Secret Gospels: Essays on Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Mark

by Marvin W. Meyer

Marvin Meyer is one of the leading experts on the secret gospels Gospel of Thomas, Secret Gospel of Mark, and others who has changed forever how we read the canonical gospels and understand early Christianity. In this new collection of his work, Meyer looks at these revolutionary texts in original and illuminating ways. He writes, for example, about the naked youths in the villa of the Mysteries. On the walls of a villa in Pompeii, a famous mural depicts a naked male reading from a scroll, a look of wonder on his face. A naked youth again appears in the Gospel of Mark, abandoning his garment and fleeing naked when apprehended during Jesus' arrest. A similar youth appears in the Secret Gospel of Mark. These youths, Meyer proposes, serve as an image of religious initiation, candidates for the mysteries of Dionysus or of Christ. This is one of the many aspects of the secret gospels that Meyer examines with expert insight and creativity. Topics range from gender and infancy stories to discipleship and the relationship of the Gospel of Thomas to Islamic literature. Meyer's spellbinding readings of these materials offer fresh understandings of the canonical gospels. Marvin Meyer is Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies, and Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Chapman University, Orange, California. He is author of The Secret Teachings of Jesus: Four Gnostic Gospels and The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, and co-editor of Jesus Then and Now (Trinity Press International).

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Marvin Meyer is a scholar of religion and a tenured professor at Chapman University, in Orange, California.

He is the Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies at Chapman University and Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute. He is also Director of the Coptic Magical Texts Project of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity. Dr. Meyer is the author of numerous books and articles on Greco-Roman and Christian religions in antiquity and late antiquity, and on Albert Schweitzer's ethic of reverence for life. He has been interviewed on television programs that have aired on ABC, BBC, CNN, PBS, A&E, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the National Geographic Channel.

Professor Meyer is best known for his translations of the texts of documents associated with the ancient mystery religions, early Christian magic, and Gnostic texts, of which the most notable have been the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas. He is regarded as an authority on Gnosticism and has published many books on the subject.

Meyer died of melanoma on August 16, 2012.

Reviews

[Victor Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Secret Gospels by Marvin Meyer is a valuable series of essays addressed to those familiar and interested in the apocryphal texts of the Gospel of Thomas and the to-date only fragmentary evidence of the Secret Gospel of Mark. It is a bit scholarly for those not familiar with the considerable literature on both documents, but of great interest, including footnotes and bibliography, to those wanting to get additional insight into these texts as presented elsewhere by Elaine Pagels, Morton Smith, and Marvin Meyer himself, among others.

The theme, and it is that throughout the book, of the neaniskos, or naked youth, in the Secret Gospel, but also in the orthodox Mark and pagan literature, is as fascinating as it is controversial. It is but another reason that the established church calls writings other those accepted as canonical to be apocryphal or even heretical. Meyer, in my opinion, does not venture deep enough in these essays or dare to state some of the conclusions that might be drawn from the data presented. He does show parallels between the naked youth references in Mark to certain rituals in the mystery religions without coming right out and saying that some Christian rituals are directly modeled after Elysian or Dionysian mystery practices.