New Testament Lecturer, Morling College Perth Campus PhD in Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield MA in Religious Studies at the University of Alberta BA in Religion and Theology with a Specialization in Biblical Studies at Taylor University College
The Gospel of the Ebionites that is quoted seven times in Epiphanius’s Panarion is commonly dated... more The Gospel of the Ebionites that is quoted seven times in Epiphanius’s Panarion is commonly dated to the first half of the second century CE. The justification for dating it within this window is that it was likely composed after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE and the composition of the Synoptic Gospels, yet it may have been written before the harmony of the Synoptic Gospels with the Johannine Gospel in Tatian’s Diatessaron. Some scholars find earlier references to the Gospel of the Ebionites in the writings of Irenaeus, Clement, or Origen. On the contrary, I will argue that it should not be dated any earlier than the late second century CE.
"The Gospel of the Ebionites and the Synoptic Problem" Catholic Biblical Quarterly 86.2 (2024): pre-publication draft , 2024
David B. Sloan and James R. Edwards have revived the antique hypothesis that there was a single G... more David B. Sloan and James R. Edwards have revived the antique hypothesis that there was a single Gospel according to the Hebrews underlying the diverse Patristic testimonies about it and that it was a significant source behind the Synoptic tradition. Specifically, Sloan and Edwards equate this reconstructed text with either Q or L, two hypothetical sources in B. H. Streeter's classic solution to the Synoptic Problem, respectively. In this paper, I defend the common scholarly view that the text known to Epiphanius, which modern scholars entitle as the Gospel of the Ebionites to distinguish it from the Gospel according to the Hebrews, was a Greek text that, at points, harmonizes passages from the Synoptics. I will focus on this Gospel's baptism narrative to demonstrate that it replicates Matthean and Lukan redactional elements, thus making it unlikely to be the source of the Synoptic double tradition or the Lukan Sondergut.
Paul Within Judaism: Perspectives on Paul and Jewish Identity (ed. Michael Bird, Ruben A. Bühner, Jörg Frey, and Brian Rosner; WUNT 507; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023) , 2023
Although the Christology of the Ebionites in general, and the so-called Gospel of the Ebionites c... more Although the Christology of the Ebionites in general, and the so-called Gospel of the Ebionites cited by Epiphanius of Salamis in particular, has been commonly classified as adoptionist, the utility of the term ‘adoptionism’ has been recently called into question. This article will focus on the fragment about Jesus’ baptism in Panarion, 30.13.7–8 to determine whether it depicts Jesus’ adoption to divine sonship. Although the text does not use adoptionist terminology and imagery, Jesus does acquire a new christological identity in the pericope when he is possessed by the spirit and metaphorically begotten by the deity. This should be relabelled as a possessionist Christology. However, Epiphanius wrongly interpreted the text through the lens of Cerinthus’ Christology, in which Jesus is only temporarily inhabited by the Christ aeon between his baptism and his crucifixion.
Cerinthus was remembered as the adversary of John, the ‘disciple of the Lord’ who resided in the ... more Cerinthus was remembered as the adversary of John, the ‘disciple of the Lord’ who resided in the city of Ephesus in the late first century CE. This ‘John’ was either one of Jesus’s twelve apostles or another prominent Christian leader who ministered in the region of Asia Minor and came to be confused with the apostle of the same name (cf. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.4; 5.33.4; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.31.3; 3.39.4–7; 5.20.5–6; 5.24.2; 7.25.16). There are obstacles for the historian attempting to reconstruct Cerinthus’s biography because Cerinthus did not leave any writings for posterity and the sources about him were composed by uniformly hostile witnesses. For instance, the students of the second-century bishop Polycarp of Smyrna retold a tale about the day John noticed Cerinthus in a public bathhouse in Ephesus and exclaimed that the walls might collapse because the ‘enemy of the truth’ was inside the building (cf. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.4). The problem with t...
John 18:15–16 mentions an unknown disciple of Jesus who “was known to the high priest” giving him... more John 18:15–16 mentions an unknown disciple of Jesus who “was known to the high priest” giving him access to the events in Caiaphas’s courtyard. A minority of scholars maintain the identity of this disciple is consistent with John, the son of Zebedee, whom they also maintain was the author of the Fourth Gospel. To support this position, the commonplace fiction of Galilean fishermen belonging to an aspiring “middle-class” is asserted. This article reviews the arguments and suggests that a more robust representation of class stratification in the ancient world demonstrates the implausibility of such a scenario.
ABSTRACT In the academic study of Christian origins, scholars have classified various christologi... more ABSTRACT In the academic study of Christian origins, scholars have classified various christological systems of thought as “gnostic,” “docetic,” “adoptionist,” or “separationist.” This article will explore to what extent each of these taxonomic categories or ideal types corresponds to Cerinthus's postulation of the temporary union of the human Jesus with the divine Christ. It will further defend the accuracy of Irenaeus's description of Cerinthus's theological and christological positions and how they differed from those of the Jewish-Christian Ebionites on the one hand and a demiurgical theologian such as Carpocrates on the other.
An increasing number of scholars situate the Gospel of Mark within the Pauline sphere of influence... more An increasing number of scholars situate the Gospel of Mark within the Pauline sphere of influence. The centrality of Mark’s Passion story may lend itself to this interpretation, and Mark’s Gospel is frequently read as a narrativization of the Pauline kerygma on the vicarious death of Jesus. I intend to challenge this academic paradigm, drawing attention to the areas where the similarities have been exaggerated or the major differences overlooked in comparisons between Paul and Mark on this theme. Against the supposition that Mark’s emphasis on the soteriological significance of the crucifixion of Jesus can only be explained with reference to Paul, I will argue that the evangelist’s social location on the margins may account for the preoccupation with the redemptive value of Jesus’ suffering.
Due to the popularity of the name Marcus, C. Clifton Black has argued that there is no necessary ... more Due to the popularity of the name Marcus, C. Clifton Black has argued that there is no necessary identity between the John Mark of the book of Acts (12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:37-39) with the Mark(s) found in the Pauline corpus (Col 4:10; Phlm 24; 2 Tim 4:11), the first epistle of Peter (1 Pet 5:13) or the writings of Papias of Hierapolis (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.15). On the contrary, this paper will propose that the author of Luke-Acts was not only aware of Mark's connection with Paul and Barnabas, but also critically interacted with the developing traditions about the evangelist Mark. The positive and negative aspects of the literary characterization of John Mark may be a clue to the ambivalent reception of Mark's gospel in Luke-Acts.
There was no abstract conception of religion in antiquity, but religious beliefs and practices we... more There was no abstract conception of religion in antiquity, but religious beliefs and practices were closely intertwined with ethnicity in the Graeco-Roman period. Building on the groundbreaking studies of Denise Kimber Buell, I investigate the use of ethnic reasoning in centrist Christian identity formation with the epistle of Barnabas as a specific case study. The epistle of Barnabas utilizes ethnic reasoning to construct a distinct Christian ethnic identity and to manufacture sharp differences between Christian and Judaean social praxis. In order to promote the idea of a homogeneous Christian ethnic identity with pure origins, Barnabas re-appropriates the legacy of Israel while representing the ‘‘Judaean’’ as an adversaral foil. Il n’y avait pas de conception abstraite de la religion dans l’antiquité, mais les croyances et pratiques religieuses étaient étroitement entrelacées à l’ethnicité dans la période gréco-romaine. En me basant sur les études innovantes de Denise Kimber Buell...
The text entitled as the "Gospel according to Matthew" was written anonymously. Matthew, the form... more The text entitled as the "Gospel according to Matthew" was written anonymously. Matthew, the formerly despised tax collector whom Jesus appointed as one of his twelve apostles, is just briefly mentioned twice within its pages. The internal evidence within the text offers little support for the long-standing tradition accepted by innumerable Christians throughout the last two millennia that the Apostle Matthew was the evangelist who composed it. This has led Michael J. Kok to investigate anew the origins and development of the Patristic traditions about the Evangelist Matthew. Kok's investigation starts by tackling the question about why the Gospel of Matthew disagrees with the Gospels of Mark and Luke over the identity of the person whom Jesus approached when he was sitting at a toll booth near the Galilean village of Capernaum. Although it distinctively names Matthew as the tax collector in the narrative, it does not identify him as the one responsible for its composition. Kok's next step, then, is to ascertain why a tradition emerged in the early second century CE that Matthew recorded the oracles about the Lord in his native language before they were translated into Greek. Matthew's work was contrasted with Mark's rough draft documenting the words and deeds of Jesus that was based on his memories of what the Apostle Peter had preached. These traditions about the two evangelists may have had few adherents at first, but they eventually commanded unanimous consent among Christian interpreters once titles were affixed to the four Gospels identifying their authors as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the late second century. The postulation that there was an original edition of Matthew's Gospel in a Semitic language had far-reaching consequences when the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" was eventually ascribed to Matthew too. This re-examination of the internal and external evidence regarding Matthew's authorship of a Gospel has important historical and theological implications.
Second-century Christians had a significant role in shaping the import of the literary sources th... more Second-century Christians had a significant role in shaping the import of the literary sources that they inherited from the first century through their editorial revisions and the church traditions that they appended to them. Michael J. Kok critically investigates the supposed clues that encouraged select Christian intellectuals to infer that John, one of Jesus' chosen twelve apostles, was the mysterious ""disciple whom Jesus loved"" and to ascribe the fourth canonical Gospel as well as four other New Testament books back to him. Kok outlines how the image of Saint John of Ephesus was constructed. Not all early Christians approved of the fourth canonical Gospel and some expressed strong reservations about its theology, preferring to link it with a heretical adversary rather than with an authoritative Christian founder figure. Discover how the moves made in the second century were crucial for determining whether this Gospel would be preserved at all for posterity, much less as part of the scriptural collection of the developing Orthodox Church. ""In this compelling volume, Michael Kok enters a conversation fraught with centuries of complications--the identity of John's beloved disciple. How did it happen that the beloved disciple became synonymous both with John, the son of Zebedee, and the author of the fourth gospel? Kok's treatment carefully walks the reader through the various traditions, connecting them to the acceptance of John's Gospel within early expressions of Christian orthodoxy. This is a substantive and worthwhile read!"" --Christopher W. Skinner, Associate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Loyola University Chicago ""In The Beloved Apostle? Michael Kok does for the question of the authorship of the Gospel of John what he had previously done for Mark, namely offer an impressively even-handed treatment of both the traditions of the ancient church, and the internal evidence, neither uncritically embracing nor uncritically dismissing the traditional attribution to John the son of Zebedee. I only hope that Kok will go on to provide similar treatments for Matthew and Luke!"" --James McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University Michael J. Kok is a Sessional Lecturer in Theology at The King's University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is the author of The Gospel on the Margins: The Reception of Mark in the Second Century.
The Gospel of the Ebionites that is quoted seven times in Epiphanius’s Panarion is commonly dated... more The Gospel of the Ebionites that is quoted seven times in Epiphanius’s Panarion is commonly dated to the first half of the second century CE. The justification for dating it within this window is that it was likely composed after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE and the composition of the Synoptic Gospels, yet it may have been written before the harmony of the Synoptic Gospels with the Johannine Gospel in Tatian’s Diatessaron. Some scholars find earlier references to the Gospel of the Ebionites in the writings of Irenaeus, Clement, or Origen. On the contrary, I will argue that it should not be dated any earlier than the late second century CE.
"The Gospel of the Ebionites and the Synoptic Problem" Catholic Biblical Quarterly 86.2 (2024): pre-publication draft , 2024
David B. Sloan and James R. Edwards have revived the antique hypothesis that there was a single G... more David B. Sloan and James R. Edwards have revived the antique hypothesis that there was a single Gospel according to the Hebrews underlying the diverse Patristic testimonies about it and that it was a significant source behind the Synoptic tradition. Specifically, Sloan and Edwards equate this reconstructed text with either Q or L, two hypothetical sources in B. H. Streeter's classic solution to the Synoptic Problem, respectively. In this paper, I defend the common scholarly view that the text known to Epiphanius, which modern scholars entitle as the Gospel of the Ebionites to distinguish it from the Gospel according to the Hebrews, was a Greek text that, at points, harmonizes passages from the Synoptics. I will focus on this Gospel's baptism narrative to demonstrate that it replicates Matthean and Lukan redactional elements, thus making it unlikely to be the source of the Synoptic double tradition or the Lukan Sondergut.
Paul Within Judaism: Perspectives on Paul and Jewish Identity (ed. Michael Bird, Ruben A. Bühner, Jörg Frey, and Brian Rosner; WUNT 507; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023) , 2023
Although the Christology of the Ebionites in general, and the so-called Gospel of the Ebionites c... more Although the Christology of the Ebionites in general, and the so-called Gospel of the Ebionites cited by Epiphanius of Salamis in particular, has been commonly classified as adoptionist, the utility of the term ‘adoptionism’ has been recently called into question. This article will focus on the fragment about Jesus’ baptism in Panarion, 30.13.7–8 to determine whether it depicts Jesus’ adoption to divine sonship. Although the text does not use adoptionist terminology and imagery, Jesus does acquire a new christological identity in the pericope when he is possessed by the spirit and metaphorically begotten by the deity. This should be relabelled as a possessionist Christology. However, Epiphanius wrongly interpreted the text through the lens of Cerinthus’ Christology, in which Jesus is only temporarily inhabited by the Christ aeon between his baptism and his crucifixion.
Cerinthus was remembered as the adversary of John, the ‘disciple of the Lord’ who resided in the ... more Cerinthus was remembered as the adversary of John, the ‘disciple of the Lord’ who resided in the city of Ephesus in the late first century CE. This ‘John’ was either one of Jesus’s twelve apostles or another prominent Christian leader who ministered in the region of Asia Minor and came to be confused with the apostle of the same name (cf. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.4; 5.33.4; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.31.3; 3.39.4–7; 5.20.5–6; 5.24.2; 7.25.16). There are obstacles for the historian attempting to reconstruct Cerinthus’s biography because Cerinthus did not leave any writings for posterity and the sources about him were composed by uniformly hostile witnesses. For instance, the students of the second-century bishop Polycarp of Smyrna retold a tale about the day John noticed Cerinthus in a public bathhouse in Ephesus and exclaimed that the walls might collapse because the ‘enemy of the truth’ was inside the building (cf. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.4). The problem with t...
John 18:15–16 mentions an unknown disciple of Jesus who “was known to the high priest” giving him... more John 18:15–16 mentions an unknown disciple of Jesus who “was known to the high priest” giving him access to the events in Caiaphas’s courtyard. A minority of scholars maintain the identity of this disciple is consistent with John, the son of Zebedee, whom they also maintain was the author of the Fourth Gospel. To support this position, the commonplace fiction of Galilean fishermen belonging to an aspiring “middle-class” is asserted. This article reviews the arguments and suggests that a more robust representation of class stratification in the ancient world demonstrates the implausibility of such a scenario.
ABSTRACT In the academic study of Christian origins, scholars have classified various christologi... more ABSTRACT In the academic study of Christian origins, scholars have classified various christological systems of thought as “gnostic,” “docetic,” “adoptionist,” or “separationist.” This article will explore to what extent each of these taxonomic categories or ideal types corresponds to Cerinthus's postulation of the temporary union of the human Jesus with the divine Christ. It will further defend the accuracy of Irenaeus's description of Cerinthus's theological and christological positions and how they differed from those of the Jewish-Christian Ebionites on the one hand and a demiurgical theologian such as Carpocrates on the other.
An increasing number of scholars situate the Gospel of Mark within the Pauline sphere of influence... more An increasing number of scholars situate the Gospel of Mark within the Pauline sphere of influence. The centrality of Mark’s Passion story may lend itself to this interpretation, and Mark’s Gospel is frequently read as a narrativization of the Pauline kerygma on the vicarious death of Jesus. I intend to challenge this academic paradigm, drawing attention to the areas where the similarities have been exaggerated or the major differences overlooked in comparisons between Paul and Mark on this theme. Against the supposition that Mark’s emphasis on the soteriological significance of the crucifixion of Jesus can only be explained with reference to Paul, I will argue that the evangelist’s social location on the margins may account for the preoccupation with the redemptive value of Jesus’ suffering.
Due to the popularity of the name Marcus, C. Clifton Black has argued that there is no necessary ... more Due to the popularity of the name Marcus, C. Clifton Black has argued that there is no necessary identity between the John Mark of the book of Acts (12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:37-39) with the Mark(s) found in the Pauline corpus (Col 4:10; Phlm 24; 2 Tim 4:11), the first epistle of Peter (1 Pet 5:13) or the writings of Papias of Hierapolis (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.15). On the contrary, this paper will propose that the author of Luke-Acts was not only aware of Mark's connection with Paul and Barnabas, but also critically interacted with the developing traditions about the evangelist Mark. The positive and negative aspects of the literary characterization of John Mark may be a clue to the ambivalent reception of Mark's gospel in Luke-Acts.
There was no abstract conception of religion in antiquity, but religious beliefs and practices we... more There was no abstract conception of religion in antiquity, but religious beliefs and practices were closely intertwined with ethnicity in the Graeco-Roman period. Building on the groundbreaking studies of Denise Kimber Buell, I investigate the use of ethnic reasoning in centrist Christian identity formation with the epistle of Barnabas as a specific case study. The epistle of Barnabas utilizes ethnic reasoning to construct a distinct Christian ethnic identity and to manufacture sharp differences between Christian and Judaean social praxis. In order to promote the idea of a homogeneous Christian ethnic identity with pure origins, Barnabas re-appropriates the legacy of Israel while representing the ‘‘Judaean’’ as an adversaral foil. Il n’y avait pas de conception abstraite de la religion dans l’antiquité, mais les croyances et pratiques religieuses étaient étroitement entrelacées à l’ethnicité dans la période gréco-romaine. En me basant sur les études innovantes de Denise Kimber Buell...
The text entitled as the "Gospel according to Matthew" was written anonymously. Matthew, the form... more The text entitled as the "Gospel according to Matthew" was written anonymously. Matthew, the formerly despised tax collector whom Jesus appointed as one of his twelve apostles, is just briefly mentioned twice within its pages. The internal evidence within the text offers little support for the long-standing tradition accepted by innumerable Christians throughout the last two millennia that the Apostle Matthew was the evangelist who composed it. This has led Michael J. Kok to investigate anew the origins and development of the Patristic traditions about the Evangelist Matthew. Kok's investigation starts by tackling the question about why the Gospel of Matthew disagrees with the Gospels of Mark and Luke over the identity of the person whom Jesus approached when he was sitting at a toll booth near the Galilean village of Capernaum. Although it distinctively names Matthew as the tax collector in the narrative, it does not identify him as the one responsible for its composition. Kok's next step, then, is to ascertain why a tradition emerged in the early second century CE that Matthew recorded the oracles about the Lord in his native language before they were translated into Greek. Matthew's work was contrasted with Mark's rough draft documenting the words and deeds of Jesus that was based on his memories of what the Apostle Peter had preached. These traditions about the two evangelists may have had few adherents at first, but they eventually commanded unanimous consent among Christian interpreters once titles were affixed to the four Gospels identifying their authors as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the late second century. The postulation that there was an original edition of Matthew's Gospel in a Semitic language had far-reaching consequences when the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" was eventually ascribed to Matthew too. This re-examination of the internal and external evidence regarding Matthew's authorship of a Gospel has important historical and theological implications.
Second-century Christians had a significant role in shaping the import of the literary sources th... more Second-century Christians had a significant role in shaping the import of the literary sources that they inherited from the first century through their editorial revisions and the church traditions that they appended to them. Michael J. Kok critically investigates the supposed clues that encouraged select Christian intellectuals to infer that John, one of Jesus' chosen twelve apostles, was the mysterious ""disciple whom Jesus loved"" and to ascribe the fourth canonical Gospel as well as four other New Testament books back to him. Kok outlines how the image of Saint John of Ephesus was constructed. Not all early Christians approved of the fourth canonical Gospel and some expressed strong reservations about its theology, preferring to link it with a heretical adversary rather than with an authoritative Christian founder figure. Discover how the moves made in the second century were crucial for determining whether this Gospel would be preserved at all for posterity, much less as part of the scriptural collection of the developing Orthodox Church. ""In this compelling volume, Michael Kok enters a conversation fraught with centuries of complications--the identity of John's beloved disciple. How did it happen that the beloved disciple became synonymous both with John, the son of Zebedee, and the author of the fourth gospel? Kok's treatment carefully walks the reader through the various traditions, connecting them to the acceptance of John's Gospel within early expressions of Christian orthodoxy. This is a substantive and worthwhile read!"" --Christopher W. Skinner, Associate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Loyola University Chicago ""In The Beloved Apostle? Michael Kok does for the question of the authorship of the Gospel of John what he had previously done for Mark, namely offer an impressively even-handed treatment of both the traditions of the ancient church, and the internal evidence, neither uncritically embracing nor uncritically dismissing the traditional attribution to John the son of Zebedee. I only hope that Kok will go on to provide similar treatments for Matthew and Luke!"" --James McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University Michael J. Kok is a Sessional Lecturer in Theology at The King's University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is the author of The Gospel on the Margins: The Reception of Mark in the Second Century.
Scholars of the Gospel of Mark usually discuss the merits of patristic references to the Gospels ... more Scholars of the Gospel of Mark usually discuss the merits of patristic references to the Gospels origin and Marks identity as the interpreter of Peter. But while the question of the Gospels historical origins draws attention, no one has asked why, despite virtually unanimous patristic association of the Gospel with Peter, one of the most prestigious apostolic founding figures in Christian memory, Marks Gospel was mostly neglected by those same writers. Not only is the text of Mark the least represented of the canonical Gospels in patristic citations, commentaries, and manuscripts, but the explicit comments about the Evangelist reveal ambivalence about Marks literary or theological value. Michael J. Kok surveys the second-century reception of Mark, from Papias of Hierapolis to Clement of Alexandria, and finds that the patristic writers were hesitant to embrace Mark because they perceived it to be too easily adapted to rival Christian factions. Kok describes the story of Marks Petrine origins as a second-century move to assert ownership of the Gospel on the part of the emerging Orthodox Church.
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