The Gospel of Thomas

[Yoder777]

It's a strange idea that not having a narrative structure makes Thomas an unreliable witness to the historical Jesus. The epistles were written before the Gospels, are our oldest source to the historical Jesus, and they are not narrative in structure.

 

[Yoder777]

Relying on church fathers after the second century isn't very compelling as an argument against Thomas. It would be far more interesting to see what those contemporary to the Gospel of Thomas had to say.

 

[ebia]

John was written interdependently from the Synoptics in the sense that it doesn't rely on them yet it also compliments them in focusing on things that weren't covered in the Synoptics yet without contradicting them.

Saying "the same as for John" isn't an adequate response because the distinction are not like.

I'm asking about the hypotheticalcommunity that produced it? Did they have and use the synoptic tradition or not? It seem you have a major but different problem either way that you can't skirt around by saying "same as John" all the time.

 

[ebia]

It's a strange idea that not having a narrative structure makes Thomas an unreliable witness to the historical Jesus. The epistles were written before the Gospels, are our oldest source to the historical Jesus, and they are not narrative in structure.

The epistles have a whole heap implied narrative, but that's beside the point - they are embedded in what Jesus did rather that what he said. They proclaim the gospel - that Jesus is risen and therefor become Lord, and expand on how that action fits into the big picture and what its consequences are. They do not proclaim timeless truisms.

 

[ebia]

It's a strange idea that not having a narrative structure makes Thomas an unreliable witness to the historical Jesus. The epistles were written before the Gospels, are our oldest source to the historical Jesus, and they are not narrative in structure.

The epistles have a whole heap implied narrative, but that's beside the point - they are embedded in what Jesus did rather that what he said. They proclaim the gospel - that Jesus is risen and therefor become Lord, and expand on how that action fits into the big picture and what its consequences are. They do not proclaim timeless truisms.

And it's not that the structure in itself that makes it unreliable. what the structure does is throw away the context that would give us access to what the saying meant. A text removed from it's context is distorted - the epistles are not texts removed from their contexts in that way.

 

[ebia]

Have you never read a quote in a newspaper that is an accurate quote of what the person said, but has been completely distorted in meaning by removal from the context in which it was said?

Or even on CF for that matter.

You keep failing to engage with what people are saying to you. You need to attempt to address the problems to be taken seriously, not keep posting blurb for the same non-scholarly book that is, judging from the blurb, emphatically not taking the canonical new testament serious.

The canonical New Testament is not wisdom literature, its a declaration of what God has done in Jesus' death and resurrection, a declaration that that is the most important event since creation, and exposition on what the consequences of that are now and going into the future.

 

[ebia]

The idea behind it is that, to attain enlightenment, one must overcome the dichotomy of male and female and become a "living spirit." This is like Jesus in the canonical New Testament when he says there is no marriage in heaven because they will be like the angels.

1. That is not like what the New Testament says - the N.T. does not say we become living spirits, it says we don't need marriage in the resurrected life (because there is no death and therefore no need for reproduction).
2. Its also not what your Thomas text says. It does not say "gender disappears" but "she can become male".

 

[Yoder777]

The epistles have a whole heap implied narrative, but that's beside the point - they are embedded in what Jesus did rather that what he said. They proclaim the gospel - that Jesus is risen and therefor become Lord, and expand on how that action fits into the big picture and what its consequences are. They do not proclaim timeless truisms.

The Epistle of James, for example, is based almost entirely on what Jesus said rather than what he did.

 

[Yoder777]

1. That is not like what the New Testament says - the N.T. does not say we become living spirits, it says we don't need marriage in the resurrected life (because there is no death and therefore no need for reproduction).
2. Its also not what your Thomas text says. It does not say "gender disappears" but "she can become male".

If there is no reproduction in heaven, is that because there is no sexual difference between male and female? What interpretation is there of the last verse in Thomas if you compare to other passages in the same Gospel on transcending the distinction between male and female?

 

[ebia]

The Epistle of James, for example, is based almost entirely on what Jesus said rather than what he did.

I would strongly disagree.

 

[Yoder777]

I would strongly disagree.

The Gospel of Thomas focuses not just on what Jesus said but on what he did as well. By dying and rising, in being "the living Jesus" as Thomas constantly says of him, Jesus is able to make us sons of God, those who are able to see the Kingdom of God within this material world. People will not begin to start understanding Thomas until they are able to differentiate it from later Gnosticism. Thomas invites us to see the Kingdom of God within this world while later Gnosticism is against this world.

 

[ebia]

If there is no reproduction in heaven, is that because there is no sexual difference between male and female?

there's no need for reproduction because there is no death. There is not even a hint that gender will be done away with, which would run counter to the Genesis story.

What interpretation is there of the last verse in Thomas if you compare to other passages in the same Gospel on transcending the distinction between male and female?

the text we are talking does not say gender will be done away with - it very powerfully says women can and must become male. How you square that with anything else in Thomas us your problem.

 

[ebia]

Scratched records are fit for the bin. How much more so when they are just advertisments.

 

[ebia]

Let me know when the advert break is over and discussion is resumed.

 

[Yoder777]

What are the most compelling reasons for not treating Thomas as one would treat any other beneficial work of ancient Christian mysticism?

What is it about this saying, for example, that is unacceptable?

Love your brother as your own soul, guard him like the apple of your eye.

Or how about this one?

I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all returns. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.

Almost half of Thomas is paralleled in the canonical Gospels, and most, if not all of the sayings that are unique to Thomas have no substantial conflict with the canonical Gospels. In terms of content, does Thomas have more in common with Matthew, Mark, and Luke than John does?

While not a Gnostic Gospel, wasn't John written to appeal to Gnostic or proto-Gnostic sensibilities? If not, why does it stress such concepts as light/darkness and belief/ignorance so much more strongly than the synoptics? Why does John, like later Gnosticism, depict Jesus as one who comes from above and his followers as not of this world?

The point isn't that John is a Gnostic Gospel but that, like Thomas, it has some language that can interpreted as being Gnostic despite the Gospel as a whole having a very different theology from the creation-negating Gnosticism. Thomas' concept of the Kingdom of God is directly opposed to Gnosticism:

The Gospel of Thomas and the Kingdom of God


The Gospel of Thomas was discovered as part of the Nag Hammadi library in upper Egypt in 1945 as a complete text in Coptic. It had been previously known in fragments of a text in Greek discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt in 1898. It had also been mentioned in the works of the 3rd century church father Hippolytus. The first English translation was published in 1959. This gospel likely originates from Syrian Christianity at the end of the 1st century. Syria was immediately adjacent to Galilee on the north, while Judea was separated from Galilee by Samaria. Jesus was a Galilean, not a Judean. So it seems possible that Syrian Christianity may be more representative of what Jesus actually taught than Judean Christianity. Syria had an established Christian community as early as the 30s AD at which time Paul was making his way to Damascus to confront its Christian Church. The Gospel of Thomas is not a narrative story of the life of Jesus like the New Testament gospels. Rather it is a collection of 114 individual sayings, most of which begin with the phrase: "Jesus said..." Modern scholars believe that it may contain many authentic sayings that originate with the pre-Easter Jesus. It has many sayings that specifically involve the idea of the Kingdom of God.

In the Gospel of Thomas the Kingdom of God is not some place off in the distance or off in time. It is right here in front of us. It is here and now. While this is also suggested in verses from the New Testament canon, nowhere is it as clearly stated as within the Gospel of Thomas. One of its passages says:

His students said to him: When will the kingdom come? Jesus said: It will not come because you are watching for it. No one will announce, "Look, here it is," or "Look, there it is." The Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth and people do not see it.

Another passage states:

His students said to him: When will the dead rest? When will the new world come? He said to them: What you look for has come but you do not know it.

The Kingdom of God is not a place. It is a way of seeing the world. It is a direct knowing of reality. The concept of a God that is both transcendent and immanent underlies the Gospel of Thomas. There is no separation between God and the world. Everything is in and of God. Therefore to experience reality directly is to enter the Kingdom of God, and to enter the Kingdom of God is to know God directly. One of the most important passages in the gospel says:

If your leaders tell you, "Look, the kingdom is in the sky," then the birds of the heavens will precede you. If they say to you, "It's in the sea," then the fish will precede you. But the kingdom is inside you and it is outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are the children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty and you are poverty.


Another saying states:

Jesus said: If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you have nothing within you, what you do not have within you will kill you.

And another:

Jesus said: One who knows everything else but who does not know himself knows nothing.

The key point in the Gospel of Thomas is that we have to "know ourselves." Entering the Kingdom of God is the equivalent of knowing God directly. To know God, we must first know ourselves because God is part of our innermost being. That is the primary message of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas. The gospel also contains a whole series of "Kingdom sayings" that start with "The Father's kingdom is like..." These are a series of parables whose purpose is to challenge the reader to open up to a broader understanding of God. The gospel also contains many more sayings of a spiritual nature that are worthy of study by the modern Christian.
https://www.tcpc.org/library/article.cfm?library_id=420

 

[OzSpen]

Yoder777,

What are the most compelling reasons for not treating Thomas as one would treat any other beneficial work of ancient Christian mysticism?

It’s a polluted stream as illustrated by:

13) Jesus said to His disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell Me whom I am like."
Simon Peter said to Him, "You are like a righteous angel."
Matthew said to Him, "You are like a wise philosopher."
Thomas said to Him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom You are like."
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated by the bubbling spring which I have
measured out."
And He took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did
Jesus say to you?"
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire
will come out of the stones and burn you up."

114) Simon Peter said to Him, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of Life.” Jesus said, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”The early church regarded it as heretical, Eusebius (ca. 265-339) includes the Gospel of Thomas in his list of heretical writings.

See Eusebius’ greatest work, Ecclesiastical History 3.25.6, where he wrote:

But we have nevertheless felt compelled to give a catalogue of these also, distinguishing those works which according to ecclesiastical tradition are true and genuine and commonly accepted, from those others which, although not canonical but disputed, are yet at the same time known to most ecclesiastical writers— we have felt compelled to give this catalogue in order that we might be able to know both these works and those that are cited by the heretics under the name of the apostles, including, for instance, such books as the Gospels of Peter, of Thomas, of Matthias, or of any others besides them, and the Acts of Andrew and John and the other apostles, which no one belonging to the succession of ecclesiastical writers has deemed worthy of mention in his writings.
​

Oz

 

[ebia]

What are the most compelling reasons for not treating Thomas as one would treat any other beneficial work of ancient Christian mysticism?

What is it about this saying, for example, that is unacceptable?



Or how about this one?



Almost half of Thomas is paralleled in the canonical Gospels, and most, if not all of the sayings that are unique to Thomas have no substantial conflict with the canonical Gospels. In terms of content, does Thomas have more in common with Matthew, Mark, and Luke than John does?

While not a Gnostic Gospel, wasn't John written to appeal to Gnostic or proto-Gnostic sensibilities? If not, why does it stress such concepts as light/darkness and belief/ignorance so much more strongly than the synoptics? Why does John, like later Gnosticism, depict Jesus as one who comes from above and his followers as not of this world?

The point isn't that John is a Gnostic Gospel but that, like Thomas, it has some language that can interpreted as being Gnostic despite the Gospel as a whole having a very different theology from the creation-negating Gnosticism. Thomas' concept of the Kingdom of God is directly opposed to Gnosticism:

All of these questions have been addressed but you haven't engaged with the responses.

 

[brinny]

Gospel = good news, glad tidings.

What gospel is this book about (proclaiming)?

 

[OzSpen]

Gospel = good news, glad tidings.

What gospel is this book about (proclaiming)?

Why don't you take a read for yourself and tell us which gospel it is proclaiming? See, The Gospel of Thomas.

Oz

 

[Hammster]

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