Category: Reception History

CANT 78.3, Hospitality and Perfume of the Bandit: Critical Edition in Progress

Mark Bilby

Always enjoyable to come back to paleography. Today’s task is to finish my critical edition of CANT 78.3, The Hospitality and Perfume of the Bandit, based on a collation of texts found in two manuscripts, Vatican Library Lat. 6300 and British Library Harley 3199. The story is likely 13th or 14th century, one among several medieval variations of the Good Thief’s hospitality to the Holy Family during their sojourn to Egypt.

This story is unique in that it ties the miraculous perfume the Good Thief receives from Jesus’ mother Mary to the alabaster-carried perfume that Mary Magdalene used to anoint the feet of Jesus.

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Self-Archived Open Access Publications Uploaded and ORCID Updated

Mark Bilby

After obtaining or checking for permission with my publishers, I’ve uploaded open access versions of many of my recent publications. All of these self-archived publications now have DOIs and are linked in my ORCID record. This was also a good reminder to update my ORCID record more generally, so I added all of my missing presentations and service work. I’m almost up to 100 academic works!

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RLST 201: Week 6-14 Highlights

Mark Bilby

Where has time flown? The last week of the semester is upon us. During the last half of the semester, I participated more in specific discussion threads instead of giving the bird’s eye view that I had during the first part of the semester. Given that, I thought a selection of highlights from my posts would be useful to share.

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RLST 201: Week 5 Discussion Summary

Mark Bilby

There were many rich insights this week, which made it difficult to know where to focus my summary reflections. If time were not so limited, I would enjoy following up with pages of reflection on any of the following:

  • The patriarchal and patrilineal bias in the Lukan genealogy, and what the virgin birth of Jesus could have meant in terms of his membership in humanity.
  • The baptismal practices of the Essenes (Dead Sea Sectarians), how John the Baptist is reminiscent of the Essenes, as is Jesus in his desert sojourn.
  • The connections between Aesop’s stories and Jesus’ temptation.
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