • • Evan dropped me off at a German restaurant called Zum Zum. Lori was behind the counter, carrying four beer steins in each hand, her hair in twin buns and speaking in a thick German accent because, she explained later, it increased tips. “Dees ees mein seester!” she called out to the men at one of her tables. They raised their beer steins and shouted, “Velkomen to New Yorken!” I didn’t know any German, so I said, “Grazi!” They all got a chuckle out of that. Lori was in the middle of her shift, so I went out to wander the streets. I got lost a couple of times and had to ask directions. People had been warning me for months about how rude New Yorkers were. It was true, I learned that night, that if you tried to stop them on the street, a lot of them kept on walking, shaking their heads; those who did stop didn’t look at you at first. They gazed off down the block, their faces closed. But as soon as they realized you weren’t trying to hustle them or panhandle money, they warmed right up. They looked you in the eye and gave you detailed instructions about how, to get to the Empire State Building, you went up nine blocks and made a right and cut across two blocks and so on. They even drew you maps. New Yorkers, I figured, just pretended to be unfriendly. • • • Later, Lori and I took a subway down to Greenwich Village and walked over to the Evangeline, a women’s hostel where she had been living. That first night I woke up at three a.m. and saw the sky all lit up a bright orange. I wondered if there was a big fire somewhere, but in the morning Lori told me that the orange glow came from the air pollution refracting the light off the streets and buildings. The night sky here, she said, always had that color. What it meant was that in New York, you could never see the stars. But Venus wasn’t a star. I wondered if I’d be able to see it. The very next day, I landed a job at a hamburger joint on Fourteenth Street. After

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  81 The Rise of Early Christian Orthodoxy Lecture 19 It’s striking that, despite the fact that there’s such a range of Christian beliefs that there was, in the end, only one that emerged as victorious. W e have covered a wide range of early Christian beliefs and practices in our lectures to this point. We have seen remarkable diversity among the Christian groups that we know of from the second and third centuries. Ebionites thought that Christ was a human being, a righteous man adopted by God at his baptism to be the Son of God (adoptionistic). Marcionites thought that Jesus was completely God and only seemed to be human (docetic). Gnostics thought that Jesus was a man, but Christ was a God (separationist). The proto-orthodox view agreed with the Ebionites that Jesus was a man but disagreed with them when they said that Jesus was not God. They disagreed with Gnostics, believing instead that Jesus was both God and man. Each of these groups had authoritative books that claimed to represent the views of Jesus and his apostles. Ebionites used the Gospel of Matthew. Those who separated the Jesus from the Christ used the Gospel of Mark. Marcionites used the Gospel of Luke. Followers of Valentinus used the Gospel of John. But only one of these early Christian groups emerged as victorious in the struggle to win converts and to establish the “true” nature of Christianity. This victorious group shaped for all time what Christians would believe and which Scriptures they would accept. How, though, did this one group establish itself as dominant and virtually eliminate all traces of both its opponents and the various Scriptures they revered? The traditional answer to this question derives from Eusebius, the fourth- century “father of church history.” Eusebius is one of the most important authors of Christian antiquity. He ¿ gured prominently in the theological disputes of his own day and was well connected politically. Most signi¿ cantly, he wrote the ¿ rst history of Christianity, discussing the course of the Christian religion from the days of Jesus down to his own time.

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  37 (with sayings given in a different sequence)—probably someplace in Syria. The title calls writing the “Gospel of Thomas” and, in the ¿ rst verse, the author calls himself Didymus Judas Thomas. Who was this person? The word Didymus means “twin” in Greek; the word Thomas means “twin” in Aramaic. The person’s actual name was Judas or Jude. Here he is called, “Jude, the twin.” The twin of whom? In the New Testament, Jesus is said to have several brothers, one of whom is called Jude. Interestingly enough, some ancient Syriac traditions (such as the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas) indicate that Jesus and Jude were not just brothers but identical twins. The Syriac texts that preserve this tradition do not indicate how Jesus could have an identical twin if he was miraculously conceived by a virgin. In any event, the Gospel of Thomas appears to claim to be written by the twin brother of Jesus! Who better to know his secret teachings that can lead to eternal life? The Gospel of Thomas made such a stir when it was discovered, and continues to make such a stir among scholars today, because among these 114 sayings of Jesus are many that were previously unknown, raising a host of questions. When was this gospel written? Did its author make use of the gospels of the New Testament for his sayings? If not, where did he acquire these sayings? Could any of these other sayings actually go back to the historical Jesus? What is one to make of a gospel that does not proclaim the importance of Jesus’ death and resurrection? Finally, how is one to understand the individual sayings of the gospel and the gospel as a whole? Is this a gnostic gospel that presupposes the gnostic understanding of the world, of Christ, of humans, of salvation? The opening verse of the gospel can tell us a good deal about the nature of this text and may hint at its gnostic character (Saying 1). These sayings are said to be secret (cf. the gnostic emphasis on secret knowledge). And the key to eternal life is interpreting them correctly. One can contrast These sayings are said to be secret ... and the key to eternal life is interpreting them correctly.

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  6 Lecture 1: The Diversity of Early Christianity true God?), Christ (was he human? divine? both?), his death (did he die for sins? did he even die?), and a variety of other critical doctrines. This variety of early Christian beliefs raises an important question: Why didn’t the various early Christians who held such bizarre ideas simply read the New Testament to see that they were wrong? The answer may be obvious to some but startling to others. These Christians of the second and third centuries did not read the New Testament because the New Testament did not yet exist. The books themselves, of course, had been written, but they had not yet been collected into a sacred and authoritative canon of Scripture. The term canon refers to a collection of authoritative books. One of the points we will learn is that our canon did not yet exist as an of¿ cially recognized collection during the second and third centuries. The twenty-seven books that initially made it into the New Testament canon represent twenty-seven books written by Jesus’ followers in the second half of the ¿ rst century. The canon consists of four types of books: gospels (stories of Jesus’ life); the Book of Acts (an account of the life and ministry of the apostles after Jesus’ death); Epistles (letters written for Christian individuals or groups); and the Apocalypse (an account of what will transpire at the end of time). Other books were written at the same time, however, also claiming to be by Jesus’ followers. Each of the early Christian groups that maintained its own distinctive beliefs and practices had books that were believed to be written by Jesus’ own apostles—gospels, for example, allegedly written by his disciples Thomas and Philip, and Mary Magdalene. To set the context for these questions, it is important to understand some basic features of the spread of Christianity from the time of Jesus up to the early fourth century, as Christian communities sprang up in different parts of the Roman world over time, with distinctive understandings of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus and distinctive written authorities for their views. The existence of these “other” Scriptures leads to other questions. Christians of the second and third centuries did not read the New Testament because the New Testament did not yet exist.

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  99 theological disputes waging over the meaning of their texts, who sometimes changed their texts to make them say what they wanted them to mean. We do not have the original texts of any early Christian book (or of any literary work from antiquity). Instead, we have copies made much later—not the ¿ rst copies or the copies of the copies—but copies from hundreds of years after the fact. At present, we have nearly 5,400 copies (or manuscripts) of the New Testament (in Greek), from extremely small fragments to entire massive tomes containing all the books. The earliest copy of any book of the New Testament is called P52 and is the size of a credit card. A fragment, written on both sides on papyrus, it dates to around 125 A.D. and preserves some words from John 18. The ¿ rst full manuscript of the entire New Testament is the Codex Sinaiticus, dating from the second half of the fourth century. Most of the manuscripts we have date from the Middle Ages. These copies date from the second to the sixteenth centuries. The New Testament is also preserved in different versions (for example, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Old Georgian, Armenian). Strikingly, no two of these copies, except for the smallest fragments, are exactly alike in their wording. No one knows how many differences of wording there are among these manuscripts. It is safest to put it in comparative terms: There are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament. Most of these differences are pure accidents, misspelled words, words or lines accidentally dropped out or accidentally written twice. But some of the changes appear to have been made intentionally, as scribes tried to make sense of the texts they were copying and sometimes changed the text to change the sense. Textual critics decide what the original text said and what changes have been made. They look at what kinds of manuscripts have a particular passage and the wording of the passage. They consider whether the writing style, vocabulary, and theology are consistent with the presumed author. Textual Strikingly, no two of these copies, except for the smallest fragments, are exactly alike in their wording.

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  50 reteP fo lepsoG ehT :11 erutceL He appears to bemoan the departure of divine nature before he dies (v. 19). Still other differences re(cid:192) ect legendary expansions of the traditions of Jesus’ death and resurrection. For example, one of the robbers being cruci(cid:191) ed is punished (for verbally attacking those executing Jesus) by not having his legs broken. Most striking of all is the detailed narration of Jesus’ actual resurrection (that is, his emergence from the tomb, not described in any of the canonical accounts). Two angels descend bodily from heaven and enter the tomb (vv. 35–37). There then emerge three (cid:191) gures from the tomb, tall as skyscrapers (vv. 39–40). Behind them comes the cross, which is asked from heaven if it has preached to those “who had fallen asleep” (that is, those in Hades) and replies, “Yes” (vv. 39, 41–42). The account ends with the women going to the tomb and learning of the resurrection (vv. 50–57) and the (cid:191) rsthand account of a (cid:191) shing expedition of the disciples, which breaks off abruptly in Most striking of mid-sentence (v. 60). all is the detailed narration of Jesus’ The discovery of this remarkable account led actual resurrection. to numerous critical questions: When was it originally written? Did it use the canonical gospels as sources for its narratives? Or is it independent of the other known accounts? These questions continue to be debated. Probably, the majority of scholars think that it was written after the canonical accounts (possibly in the early part of the second century), as suggested by its virulent anti-Judaism and legendary character. Because there are very few verbal similarities between it and the others, it may represent an independent account, based on oral traditions that continued to circulate about Jesus for a long time after the New Testament gospels were produced. (cid:374) Essential Reading John Dominic Crossan, Four Other Gospels. Bart Ehrman, After the New Testament, reading 38. Paul Mirecki, “Peter, Gospel of,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. V, pp. 278–281. Supplementary Reading Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah. John Dominic Crossan, The Cross That Spoke. Christian Maurer and Wilhelm Schneemelcher, “The Gospel of Peter,” in Edgar Hennecke and Wilhelm Schneemelcher, eds., New Testament Apocrypha: Gospels and Related Writings. Questions to Consider 1. What about the Gospel of Peter might be taken as “heretical” by a proto- orthodox Christian of the early centuries? Are there ways to interpret the passages in question in a non-heretical way? 2. What kind of argument could be mounted that the Gospel of Peter preserves traditions earlier than those of the New Testament gospels, which were possibly used by these gospels as sources? 51

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Thereupon it seemed to Tedaldo time to discover himself and to comfort the lady with more certain hope of her husband, and accordingly he said, 'Madam, in order that I may comfort you for your husband, it behoveth me reveal to you a secret, which look you discover not unto any, as you value your life.' Now they were in a very retired place and alone, the lady having conceived the utmost confidence of the sanctity which herseemed was in the pilgrim; wherefore Tedaldo, pulling out a ring, which she had given him the last night he had been with her and which he had kept with the utmost diligence, and showing it to her, said, 'Madam, know you this?' As soon as she saw it, she recognized it and answered, 'Ay, sir; I gave it to Tedaldo aforetime.' Whereupon the pilgrim, rising to his feet, hastily cast off his palmer's gown and hat and speaking Florence-fashion, said, 'And know you me?' When the lady saw this, she knew him to be Tedaldo and was all aghast, fearing him as one feareth the dead, an they be seen after death to go as if alive; wherefore she made not towards him to welcome him as Tedaldo returned from Cyprus, but would have fled from him in affright, as he were Tedaldo come back from the tomb. Whereupon, 'Madam,' quoth he, 'fear not; I am your Tedaldo, alive and well, and have never died nor been slain, whatsoever you and my brothers may believe.' The lady, somewhat reassured and knowing his voice, considered him awhile longer and avouched in herself that he was certainly Tedaldo; wherefore she threw herself, weeping, on his neck and kissed him, saying, 'Welcome back, sweet my Tedaldo.'

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  A few days later, at the Nietzsche archives in Weimar, I had the great pleasure of holding an early draft of Thus Spake Zarathustra , written in Nietzsche’s own hand. Years later, filmmaker Pinchas Perry made a film of When Nietzsche Wept . Though it was a low-budget film, it features a remarkable portrayal of Nietzsche by Armand Assante, an actor well-known to film buffs. In a conversation with Assante I learned that, of all his sixty films, he is most proud of his performance as Nietzsche. One of the great surprises of my life occurred eleven years after publication, when I received a letter from a researcher in the Weimar archives, whom I had met there on my earlier trip to Germany. She informed me that she had just discovered an 1880 letter to Nietzsche from a friend urging him to consult with Dr. Josef Breuer for his medical problems! Nietzsche’s sister, Elisabeth, scotched the plan, ostensibly because he had already consulted several other noted physicians. Nietzsche referred to his sister as an “anti-Semitic goose,” and it’s possible that she rejected the plan because Breuer was Jewish. The letter to Nietzsche suggesting he visit Breuer and two follow-up letters can be heard on the English audiobook version of the novel. This startling confirmation reassured me that I had remained true to Gide’s aphorism: Fiction is history that might have happened .

• From Who Wrote the Bible? Searching for Its Origins and Authors (2025)

  143 23. Texts That Didn’t Make It into the Bible fathers considered certain texts to be canonically part of the New Testament, such as the Epistle of Barnabas, which comes from the first half of the 2nd century CE—within a generation or less of the latest of today’s New Testament books. This text was found in a 4th-century biblical manuscript known as the Codex Sinaiticus, signaling that it had at least some significant authoritative status at that stage. Such works might have been canonical today had things gone only slightly differently. Several books were almost never considered canonical but were still recognized as important, including the Didachē. This work of ethical instruction and ecclesial structure is probably from around 100 CE, squarely in the New Testament period. Interestingly, it was known only through its inf luence on other early Christian texts and the references to it in the writings of the church fathers—until 1873, when a complete copy of it was discovered in the library of a monastery in Constantinople. While the church fathers went back and forth as to whether some books were canonical, they also referred to books that they considered to be heretical. They were attempting to define the true Christianity, theologically and practically. Among the most notable of these so-called heretical writings were a set of texts that were interested in a personal, perhaps mystical, connection with Jesus rather than one mediated through the institution of the church and its traditions. The authors believed humans have a spark of the divine in them, which was unrecognized until the arrival of Jesus, who brought the knowledge of humanity’s divinity to the world. These heretics were known as the learned ones—or, in Greek, gnōstikos. Today, they are called the Gnostics. Not only are there no Gnostic texts in the New Testament, but they were so thoroughly rejected that they disappeared from the scene entirely until 1945. That year, an Egyptian farmer near the town of Nag Hammadi accidentally came across a buried jar that contained a trove of ancient texts. The jar held 13 codices containing more than 50 separate literary works. They seem to have once belonged to a nearby monastery and were perhaps buried in the 4th century. The writings comprise a remarkable collection of Gnostic texts. One text from Nag Hammadi deserves special attention: the Gospel of Thomas. It begins by saying, “These are the hidden words that the living Jesus spoke. And Didymos Judas Thomas wrote them down.” Unlike the New Testament gospels, the Gospel of Thomas has no narrative. It is a collection

• From Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication (2002)

  99 theological disputes waging over the meaning of their texts, who sometimes changed their texts to make them say what they wanted them to mean. We do not have the original texts of any early Christian book (or of any literary work from antiquity). Instead, we have copies made much later—not the ¿ rst copies or the copies of the copies—but copies from hundreds of years after the fact. At present, we have nearly 5,400 copies (or manuscripts) of the New Testament (in Greek), from extremely small fragments to entire massive tomes containing all the books. The earliest copy of any book of the New Testament is called P52 and is the size of a credit card. A fragment, written on both sides on papyrus, it dates to around 125 A.D. and preserves some words from John 18. The ¿ rst full manuscript of the entire New Testament is the Codex Sinaiticus, dating from the second half of the fourth century. Most of the manuscripts we have date from the Middle Ages. These copies date from the second to the sixteenth centuries. The New Testament is also preserved in different versions (for example, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Old Georgian, Armenian). Strikingly, no two of these copies, except for the smallest fragments, are exactly alike in their wording. No one knows how many differences of wording there are among these manuscripts. It is safest to put it in comparative terms: There are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament. Most of these differences are pure accidents, misspelled words, words or lines accidentally dropped out or accidentally written twice. But some of the changes appear to have been made intentionally, as scribes tried to make sense of the texts they were copying and sometimes changed the text to change the sense. Textual critics decide what the original text said and what changes have been made. They look at what kinds of manuscripts have a particular passage and the wording of the passage. They consider whether the writing style, vocabulary, and theology are consistent with the presumed author. Textual Strikingly, no two of these copies, except for the smallest fragments, are exactly alike in their wording.