The Gospel of Thomas

[kiwimac]

I would like to discuss this Gospel. If you are familiar with it leap right in, if you are not here is a link to it

What do you think about this Gospel, does anything here speak to you, if so, why? is there anything you disagree with, if so, again why?

Kiwimac

 

[Buttons*]

muahahahhahahaahah

i love all this interest in the Gnostic forum all of a sudden

It's a rather intricate gospel to discuss... would you perhaps rather select a verse or so at a time to share your opinion and then have the rest of us give ours? There's a discussion of John too... if i could ever get my lazy arse back into it....

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I'm interested in Thomas' relationship to Q; redactions of Thomas; how many early churches knew of it; how many churches used it in worship or rejected it; and when it was written and by which group.

 

[Buttons*]

When was the Gospel of Thomas written?


This is a question hotly debated by scholars. Many scholars say that it was written at about the same time, even perhaps somewhat before, the gospels in the bible. Their argument is that most of the sayings in Thomas show no signs of having any dependence on, or knowledge of, the Biblical gospels and so Thomas' sayings derive from oral tradition and not from written Biblical texts. This doesn't seem to have been possible after the end of the first century when the Biblical texts began to be authoritative in Christianity. Other scholars find bits of evidence that indicate that Thomas was indeed dependent, in part, on Biblical texts, and surmise that the author of Thomas must have edited out almost all indications of the particular styles and ideas of the Biblical authors. Those scholars date Thomas in the mid second century A.D.

...hopefully this answers a few of your questions. A ton of unknowns concerning this scripture. I'll keep looking for more in for for you Nate

 

[angellous_evangellous]

that the author of Thomas must have edited out almost all indications of the particular styles and ideas of the Biblical authors.

This is most interesting.

 

[Buttons*]

perhaps this is better:

What is Q and what does it have to do with Thomas?


If you realize that Matthew and Luke are revised versions of Mark you will see that an extended set of sayings are in Matthew and Luke that do not occur in Mark. Those sayings, it is generally agreed in scholarship, were taken by both Matthew and Luke from a mid-first century document that consisted of a list of Jesus' sayings. That document, which German scholars called "Quelle," has come to be known as Q. It does not exist any longer, but it can be recovered by analysis of Matthew and Luke (simply put, Q was the written list of sayings that we find both in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark). Q was nothing more than a list of sayings. The Gospel of Thomas is also nothing more than a list of sayings. Many of the sayings are the same, but most of the sayings in Thomas are not in Q. Thomas is the same sort of thing as Q was but Thomas is not Q. Probably Thomas and Q circulated separately in the middle or the later part of the first century. Their points of view are quite different, Thomas stresses the presence of the Kingdom of God now. Q insists that the Kingdom of God will arrive at some future time.

 

[Buttons*]

This is most interesting.

why's that?

 

[michel]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/qthomas.html

For New Testament scholars, one of the most interesting things about this gospel is that its author (who calls himself Didymos Judas Thomas) appears to have used sayings from the same collection used by Matthew and Luke. But for this author and his community, the meaning of these sayings was clearly very different. The Gospel of Thomas, therefore, provided exciting new evidence for the existence of an earlier collection of sayings used by a variety of Christian communities.


In 1989, a team of researchers led by James M. Robinson of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity in Claremont, CA, began a most unlikely task: the "reconstruction" of the Gospel of Q. Robinson and his team are accomplishing this by a highly detailed literary analysis of Matthew, Luke, and Thomas. Their painstaking work goes "verse by verse, word by word, case ending by case ending." After nearly ten years of work, the results of their efforts are soon to be published as the Critical Edition of Q. The "recovery" of the Q gospel has stimulated a debate about the nature early Christian communities, and by extension, the origins of Christianity itself. One scholar, Burton Mack, has advanced a radical thesis: that at least some Christian communities did not see Jesus as a Messiah; they saw him as a teacher of wisdom, a man who tried to teach others how to live. For them, Jesus was not divine, but fully human. These first followers of Jesus differed from other Christians whose ritual and practice was centered on the death and the resurrection of Jesus. Their did not emerge as the "winners" of history; perhaps because the maintaining the faith required the existence of a story that included not only the life of Jesus but also his Passion.

Which leads in to a useful site: http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl_thomas.htm

 

[Halcyon]

I'm interested in Thomas' relationship to Q; redactions of Thomas; how many early churches knew of it; how many churches used it in worship or rejected it; and when it was written and by which group.

See, i don't really see Thomas as a strictly Gnostic Gospel, i reckon pretty much all of the sayings can be interpreted from the orthodox perspective too.

Although there is some bits about God being everywhere, not just in the Church or preisthood, that's why i reckon it was rejected.
Also, it doesn't really flow with the other four gospels in the NT, which were all chosen for their underlying themes of faith, substitutionary atonement and continuity with the Tanach. A sayings Gospel is too open to radical interpretation.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

See, i don't really see Thomas as a strictly Gnostic Gospel, i reckon pretty much all of the sayings can be interpreted from the orthodox perspective too.

Although there is some bits about God being everywhere, not just in the Church or preisthood, that's why i reckon it was rejected.
Also, it doesn't really flow with the other four gospels in the NT, which were all chosen for their underlying themes of faith, substitutionary atonement and continuity with the Tanach. A sayings Gospel is too open to radical interpretation.

Jay mentioned that Bart Ehrman argues convincingly that Thomas is Gnostic in a recent book that I have not yet read:

Ehrman, Bart (2003). The Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0195141830.

Anyway, the characteristics for locating and defining Gnosticism before the forth century is a shady business anyway, so I know exactly where you're coming from. I suspect that Thomas is just as Gnostic as the canonical Paul, John, and Marcion. I'm sticking with the conventional view that Thomas is a Gnostic or at least proto-Gnostic (and a lot of other stuff in the NT fits here as well, but I'm back into the gray area ) document until some other classification is useful to me in an argument that I care about.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

why's that?

Because that theory creates more questions than it answers, and I cannot imagine what kind of evidence was used to come to that conclusion.

It seems safer to assume that the writer had an original style than to assume that the writer took something independent of it and completely changed a style.:sarcastic

If the writer did change the style, why? We cannot conclude that he changed a style unless we can answer that question first.

Does a change in style increase or decrease credibility?

Is there precendece for this in the ancient world? It seems that people would usually adapt a style for credibility...

Is there evidence in the Gospel itself that suggests that a redactor (or several) removed portions that could have been in the original style?

 

[Halcyon]

Jay mentioned that Bart Ehrman argues convincingly that Thomas is Gnostic in a recent book that I have not yet read:

Ehrman, Bart (2003). The Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0195141830.

Sounds interesting, might have to acquire a copy.

Anyway, the characteristics for locating and defining Gnosticism before the forth century is a shady business anyway, so I know exactly where you're coming from. I suspect that Thomas is just as Gnostic as the canonical Paul, John, and Marcion. I'm sticking with the conventional view that Thomas is a Gnostic or at least proto-Gnostic (and a lot of other stuff in the NT fits here as well, but I'm back into the gray area ) document until some other classification is useful to me in an argument that I care about.

Hmmm, well i'm just going from personal experience here. I've, obviously, read the text several times, and each time i find myself thinking "why was this offensive to the orthodox?" I see no problem with it being a Gnostic text, the more the better, i just don't see a great deal of gnosticism in the text itself.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

i find myself thinking "why was this offensive to the orthodox?"

My rather uninformed theory is that most churches simply didn't have access to it. For whatever reason Thomas was not circulated with Paul or the Gospels, not associated with a region or church that had apostolic authority, and therefore not used in worship in the proto-orthodox churches. To meet these critera it did not need to cause offense with heavily developed Gnostic themes and therefore obviously demonstrate to us why early leaders would be offended by it.

 

[Halcyon]

My rather uninformed theory is that most churches simply didn't have access to it. For whatever reason Thomas was not circulated with Paul or the Gospels, not associated with a region or church that had apostolic authority, and therefore not used in worship in the proto-orthodox churches. To meet these critera it did not need to cause offense with heavily developed Gnostic themes and therefore obviously demonstrate to us why early leaders would be offended by it.

Could be.

Irenaeus mentions a Thomas doesn't he, but i don't think we know if he meant this gospel or one of the many other gospels with Thomas in the title. Tis a mystery.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Could be.

Irenaeus mentions a Thomas doesn't he, but i don't think we know if he meant this gospel or one of the many other gospels with Thomas in the title. Tis a mystery.

You're right, and no one else knows either.