Textual Fluidity

The book reveals how to recognize what in your writing overwhelms the reader's memory, attention, and knowledge to create confusion, misunderstanding, disinterest, and frustration. Through many examples and corrected exercises in literature and science, and with the help of original assessment tools, this book will turn you into a reader's writer.

This article discusses the long history of the production and use of Coptic apocrypha in Egyptian monasteries and the mechanisms governing the fluidity of apocryphal texts and traditions. The article draws upon recent theoretical work within media studies on modern fanfiction as well as cognitive perspectives on readers' mental creation and simulation of storyworlds. These perspectives are combined with insights from new/material philology, especially regarding the inherent textual fluidity of the transmission of texts in a manuscript culture, thus shedding new light on the functions, significance, and development of apocrypha in Coptic Egypt.

Pages 213–27 in Coptic Literature in Context (4th–13th cent.): Cultural Landscape, Literary Production and Manuscript Archaeology. Edited by Paola Buzi. PaST Percorsi di Archeologia 5. Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 2020.

The article was written at the University of Oslo, Faculty of Theology, under the aegis of project NEWCONT (New Contexts for Old Texts: Unorthodox Texts and Monastic Manuscript Culture in 4th- and 5th-Cent. Egypt), funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) / ERC Grant agreement no 283741.

J. Gregory Given, "Four Texts from Nag Hammadi amid the Textual and Generic Fluidity of the 'Letter' in Late Antique Egypt." Pages 201-220 in /Snapshots of Evolving Traditions: Jewish and Christian Manuscript Culture, Textual Fluidity, and New Philology/. Edited by Liv Ingebord Lied and Hugo Lundhaug. Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 175. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017.

Pages 47–67 in Nag Hammadi at 70: What Have We Learned? Edited by Eric Crégheur, Louis Painchaud, and Tuomas Rasimus. Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi: Section “Études” 10. Leuven: Peeters, 2019. This article has been written under the aegis of project NEWCONT (New Contexts for Old Texts: Unorthodox Texts and Monastic Manuscript Culture in Fourth- and Fifth-Century Egypt) at the University of Oslo, Faculty of Theology. The project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) / ERC Grant agreement no 283741.

Pages 335–46 in Studia Patristica XCIII: Vol. 19: The First Two Centuries – Apocrypha and Gnostica. Edited by Markus Vinzent. StPatr 93. Leuven: Peeters, 2017.

The Dialogue of the Savior, preserved only in Nag Hammadi Codex III, as commonly been treated as a Gnostic text from the second century and studies have focused on this context and on tracing its even earlier sources. In contrast, this article eschews the category of ‘Gnosticism’ and argues that the text as it has been preserved is better understood as a product of early Egyptian monasticism. By comparing the Dialogue of the Savior with other monastic texts from Egypt, it will be shown how the text reflects monastic ideals and interests, here exemplified by its treatment of the postmortem trials of the soul.

The research and writing of this article were conducted within the context of the NEWCONT-project (New Contexts for Old Texts: Unorthodox Texts and Monastic Manuscript Culture in Fourth- and Fifth-Century Egypt) at the University of Oslo, Faculty of Theology. The project was financed by a ‘Starting Grant’ from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) / ERC Grant agreement no 283741.

Monastic texts are often subjects of multiple revisions. In this chapter some examples of revisions of various kinds and the possible reasons behind them are discussed. In particular, the authorial voices of these revisions are considered. Monastic authors, like their Classical and Graeco-Roman counterparts, were trained to write according to a set structure of rhetorical strategies. The main focus is given to the writings of Cassian and Palladius of Helenopolis. The works Institutiones and Collationes by Cassian are preserved in Greek versions that give rise to many questions on authorial revision. A couple of stories in Palladius’ Historia Lausiaca are examined. They are found in a monastic collection called Collectio Scorialensis parva and differ considerably from the “standard” edited text. The connection with these works to collections of the Apophthegmata Patrum indicates the great importance of this kind of material for the monastic communities. The texts were used and revised for educational and spiritual purposes in creating a monastic tradition.