The New Testament Mysticism Project Seminar (NTMPS) was organized under the auspices of the Society of Biblical Literature to facilitate the study of early Jewish and Christian mystical traditions in the New Testament writings.

The NTMPS understands early Jewish and Christian mysticism as a tradition located within formative Judaism and Christianity, a tradition centering on the belief that a person directly, immediately and before death can experience God or his manifestation. These mystical encounters occur as waking visions, dreams, trances and auditions. Usually this experience is garnered after certain preparations are made or rituals performed, although it can also be the result of rapture. The Jewish and Christian mystics most often describe their experiences in terms of spirit possession and ascent journeys. The culmination of the experience is transformative in the sense that the mystic is invested with heavenly knowledge, joins the choir of angels in worship before the throne, or is glorified in body.

The main goals of the New Testament Mysticism Project Seminar include the following:

1. defining the major mystical paradigms in the New Testament writings, their corresponding empirical indicators (distinct symbols, technical vocabulary, etc.) and the ways they emerge in the text;

2. determining (through the analysis of the emerging clusters) the distinct features and the stage of development of the major mystical paradigms of the New Testament authors (Mark, Matthew, Luke, Paul, etc.) as well as the main heroes of the texts, including the figures of authority (Peter, James, John, Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Paul, etc.);

3. exploring the interrelationships between the features of mystical paradigms of the authors and the features of mystical paradigms of the heroes of the New Testament writings;

4. tracing and understanding the reception history of selected NT passages through the Ante-Nicene period, with particular care to understand their emergence as mystical traditions in other contexts.

 

 

 

The NTMPS Commentary:

The Seminar members plan to collectively write a commentary covering mysticism in the New Testament. The Seminar will progress systematically through each New Testament text, writing overviews of each text as well as commentaries on relevant pericopes. Each entry will include the original language passage, a new translation, a line-by-line commentary, an interpretative history of the pericope through the Ante-Nicene period, literature parallels, and select bibliography. Entries will be discussed at the meetings, revised, and edited by April D. DeConick, Andrei Orlov and Kevin Sullivan into a three-volume commentary called New Testament Mysticism. Volume 1: The Synoptic Gospels, Luke-Acts, Johannine Literature, and the Catholic Epistles. Volume 2: The Pauline and Deutro-Pauline Epistles. Volume 3: Hebrews and Revelation.