ashar@miraj.eng.sun.com (Ashar Aziz) (02/12/90)
In article <24174@ut-emx.UUCP>, blais@ut-emx.UUCP (Donald Blais) writes: >>In article <F#3Z5*@masalla.fulcrum.bt.co.uk> nafis@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Nafis Ahmed) writes: >> "And (appoint him) an Apostle to the Children of Israel (with this >> message): 'I have come to you with a sign from your Lord, in >> that I make for you out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, >> and breathe into it, and it becomes a bird, By God's leave; > Many traditions about Jesus are not found in the Bible but exist and > are passed on outside the Bible from generation to generation. The > event related in the Qur'an is one about Jesus that I have not heard > told in the Western Christian tradition. Does anyone know if it can > be found today in any of the Eastern Christian traditions? I dont know about it being part of any christian tradition today, but apparently it was part of some early christian tradition. "The Lost Books of the Bible" (1979, Crown Publishers, ISBN 0-517-277956) purports to provide the early christian texts that did not make it into the canonical gospels. The canons were established around 393-397 AD. Before that time there were several texts that were considered scriptures by various groups. Some of these "unofficial texts" give details of Christ's infancy and childhood. In "The First Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ" (one of the lost texts ) Chapter XV (page 52 of book), it states; "And when Lord Jesus was seven years of age, he was on a certain day with other boys his companions about the same age. Who when they were at play made clay into several shapes, namely, asses, oxen, birds, and other figures, Each boasting of his work and endeavoring to exceed the rest. Then the Lord Jesus said to the boys, I will command thses figures which I have made to walk. And immediately they moved, and when he commanded them to return, they returned. He also made the figures of birds and sparrows, which when he commanded to fly, did fly, and when he commanded to stand still, did stand still; and if he gave them meat and drink, they did eat and drink." Ashar. [The standard source is a 2-volume work edited by Edgar Hennecke, "New Testament Apocrypha". I looked at "Look Books..." in a bookstore, and it looked like a reprint of an older work. The introductions did not seem to have the same level of scholarship as Hennecke's work. These works are interesting and useful from a number of perspectives, but except for the Gospel of Thomas, I don't know of any that reputable scholars think has any information in addition to the canonical Gospels. There is considerable debate about the degree of historicity in even the canonical Gospels. They seem to have been motivated by a mixture of historical and theological purposes, with different scholars evaluating the mixture differently. But in the infancy gospels concern for historical reliability seems almost completely gone. The "first gospel of the infancy of Jesus Christ" unfortunately is a fairly vague title, so I can't locate the specific text in my sources. But it would appear to be based on an incident in the infancy story of Thomas (not to be confused with the Gospel of Thomas, which contains only saying of Jesus, not narrative). This, along with the Protoevangelium of James, appears to be the source for most of the later infancy stories. In fact it's even possible that your quote is from a different version of the same work, since the title given (aside from the "first") seems close to the titles on some manuscripts of Thomas. Apparently different versions differed fairly significantly. Anyway, in the text of Thomas translated by Hennecke, Jesus made twelve clay sparrows. He clapped his hands and they flew away. It's true that some works now regarded as apocrypha were quoted along with the canonical books by some writers. E.g. the Shepherd of Hermas. I've never heard of this being true of the infancy stories such as those in Thomas. The Protoevangelium, although not itself appearing in any of the lists, was influential in the development of Mariology. Its character is rather different than Thomas, in that it's primarily about Mary, the birth, Herod's reaction, etc. It doesn't have the stories about miracles of the young Jesus that characterize Thomas. --clh]