Ed. Note: The following is a collection of my contributions
to various debates regarding the Gospel of Thomas, on Crosstalk, the
pioneer email conference hosted by Harper San Francisco, & its
successor Crosstalk 2, moderated by Jeffrey Gibson. These
have been conservatively cleaned up for publication while preserving
the original ad hoc character of the discussion. Besides
orthographical & grammatical corrections, the current edition has
some added typographical polish and editorial clarification. But
other features characteristic of email have
been retained -- e.g. common abbreviations or technical scholarly
shorthand & Latinate transcription of Greek or Semitic characters.
An alphabetical table of these items is provided in the appendix to
this page.
The issues in dispute in the posts below are:
1. The identity Thomas.
2. Whether Thom 12 is reliable evidence of HJ.
3. Whether Thom 12 is evidence of an early date for
GThom.
4. Whether all works that promote James are
to be dated early.
5. Whether synoptic gospels are older than
GThom.
6. Whether GThom is indirectly
dependent on synoptic gospels.
7. Whether the form of a saying in GThom is
earlier than synoptic parallels.
8. Whether GThom is derived from Q [see
also 9 under Questions
about Q].
9. Whether GThom is a later gnosticized copy
of Q.
10. Whether GThom is closer to Luke or to Matt.
11. Whether GThom is an eclectic selection of
sayings from Matt & Luke.
12. Why GThom has parallels to sayings from all
sources of canonical gospels.
13. Whether GThom is independent of the synoptics.
14. Whether parallels to synoptic sayings in GThom are
random.
15. Whether the compilers of GThom were
"scatter-brained".
16. Whether GThom parallels to canonical sayings are
composites.
17. Whether GThom show any sign of literary dependence
on synoptic gospels.
18. Whether GThom is derived from any written source or
oral tradition.
19. Whether Thom 100 urges people to pay taxes.
20. In what type of setting was GThom composed.
21. Responsibility for new look at GThom.
I am indebted to the following partners in dialog for having
provided the intellectual stimuli that prompted me to think these
issues through:
Andrew Bernhard,
graduate student in History at U of Oxford. Website: Gospels.net.
E. Bruce Brooks, Prof.
of Chinese, U of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Stephen C. Carlson, patent lawyer. Website: Synoptic
Problem HomePage.
James R. Covey, systems developer, Cochran
Interactive.
Stevan L. Davies, Prof. of Religious Studies, College of
Misericordia. Website: Thomas
Homepage.
Mark S. Goodacre, Department of Theology, U of Birmingham, UK.
Website: NT Gateway.
Michael W.
Grondin, computer programmer. Website: Codex
II Student Resource Center.
Antonio Jerez, journalist, Sweden.
Jack Kilmon, paleographer & former student of W. F. Albright.
Website: The Scriptorium.
Peter Kirby. Website: Early
Christian Writings.
Robert M. Schacht, Research specialist, Northern Arizona U.
Jim West, Adjunct Prof., Quartz Hill School of Theology. Website: Biblical
Studies Resources.
I have not space here to represent their arguments in full.. Those who wish
to follow the Crosstalk debate on Thomas can find it in a less
edited format in Andrew Bernhard's catalog of Additional
Information on GThom. Posts dated after August 1998 are found
in the archives of Crosstalk 2.
----
Mahlon H. Smith
Professor Emeritus
Department of Religion
Rutgers University
New Brunswick NJ
|
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 03:04
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Jack Kilmon
CC: Crosstalk
Subject: GThom, Logion 12
Jack Kilmon wrote:
Prof. Smith:
As one who supports a very early and independent
GThomas, I would like to know more about the JS rating of black
for Logion 12. The "Five Gospels" say little except
for the supposition that
conflict over leadership arose only after the death of Jesus and that
"this saying looks back on Jesus, rather than reflects events in
his own lifetime." But, of course, so do the canonical
Gospels. I think
Logion 12 is genuinely Yeshuine from the standpoint of dissimilarity
as well as historical verification. After all, James did assume
leadership after the death of Jesus and it is reasonable to assume that leadership was bequeathed to him by his older
brother. Since this bequeathal saying is verified by the
historicity of the post-passion N'tarim and in the early
writings of Paul, I was quite surprised that it was designated
black. Is there a firmer foundation for this rating than what I
read in The Five Gospels?
Jack
Hi Jack!
First of all let me ask you to drop this Prof. stuff -- especially
when it comes to the subject of the JS. 12 years at the Seminar's
roundtable with scholars the like of Funk, Crossan, Borg, Chilton, et
al has confirmed me as a dedicated intellectual egalitarian. I
have always lived by Matt 23:8-12. Even though I no longer believe
that this can be reliably traced to Yeshu bar Yosef, it remains what
Bob Funk would call "true fiction": i.e., the sort of thing
the historical Jesus might have said (coherence), even if the
character of the textual evidence does not allow a historian to claim
he probably did. This is just a long-winded way of saying: please call
me Mahlon.
Now to Thomas 12. I've been attracted to this saying ever since I read
Thomas 30 years ago & always thought a good case could be made for
it being genuine. It certainly isn't a gnostic creation & probably
came from Jacobite circles in Palestinian Jewish Christianity. I
recall voting pink (fits the environment but is only attested in one
source). But I am fuzzy on the discussion of this saying & I have
no notes about it to fall back on. Steve Patterson, who steered the
discussion & voting
process on GThom sayings, would know. I think I can figure out
why this one got black. But to do so I'll have to clarify the JS
agenda & procedure. So bear with a bit of background.
The goal of the first 6 year phase of our work was to evaluate every
saying that could have circulated independently of a narrative or text
as an oral logion (more than 1500, counting parallels). This was a prodigious undertaking that did not allow equal weight or time to be
given to every saying (with only 2 weekend sessions per year). Every
multiply attested saying was automatically given some air time. But
there were written papers on only those that merited detailed research
(controversial passages, well-known pronouncements, hard sayings,
etc.) to enable the Fellows to make an enlightened objective estimate
of the passage's value as historically reliable data. Naturally,
sayings that were the subjects of papers got the most discussion.
After completing multiply attested sayings we reviewed singly attested
saying by gospel. Here priority for papers & discussion was given
to sayings that the program steering committee of specialists in that
gospel thought had at least a passing chance of being considered
genuine. Evidently, Thomas 12 was not given top priority by the Thomas
committee, so no paper was presented on it. Yet I do recall it getting
some discussion. Though I'm fuzzy on the specifics in this particular
case, the line of reasoning that led this saying to be voted black
runs something like this:
1. A singly attested saying can be traced to the pen of
the scribe who wrote it (in this case "Thomas").
2. Since all gospel texts are written after Jesus' death,
the burden of proof is always on the person who claims that the saying
goes back to Jesus himself. The mere claim or possibility that Jesus
could have said something is not evidence that he actually did.
3. The only way to prove a singly attested saying is not
a scribal invention is to produce evidence that scribe probably did
not invent it (dissimilarity of style, theme, etc.; awkwardness,
difficulty in assimilating it).
4. Even if a saying can be shown to have pre-existed a
particular text it cannot be confidently credited to Jesus without
producing evidence that it is not likely to have entered the tradition
from some other source oral or written (common lore or some earlier
text). Material that is dialectically difficult (i.e., contradicts
common opinion) or socially embarrassing in a Christian context is
easier to
trace to Jesus than material that is not.
5. After the fact records of predictions of things that
actually happened are never admissible as historical evidence, because
there is no way of distinguishing recollection from retrojection. Did
Jesus anticipate his death? Possibly, even probably -- unless he was totally
oblivious the the controversy swirling around him. Can one prove that
gospel sayings anticipating Jesus death were uttered by him? No. For
our only sources are scribes who were themselves in position to know
what actually happened. Did the disciples anticipate Jesus death?
Given the unanimous insistence of the canonical gospels that they did
not, this seems improbable (if they did, one would have to account for
the rise of a multiply attested tradition that they did not).
6.Thomas 12 is not a historically reliable report
of a dialog between Jesus & his disciples before his death
because:
a. The disciples anticipate Jesus departure (which
in fact happened);
b. Jesus anticipates the prominence of James (which
in fact happened).
Thomas 12 could have been invented by any of several sources:
a. the Jacobite wing of Syro-Palestinian Jewish
Christians seeking to champion the primacy of their hero over closer
companions of Jesus (Kephas, the sons of Zebedee).
b. James himself seeking to validate his claim to
leadership of the Jerusalem church after his brother's death;
c. Jesus himself.
Of these the third is the least historically provable given multiply
attested gospel references to tensions between Jesus & his
brothers.
One can speculate on a reconciliation between Jesus & James prior
to Jesus crucifixion. But this saying is not reliable evidence that
this event actually occurred.
Peace!
Mahlon
|
Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 13:32
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Crosstalk 2
Subject: Dating GThom
Jon Peter wrote:
Would anyone care to list reasons why Logion 12 (reference to James as J's
successor)
is discounted as a basis for an earlier dating of GThom ?
Not I! That's another aspect of GThom that advocates of a late date for
this collection either overlook or squirm to discount. If GThom
was dependent for its material on the synoptics -- as advocates of
canonical priority are inclined to claim -- then it would most likely
have named Peter as J's successor à la Matt 16:18.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Sat, 09 Oct 1999 02:21
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Crosstalk2
Subject: Dating GThom (silly question!)
Antonio Jerez wrote:
May I come with a counter-question: does the fact that "gnostic" works like the Apocryphon
of James, the Apocalypse of James I and II (all also found at Nag Hammadi)
also mention James give us reason to suppose that they must also have been
written in the 50s CE ?
Its not the mere mention of James that makes this logion early,
Antonio. It is (1) its decidedly non-gnostic & thoroughly authentic Semitic flavor ("...Ya'akov ha Zedek for whose sake heaven & earth came into being") &
(2) its presupposition of a leadership void & innocence of any claim of
Petrine primacy. The pseudo-Jacobite literature of the 2nd & 3rd c. CE
is totally different in style & content & has nothing to commend it as
the product of a Jewish Xn party of the mid 1st c. CE. In fact the infancy gospel of James' claim that Mary was raised by priests in the
temple shows such ignorance of Judaism as to make it ludicrous.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 01:21
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Peter Kirby
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: Thomas an "offshoot" of Q?
Peter Kirby wrote:
Earl Doherty claims that the Gospel of Thomas is an "offshoot" of an early
stage of Q. He says further that Thomas originally had no historical Jesus, and that a redactor simply went through and added "Jesus said" to
the sayings. I am not aware of any arguments offered for these beliefs.
Indeed, I know of no other scholar who holds this position, so it is a bit
difficult for me to refute. What follows are only my musings concerning
Earl's hypothesis on Thomas.
Any good hypothesis must be falsifiable. There must be a way to either
confirm or disconfirm a scientific suggestion. In order to test it, we
need some predictions based on the hypothesis.
What follows are some of the things that I came up with (in chemistry class), which may confirm Earl's theory if they turn out to be true.
<SNIP>
Peter:
Pretty good set of hypotheses. Here's a synopsis of my read of the
evidence:
>1. (Every Q//Thomas parallel is in Q1) &
>2. (Every Q1 verse is in Q//Thomas). are really tautologous since one can simply define Q1 as Q sayings with Thomas parallels. I.e., even if the test is positive it proves nothing unless one has first established Q1 by independent criteria
à la Kloppenborg or Mack.
>3. (There is a relationship between the order of sayings in Thomas and Q1).
Textual evidence proves FALSE. Some sayings which are conjoined in Q are
scattered in Thomas. Some sayings which are separate in Q are fused in
Thomas.
>4. (The later Thomasine redactions have a consistent theme).
Sometimes true. Thomas likes statements about unity that can be
interpreted as typically Thomasine redaction.
>5. (The later Thomasine redactors insert second century Gnosticism).
Depends on how one defines "2nd c. gnosticism." Thomas is strikingly
devoid of Apocryphon of John stuff but some sayings are amenable to a
gnosticism like that of the Dialogue of the Savior or Valentinus' Gospel
of Truth. These are quite distinguishable from the Q parallels however.
>6. (There is no sign of oral tradition behind the Thomasine
redactions).
Textual evidence proves FALSE. Thomas is much more oral
than Q. Even Q1 has marks of literary composition (e.g., the sermon &
couplets with similar themes) that are not preserved in Thomas. Q has no
doublets (i.e., duplicated or echoed sayings) while Thomas has several.
>7. (The Q//Thomas sayings have no reference to the speaker). &
>8. (Generally, the sayings in Thomas have no reference to the speaker).
??? The only reason Q sayings do not refer to the speaker is that Q is
reconstructed by extraction from Matthew/Luke where references to the
speaker are usually regarded as belonging to the redactional narrative
frame. But Q1 must at least have had an incipit like GThom that credited
the contents (rightly or wrongly) to Jesus & Q2 must have had some
mechanism for distinguishing the oracles of JB from sayings of Jesus or
else Matthew & Luke would not have both credited the opening Q sayings
to JB. There also may have been Thomas-like "Jesus said" or "And he
said" prefaces to a number of Q1 sayings that both Matthew & Luke
dropped in favor of more refined prefaces. In any case the ascription to
a speaker is secondary in any sayings collection (i.e., it is the
product of a transmitter rather than the original speaker). So, its
presence or absence does not prove very much. If anything GThom's
monotonous repetition of "Jesus said" is a mark of orality, while the
absence of the same in Q at every level is a sign of literary
refinement.
>9. (There are sayings that don't make sense in the mouth of
Jesus).
That's true of every level of the gospel tradition. Everybody then & now
wants to use Jesus to endorse what one already believes whether he
really did or not. So the presence of sayings that are better attributed
to someone else proves nothing. What is striking however is that Thomas
does not tend to repeat Q sayings that are dubiously ascribed to Jesus &
vice-versa, so the Q//Thom is a pretty good filter for isolating primary
Jesus material. I say pretty good because there are some singly attested
Q or GThom sayings that are better ascribed to Jesus than to a later
redactor.
>10.(There is no narrative material in Thomas).
??? Not true. It's just that the "narrative" (generally in dialogs) in
GThom is more rudimentary (they said/he said) than the traces of
narrative in Q, which Mark Goodacre has summarized.
I'd propose 2 more hypotheses that can readily be falsified which if true would indicate that the text of GThom was derivative from Q1:
11. Sayings that are random in Q are organized in Thomas.
Patently FALSE. Precisely the opposite is the case. Q tends to use
blocks of similar sayings (couplets, clusters, & even a sermon) while
Thomas often scatters aphorisms with similar motifs that are linked in
Q. The problem of proving GThom's dependence on Q is analogous to the
problem of proving Luke's dependence on Matthew. In both cases the
author of the allegedly dependent work would have had to have been a
disciple of Derrida, bent on dismantling well-constructed compositions.
12. Thomas presents more embellished versions of parallel sayings than
Q.
Again, demonstrably FALSE. Lining up the Q/Thomas parallels shows that
Thomas regularly has the shorter, logically simpler form of the saying
in question.
The only way to maintain that Thom is an offshoot of Q is to hypothesize
that it is only indirectly dependent & that the compiler of Thomas
was citing Q sayings from a very faulty memory. The problem with this
hypothesis is that it often can be demonstrated that the Thomasine
version of a given saying is logically tighter than the Q version.
In other words, if there is any direct relationship between GThom & Q it
is more likely that Q was a literary offshoot of GThom 1 rather than vice-versa,
because it is more polished.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 05:16
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Jim West
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: Thomas/Q project
Jim West wrote:
Thanks to Bob [Schacht] for collating the results. It seems that the original contention,
i.e., that Luke is more like Thomas than Matthew has in fact been demonstrated.
What does this mean?
I would like to suggest that Q and Thomas were very similar, and that
the possibility exists that Thomas is simply a later copy of Q. What
do I mean? Simply put, Thomas is Q redacted by a proto-gnostic. <SNIP>
That's an interesting twist on the usual conservative assumption of canonical priority
over any non-canonical text, Jim.
Maybe we need a 2nd Q/Thomas project to test your last thesis ;-)
But I am dubious that redaction (if any) was in this direction, simply on the
basis of a compositional comparison of Q & Thomas. If Thomas was
editing Q then he was even more a disciple of Derrida than Luke (i.e., acc. to
those who claim that Luke redacted Matt). If Luke deconstructed
Matt's elegant thematic speeches, he at least left some blocks of sayings intact. But if Thomas edited Q, he left none. I stand to be
corrected by any Thomas expert, but the only pair of Thomas sayings
that appear in synoptic sequence that I can recall off the top of my head are
Thom 65-66. And the synoptic source of these is not Q but Mark. A quick glance
through Crossan's Sayings Parallels (Fortress, 1985) -- the workbook of
the JS, which BTW gave priority to Matthew's
sequence -- should be enough to show the improbability that Thomas
redacted Q in any form. Here's a sample from the sermon: ( [ ] = sayings that are probably NOT Q)
Poor blessed: |
Matt 5:3 |
Luke 6:20 |
Thom 54 |
Sad blessed: |
Matt 5:4 |
Luke 6:21b |
-- |
[Meek blessed:] |
[Matt 5:5] |
-- |
-- |
Hungry blessed : |
Matt 5:6 |
Luke 6:21a |
Thom 69:2 |
[Merciful blessed :] |
[Matt 5:7] |
-- |
-- |
[Pure blessed :] |
[Matt 5:8] |
-- |
-- |
[Peacemakers:] |
[Matt 5:9] |
-- |
-- |
[Persecuted :] |
[Matt 5:10] |
-- |
Thom 69:1 |
You when hated: |
Matt 5:11 |
Luke 6:22 |
Thom 68 |
Like prophets: |
Matt 5:12 |
Luke 6:23 |
-- |
[Salt salted] |
Matt 5:13 |
Luke 14:34f |
Mark 9:50 |
[Light of world:] |
[Matt 5:14a] |
-- |
Thom 24:3 |
[City on hill:] |
[Matt 5:14b] |
-- |
Thom 32 |
Lamp & bushel: |
Matt 5:15 |
Luke 11:33 |
Thom 33:2 |
[Good works:] |
[Matt 5:16] |
-- |
-- |
[Fulfill Torah:] |
[Matt 5:17] |
-- |
-- |
Not one dot: |
Matt 5:18 |
Luke 16:17 |
-- |
(Since much of the rest of Matt 5-7 is not in either Luke or Thom, I will list only those passages that are probably Q).
Accuser: |
Matt 5:25f |
Luke 12:58f |
-- |
Divorce: |
Matt 5:32 |
Luke 16:18 |
-- |
Other cheek: |
Matt 5:39 |
Luke 6:29 |
-- |
Beggars: |
Matt 5:42a |
Luke 6:30a |
-- |
Borrowers: |
Matt 5:42b |
-- |
Thom 95 |
Love enemies: |
Matt 5:44 |
Luke 6:27f , 35a |
-- |
Sons of God: |
Matt 5:45 |
Luke 6:35b |
-- |
What credit: |
Matt 5:46f |
Luke 6:32ff |
-- |
Like Father: |
Matt 5:48 |
Luke 6:36 |
-- |
[Left/right hand:] |
[ Matt 6:3] |
-- |
Thom
62:2 |
"Lord's" prayer: |
Matt 6:9-13 |
Luke 11:2-4 |
-- |
Treasure/moths: |
Matt 6:19f |
Luke 12:33 |
Thom 76:2 |
Treasure/heart: |
Matt 6:21 |
Luke 12:34 |
-- |
Eye/lamp: |
Matt 6:22f |
Luke 11:34-6 |
-- |
2 Masters: |
Matt 6:24 |
Luke 16:13 |
Thom 47:2 |
Don't worry: |
Matt 6:25-33 |
Luke 12:22-31 |
Thom 36 |
Judgment/measure: |
Matt 7:1f |
Luke 6:37f |
-- |
Speck/log: |
Matt 7:3-5 |
Luke 6:41f |
Thom 26 |
Ask/seek/knock: |
Matt 7:7f |
Luke 11:9f |
Thom 2, 92, 94 |
Fathers' gifts: |
Matt 7:9-11 |
Luke 11:11f |
-- |
Golden rule: |
Matt 7:12 |
Luke 6:31 |
Thom 6:2b |
Narrow door: |
Matt 7:13f |
Luke 13:24 |
-- |
Grapes/thorns: |
Matt 7:16-20 |
Luke 6:43f |
Thom 45 |
Lord/Lord |
Matt 7:21 |
Luke 6:46 |
-- |
I don't know you: |
Matt 7:22f |
Luke 13:26f |
-- |
House on rock/sand: |
Matt 7:24-27 |
Luke 6:47-49 |
-- |
The only plausible reason for suggesting that Luke redacted the text of
Matt is that he preserves some semblance of "Matthean" sequences of
sayings. Thom 32-33, 68-69 approximate couplets found in Matt but not
Luke & hence are by definition not Q. So where's the evidence that Thom
edited Q?
Jim continued:
The idea, then, that Q is hypothetical without substance because it has not been found "in writing" is no longer viable. Q exists in written form
in Thomas!
NOT! But proto-Thomas may have been a source for Q.
Now all we need do to recover "pure Q" is remove the redactional layers of Thomas, and viola! Q!
Surely, you jest! But if we remove the redactional layers of Q, we might be left with a text that approximates proto-Thomas. And if this can be
traced to Jesus' "twin" brother Judas, that's about as close to ipsissima verba Jesu as you can get ;-)
|
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 12:01
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Mark S.Goodacre
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: The Thomas/Q Hypothesis
Mark Goodacre wrote:
The possibility that Luke and Matthew precede Thomas is, of course, a quite reputable position and one that we should not write out of
the equation before doing this kind of primary research.
I totally agree that no rational explanation of data should be excluded
without examination of the evidence, Mark. But your sentence is loaded
with rhetorical echoes of a beleaguered orthodoxy that for centuries
dogmatically insisted that only canonical texts were authentic &
historically reliable because of their antiquity. (I refer to
"possibility," "of course," "quite reputable," etc.)
Historically, it can be demonstrated that the claim that Luke & Matt
were composed before Thomas is based primarily on apologetics rather
than an unbiased examination of the data. For the historical priority of
Matt & Luke is what the orthodox fathers (e.g., Clement & Irenaeus)
claimed in their struggles with Christian groups that favored GThom,
like the monks of Chenoboskian. So Coptic Thomas had barely been
discovered before it was characterized by modern orthodox-trained
scholars as an obvious "gnostic" fabrication sprinkled with excerpts
from the Coptic translations of the canonical gospels. The
identification of fragments found at Oxyrhynchus as remnants of 3 copies
of Greek GThom undercut that argument. But despite the dating of these
papyri as early or earlier than any surviving gospel ms. except GJohn &
the fact that this data has been available for almost half a century,
most Christian scholars blithely go on assuming the priority of the
synoptic gospels to GThom. Why? Because we never learned anything
about GThom in Sunday school & it is not read in church. Since, as
Christians, our knowledge of Matt & Luke preceded our knowledge of
GThom, we are naturally inclined to favor the priority of Matt & Luke
over GThom. Whether we admit it or not, we have all been programmed to
favor automatically any argument that supports what we think we already
know. So, we are all usually slow to accept new evidence that
contradicts what we already believe & inclined to reject contradictory
evidence even before we have examined it. That is why Steve Davies, Mike
Grondin, Steve Patterson, & Marvin Meyer are still a minority among
biblical scholars & why they have to traverse continents & cyberspace to
win a few converts among those who are hard of heart & slow to believe,
like the rest of us.
Therefore, I would suggest that it is not "reputable" scholarship to
begin "primary research" with the thesis that "Matt & Luke precede
Thomas." Really reputable research begins on a level playing-field in
which all possibilities are initially equal & proceeds to weigh the
probabilities of historical priority against a neutral examination of
the data. Non?
I am sure that you, of all people, need no lecture about the dangers of
basing historical judgments on unproven prejudices. And I can empathize
with your reluctance to reject a traditional thesis without examination.
For my own Johannine research was prompted by the cavalier treatment of
the 4th gospel as "late & unhistorical" by my own teachers. But in the
case of Thomas, it seems to me that the "possibility" of the priority of
the synoptic gospels becomes less probable the more one compares
compositional features & evaluates the implications of alternate
redactional trajectories.
Based on the extant evidence, the easiest hypothesis to defend is
GThom's independence of the synoptics: a conclusion that I recall you
were preparing to embrace. Then, to establish relative dating of the
traditions preserved in each trajectory, one has to ask whether the
synoptic or Thomasine form of parallel passages is rhetorically more
primitive. Admittedly, the results of a through comparison will not be
uniform. But if the bulk of Thomas/synoptic parallels point towards
GThom preserving more elementary logical constructions than the
synoptics, as many of us who have already undertaken that review have
concluded, then the "possibility" that the original core of GThom was
recorded after the publication & acceptance of Matt & Luke by mainline
urban churches becomes increasingly less plausible.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 13:20
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Mark S.Goodacre
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: The Thomas/Q Hypothesis
Mark Goodacre wrote:
I believe that I said that I was unconvinced by those
like Tuckett who argued a direct (literary?) dependence line. I want
to spend more time researching Thomas before committing myself on
this. I do not like to make a decision until I have at least
attempted to investigate everything carefully from the beginning.
Dear Mark:
Thanks for the speedy & patient clarifications of my comment on your reply
to Mike Grondin. Let me assure you that I never for a moment meant to
accuse you personally of basing scholarship on apologetics. I confess I
read your sentence out of context & it struck a nerve, since the JS is
regularly accused of distorting history by basing its conclusions on a
late gnostic text of Thomas. All I meant to emphasize was that the
presumption of synoptic priority in general is the residue of religious
bias, that can be traced to an uncritical assumption that canonical
gospels preserve "apostolic" tradition while non-canonical texts do not.
Thus, according to this logic, any canonical parallels in non-canonical
texts would have to be derived from the canonical gospels. For this to
be chronologicallly possible, the canonical texts would have to have
been published prior to GThom.
Your hesitancy to accept Tuckett's arguments for GThom' dependence on
synoptic material is a clear indication that YOU do not think like this.
As much as I admire Tuckett's mastery in defending Q, I agree with you
on this one.
As for your policy of reserving decision until you have had time to
complete your own careful investigation of the evidence: that is your
prerogative & duty as a reputable scholar. I realize it takes time. I
did this for more than 20 years before I formulated my position on
John. And it took me 5 years after joining the JS to reach the
conclusion that GThom preserves pre-synoptic tradition. Those who base
their historical judgments solely on the research of others do not
deserve the name of scholar. And you most certainly do.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2000 01:18
From: "Mahlon H. Smith"
To: Crosstalk2
Subject: Posteriority of Thomas
I wrote:
But I think anyone who is honestly interested in unbiased historical research will have to admit
that it is often easier to explain the synoptic versions of parallel logia as redactional refinements
of sayings in Thom than vice versa. For, like the parable of the wicked tenants, Thom's version
of the saying is often less developed & more difficult than that in the synoptics.
Mark Goodacre replied:
Although I enjoyed this post very much (as I do all your posts, Mahlon), I am troubled by the
assertion about what anyone "honestly interested in unbiased historical research" would admit.
If I say, for example, that I find Thomas to be familiar with the Synoptics on given occasions it is because I think that the evidence is pointing in that direction and not because of a lack of
honest interest in unbiased historical research. I suspect that others like Tuckett feel the same
way. Perhaps we are unconscious of a prejudice that leads us to see the evidence in a
particular way, but if so, it seems to me that the only way to counter this is to show how
the evidence can be construed differently.
You are reading more into what I wrote than what I intended, Mark. I did
not say that anyone who has honestly unbiased would conclude that Thomas was not familiar with the synoptics. That would be too much to expect of debate on any scholarly issue. Honest people who strive for
unbiased results often do come to opposite conclusions in interpreting evidence.
I never meant to impugn the integrity of Ron Price, yourself or Chris Tuckett or anyone else who disagrees with my interpretation of the evidence.
All I meant was that if one does not start with an a priori assumption
of the priority of the synoptic texts, then one should be able to recognize (if not wholeheartedly grant) that in cases where we have
parallel sayings in G Thom & the synoptics, the Thomasine form is
often (but not always) "less developed" -- i.e., less verbose, less polished,
less compositionally complex, etc. -- and "more difficult" -- i.e., presents more logical problems, especially for those of us who have been
raised in relatively orthodox Xnity -- than the synoptic version of the
same saying. This is precisely the case with the parable of the wicked
tenants. That is a phenomenological observation not a hermeneutical or a
value judgment.
How one explains those phenomena then all depends on one's hermeneutical
orientation. Some may honestly think it probable that the author of GThom has deconstructed, distorted & otherwise altered sayings drawn
from this or that synoptic gospel. Others may just as honestly think it
more probable that synoptic authors have refined and/or expanded a saying like that in GThom to fit their own theological views.
I happen to favor the latter option because that is how I see the synoptic authors working with synoptic sources. Mark is, as most
synoptic scholars admit, a rough & problematic gospel. Matthew, on the
other hand, is more stylistically refined & regularly presents less
problematic versions of difficult pericopes in Mark. That is a phenomenological observation. How one explains it depends on one's
tradition & source history models. Some scholars still argue that Mark
has abbreviated (& otherwise clumsily edited) Matt. My experience as a
literary critic & editor makes me think that the opposite is more likely: Matt has improved on Mark. In expanding my horizon to include
GThom I have simply applied the same logic to a similar range of textual
phenomena. The synoptics present a more complex, better organized, less
difficult collection of sayings of J than does GThom.
Ergo, in case after case I am led to conclude that the Thomasine version is more
likely to represent the earlier form of a particular saying.
You may think you have good reason to conclude the opposite. I accept that without impugning your motives for doing so. But since you
introduced the subject of an "unconscious prejudice," let me just ask for some circumspect reflection by suggesting that you ask yourself the
question that I had to ask myself in coming to terms with early difficulties with GThom. If GThom was a canonical biblical text, would I
still be sure it was derived from the synoptic gospels?
If one's honest answer to that question is "probably" then I would suggest asking oneself a 2nd question: what is different about the case
of Thom vis-à-vis the synoptics from Mark vis-à-vis Matt & Luke that I
am led to contrary conclusions regarding the priority of rough or polished texts in each case. If one's honest answer is "maybe not" then
I think one has to face the possibility that one's unconscious reasons
for considering the synoptics historically prior did involve a "canonical bias" just as I did. Where one goes after that is one's own
business.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 15:00
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: James R. Covey
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: The Thomas/Q Hypothesis
James R. Covey wrote:
It's interesting in the context of the previous discussion that
there seems to be more M material than L material in Thomas!
A word of caution to those who would generalize that Thomas is
more Lukan than Matthean.
Good observation & caveat, Jim. The claim that Thom is usually closer to
Luke than Matt is an observation that is valid only in comparing the
parallels to pericopes common to both Matt & Luke (=Q), not to the
special M or L material. The fact that Thom does have a liberal dose of
special M material is even more a warning to those who hold that Thom
has an anti-Matthean bias. This has very definite implications for
hypotheses regarding synoptic-Thom relations & it does pose serious
difficulties for those who claim that Thom is a conflation of Matt &
Luke.
If the compiler of GThom got his synoptic parallels from Matt & Luke,
then he generally preferred Lukan wording to parallel passages, but had
no problem echoing Matt if Luke did not have a parallel & included
little material that he found only in Luke. Is this a reasonable pattern
of redactional activity? One could always view the compiler(s) of GThom
as esoteric freak(s) who is/are more schizoid than reasonable. But that
is no explanation of this clear pattern of agreement. For an author to
echo the Lukan form of Q passages he would obviously have to be fairly
familiar with Luke & prefer it to Matt. If this were the case with Thom
one would expect him also to prefer special Lukan material rather than
special Matt. But that is demonstrably NOT the case. Ergo, from a
redaction critical perspective, the hypothesis that GThom is dependent
on Luke & Matt is highly implausible if not sheer nonsense.
As demonstration of this: compare Lukan parallels to Mark & Matt.
Whether Luke knew Matt or his sayings source (Q) does not affect the
model. It is demonstrable that Luke generally prefers Markan wording in
a triple tradition pericope. Practically everybody admits that extensive
synoptic agreement across the board presupposes Mark as the mediating
text. When Luke presents non-Markan material from Matt he generally does
NOT use wording & themes that are characteristic of Matt (in either
special Matt material or Matthean parallels to Mark). Whether one
explains this by arguing that Luke has deliberately censored Matt or
that he uses Matt's source rather than Matt itself one has a relatively
consistent pattern of Luke's general redactional practice: he does not
present material with the Matthean flavor (whatever the source).
The only major exceptions to this are in the Markan-Q doublet sections,
where Luke surprisingly seems to reverse his non-Matthean orientation by
presenting a version of a pericope that is obviously closer to Matt than
Mark (e.g., oracles of JB, temptation, parable of mustard, Beelzebul
discourse, sign of Jonah -- all of which have been subject of debate on
CrossTalk). To explain these pericopes there are only really two
options. Luke got these pericopes from Matt or Matt's source. Those who
see GMatt as Luke's non-Markan source (Farrer/Griesbach et al) have to
argue that Luke was an eclectic editor, who sometimes for (no clear
reason) abandoned his general preference for Mark to echo passages
scattered randomly throughout Matt. Those who claim that Luke used
Matt's sayings source (Q) argue that Luke acted consistently as an
editor, generally preferring Mark UNLESS he knew of a parallel in Q.
That is to say: Luke generally prefers Q to Mark & both of these to Matt
(if he knew Matt). Since Luke is obviously not schizoid but the most
rational of gospel writers, the latter option is still favored by most
gospel scholars despite problems posed by the non-Markan "Minor
Agreements", etc.
Thom, however, includes many Matthean passages that even Luke had no use
for (e.g., parables of weeds, treasure, pearl) & excludes most of the
major special Lukan material (e.g., parables of Samaritan, prodigal,
unjust steward). Since, this is directly contrary to Thom's tendency to
prefer Lukan forms of shared passages, the hypothesis that Thom edited
Luke & Matt is self-contradictory. For a redactional hypothesis to be
operable it has to present a model that makes at least some rational
sense out of the content of texts, not just declare a priori that author
X used sources Y & Z, whether the evidence points that way or not.
In the case of GThom, the lack of a consistent redactional model
indicates Thomas is most probably independent of Luke & Matt.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 02:35
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: E. Bruce Brooks
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: The Thomas/Q Hypothesis
E. Bruce Brooks wrote:
In Response To: Survey Results and Subsequent Comment
<SNIP>
"Thomas is frequently eclectic with respect to Matthew and Luke." This, as far as it goes, would be consistent with the possibility that
Thomas is later than, not a source for, Matthew/Luke. Given the known
behavior of Matthew and Luke themselves with respect to the source Mark
at least for those who accept this sequence), where the last of the three
(Luke) will sometimes prefer the immediate predecessor Matthew and
sometimes go back to the more remote predecessor Mark, an oscillation
between sources must be acknowledged to be as much an option for the
latest text as is a balanced mixing of the two. In view of the comments
of critics of, say, Lukan tertiority - please use this word, and notify
the OED scanning committee - on the authorial strategies proposed for
Luke, even a more plausible option. I don't think there is anything in
perhaps it is numbers for Options 2, 3, and 4 that would preclude an
the inference that Thomas has drawn on Matthew and Luke. That possibility
might then deserve separate study.
Of course, Bruce, any inference from a text is worthy of study, if for
no other reason than to double-check whether it is plausible or not. I
agree that the numbers for the voting do not "preclude" inferring that
Thom used Matt & Luke. But, as I argued in my post yesterday, that
inference results in the conclusion that the compiler(s) of GThom,
unlike Luke, did not act as consistent redactors but rather selected
material in a scatter-brained way & deliberately distorted it. This, of
course, is the classic accusation leveled against the authors of
non-canonical texts by heresiologists from Irenaeus & Epiphanius on. But
it only makes sense if one assumes a priori that (a) canonical sources
are historically prior to non-canonical & (b) anyone who deviates from
canonical texts is devious, schizoid or both. One is always free to draw
that conclusion, of course. But then one should not pretend that one is
comparing texts to determine relative dating & dependence. For one has
dogmatically predetermined the results. The only point of testing
redactional models is to determine which is more reasonable. And to be
reasonable a model has to suppose that redactors generally act in
reasonable ways that can be verified by normal editorial practices.
The basic problems with every version of the hypothesis that Thom is
dependent on Matt & Luke are:
(1) it has to conclude that the editor(s) of this text acted
inconsistently: on the one hand, preferring the Lukan form of
double-tradition (Q) passages; on the other, preferring Matthean
pericopes in single-tradition (special M or L) passages. But an even
more serious objection is that
(2) this hypothesis cannot explain why Thom generally does not reproduce
Markan material even though this is where Matt & Luke are in greatest
agreement. One cannot account for this simply by arguing that Thom did
not know Mark, since in a few places (like the parable of the mustard
seed) GThom is actually closer to Mark than to either Matt or Luke. And
even if one granted that Thom did not have a copy of Mark handy, one
would be hard pressed to explain why he omits Markan passages that were
taken over by Matt & Luke. A particularly good example of this type of
glaring omission is that difficult logion in Mark 4:11f (//Luke
8:8//Matt 13:11,13)
"To you has been given to know the secret of the K of G, but for those
outside everything is in parables, so that seeing they may see but not
perceive & hearing they may hear but not understand..."
Now there's a logion that the author of GThom 1 should have found right
up his alley. If the writer who began "These are the secret sayings that
the living Jesus spoke...Whoever discovers the interpretation of these
sayings will not taste death" had really known Mark 4:11f or a synoptic
parallel he probably would have made it the very next saying in his work
& issued an invitation to readers like this: "Here's a real
brain-twister, guys & gals. Let's see what any of you can make of it!
Solve it & you're guaranteed immortality!"
There, now, Bruce: I haven't "precluded an inference that Thomas has
drawn on Matthew and Luke." I not only entertained the possibility but I
made it the focus of a "separate study." I weighed it in the balance &
found it seriously lacking in substance.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Wed, 08 Jul 1998 05:29
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: E Bruce Brooks
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: The Thomas/Q Hypothesis
I wrote:
I agree that the numbers for the voting do not "preclude" inferring that
Thom used Matt & Luke. But, as I argued in my post yesterday, that
inference results in the conclusion that the compiler(s) of GThom,
unlike Luke, did not act as consistent redactors but rather selected
material in a scatter-brained way & deliberately distorted it.
Bruce objected:
I don't know, Mahlon, this seems a bit pejorative to me. Scatter-brained?
I think we need to be able to assume that authors of texts had something in
mind, even if we can't always figure out what it was (writing a text is no
light undertaking, in the pre-computer age).
You miss my pun, Bruce. If the compilers of GThom used Matt & Luke, they
deliberately selected thematically organized clusters of sayings in
these gospels, deconstructed them into their constituent aphorisms &
deliberately scattered the elements throughout their recompiled text
so that adjacent sayings would not be linked either by form or motif.
E.g., the beatitudes. If the authors of GThom had "something in mind" in
re-arranging the material this way, it has not been evident to most
later students of this collection. As far as I am aware Mike Grondin is
the only Thomas expert who has discerned a plan in this gospel's
construction.
Since the normal process of human memory is to draw links between
phenomena that are similar, the compilers of GThom would have acted in
an abnormal way. This is not impossible. But the only reason for
assuming that they dismantled the Q blocks of sayings in Matt & Luke is
the a priori assumption that they used Matt & Luke as sources. A far
simpler & more normal explanation would be to assume that the compilers
of GThom & Q worked independently, each drawing upon originally
independent sayings that circulated randomly in the Jesus tradition &
that the compiler of Q organized some of those sayings into thematically
related clusters while the compilers of GThom did not. In other words,
the scribes who recorded the Q version of J's sayings acted more as
authors, while those who penned GThom acted more as students jotting
down random notes.
This observation is confirmed by the fact that where there are parallel
sayings clusters in Q & GThom, the Thomasine version is regularly
stylistically simpler while the Q version is obviously more rhetorically
sophisticated. In oral communication it is quite normal for people to
remember only bits & pieces of well-formed speeches & to form simple
catchword memory links. But if one is arguing for literary dependence of
one author upon another & at the same time arguing that the more
sophisticated text is prior (as is the case with those who argue that
GThom is derived from the canonical gospels), then one cannot appeal to
the normal eclectic functioning of oral mnemonics to explain the
allegedly derivative text. If the editors of GThom used Matt & Luke they
deliberately deconstructed & distorted many of its sayings, but in the
process produced units that are generally rhetorically & logically
simpler. At the same time the compilers of GThom included a lot of
non-synoptic sayings that are quite sophisticated both logically &
rhetorically. Thus, if they used canonical sources, their editorial
style was self-contradictory: dismantling the literary structures of
written texts while composing complex sayings from thin air. This is why
the hypothesis of Thomasine dependence on canonical sources strikes most
current Thomas scholars as bizarre.
Again Bruce:
In his paper on Thomas as an oracular compilation (see his website),
Stevan Davies judges that Thos is, as a text and as a whole,
unintelligible, not in terms of its use of other material, but simply
as something to read.
"And they shall stand as a single one" (Thom 23:2). On the composition
of GThom as a literary work Smith & Davies are unanimous. But you have
introduced a qualifier that puts a negative spin on Steve's observation
that that is not in his text. I seriously doubt that he would claim
GThom was not unintelligible (= was intelligible) in its use of other
material, if by "other material" one means written sources. In fact, I
have never received more support from Davies than I have on this
thread.
Bruce continued:
That strikes me as a valid hypothesis (though I am myself still
inspired by the implied challenge to make sense of the text in some
more conventional way). At any rate it is a nicer way of putting it
than "scatterbrained." But whatever brain you attribute it to, several
serious and repeated readers of the text have found that quality to be
inherent in the text.
As one schooled in the synoptic gospels before reading GThom, I must
admit that my initial impression of the latter text was that the mind of
the author had some serious short-circuits. But after working through
all 114 sayings I confess I have changed my mind. In some sayings (e.g.,
speck/timber, parable of the banquet) GThom's logic is clearer & more
focused than the synoptic parallels. Thanks to long dialogs with two
Steves (Patterson & Davies) & one Marvin (Meyer), I can even now see a
logical mind at work in many uniquely Thomasine logia. It is precisely
because I am now convinced that the compilers of GThom were sane that I
have had to abandon any suspicion that they drew their material from the
synoptic gospels.
Bruce objects to my rhetoric:
As for "deliberate distortion," again the terms are accusatory,...
Not at all. If one takes the synoptic texts as prior, GThom's parallels
have to be described as "distortions." If one assumes that the synoptic
parallels in GThom are derived directly from the canonical gospels, then
those "distortions" have to be regarded as "deliberate." I make neither
assumption, therefore, I am not accusing the compilers of any devious
agenda. It is those who claim Thomasine dependence on canonical texts
who are forced to come to this conclusion.
Back to Bruce:
...but if in fact Thom is drawing on the Synoptics and not vice versa,
then that is presumably precisely what he is up to - adding Jesus as a
sanction to material more directly expressing Thomas's own system
(whatever we can agree or disagree to call it), and thus, if you
insist, at least sometimes distorting the meaning those Jesus sayings
had in their original Jesus-movement context. In support of this
possibility,...
See what I mean? Even to entertain the possibility of Thomasine
dependence you are forced to this conclusion. The only thing that I am
insisting is that people come clean on what their presuppositions really
are. If you are genuinely agnostic & merely testing alternate
possibilities, the point of my rhetoric was maieutic: helping you see
where the thesis of Thomasine dependence would lead you. But if you are
really committed to defending the historical priority of canonical texts
then my rhetoric was designed to force you to admit it. In either case,
no malice was intended either to you or to the compilers of GThom.
Bruce resumes:
I think it is not out of the question that the Thomasites were trying
to steal some steam from the highly successful Jesuine movement.
Agreed. But as Steve Davies argued, that goes for every gospel writer.
Matthew steals Jesus' steam to power his personal thesis that the Torah
has to be fulfilled down to the last detail. Luke harnesses the power
of Jesus' name to promote his vision of universal peace & reconciliation
between Jew & Gentile. Mark co-opts Jesus' "son of man" idiom to further
his own apocalyptic interpretations of Daniel. GJohn has at least two
agendas, the one interpreting every deed of Jesus as a messianic sign,
the other making Jesus the divine mouth-piece for the author's own
mystical soteriology. The question is not whether the compilers of GThom
plundered the Jesus tradition to promote their own convictions (don't we
all?), but whether the tradition plundered was the written texts of the
4 canonical gospels. It is this thesis that unbiased close comparison of
the texts is bound to reveal is out of the question.
Bruce objects:
Again, I would tend to resist the imputation that all hypotheses of
Thomasine dependence are "a priori" or otherwise flawed in their
origins.
I did not claim that such a hypothesis was flawed. I was merely making a
hermeneutical observation as forcefully as I could. Any theory of
Thomasine dependence on the synoptic gospels is inevitably grounded in
an a priori assumption that the synoptics are prior. In other words,
this is a canonical bias brought to the analysis of the texts, not a
conclusion based on impartial weighing of the ms. & literary evidence.
Moreover, whether one is aware of it or not, this canonical bias is the
direct product the 2nd-4th c. religious pogrom in which the "holy
fathers" of the "catholic" church deliberately excluded & suppressed all
early texts that did not support their own theological & ecclesiastical
agendas. If this were not so, we would not have had to wait almost 2
millennia to find a single buried copy of GThom that escaped the
bonfires of the ecclesiastical censors. Admittedly, this is strong
language that pious ears may not like to hear. But it is the balanced
judgment of an objective historian who also happens to be an ordained
minister in a church that is heir to orthodox patristic tradition, not
invective from a muckraking infidel or crypto-gnostic.
Bruce clarified:
And, at worst, what if they are? Testing will show them as wrong, and
there would be an end of it. My own suggestion, at any rate, was
precisely prompted by the tendency of the evidence to at least allow
that hypothesis. I don't own stock in any of the churches, nor am I
co-author of any currently hot-selling Thomas translation. I couldn't
care less how this question comes out. I am philologically curious
to see it come out, one way or another.
Fine! I have no objections to honest curiosity & I would never claim
that just because I have become convinced that GThom is independent
of the synoptics, anybody else has to accept this conclusion without
examining the alternatives on one's own. But it is a fine line that
separates weighing a possibility from defending a dogma. An honest test
must weigh both the strengths & the weaknesses of every hypothesis
before reaching a conclusion, not just make that hypothesis the
unexamined basis for further speculation. From what I've read of your
posts I trust your objectivity. So, I wish you Godspeed in your quest.
Bruce counsels:
Mahlon, I think you need to talk to Stevan [Davies] on the question of
whether or not Thomas, as it stands, never mind its compositional
processes, ends by being a normal text, capable of what we are
accustomed to think of as a normal straight informational reading. Let
me know how the encounter comes out. Then we can resume this discussion.
Thanks for the advice, Bruce. I am sure it is well-meant. But I regret
to point out that it shows that as a new-comer to this list you are not
yet very familiar with the personae behind these posts. Steve & I are
old acquaintances of the same generation who have fought in the same
lists both on CrossTalk & before that in the Jesus Seminar, sometimes as
allies, at other times as friendly adversaries. And I have long been a
vocal champion of his Thomas website. In the process we have gained a
sense of & respect for each other's positions.
I may be wrong, but I don't think I have to talk to Steve to predict
confidently that he would say that GThom reads like a normal collection
of wisdom sayings, with compositional links (if any) those of oral
catch-words rather than an overall grand plan. It does not read like a
unified text. So those who expect to find a unifying grand plan in GThom
(as one can in the narrative gospels) are doomed to conclude that it is
incomprehensible. I am also rather confident that Steve would go on to
say that the randomness & disjointedness of GThom's logia are evidence
that it is not derived from the texts of the narrative gospels.
Have I misrepresented you, Steve?
Bruce commented on my argument that GThom does not present parallels to
much Markan material (particularly Mark 4:11):
Here Mahlon is so confident of being able to read the mind of the
Thomas compiler that he is prepared to explain the things he left out
of his sources. The rest of us are, more humbly, trying to make sense
out of what he put in. After all, the amount of Synoptic material in
Thomas is tiny with respect to the total Synoptic material. Some
arbitrary omissions are almost mandatory. No?
You misread my mind, Bruce. I am hardly confident that I can discern the
reasoning the compilers of GThom left material out, since I too am still
trying to fathom why they put some stuff in. When it comes to
interpreting the intentions of another author -- including you--, I'm as
humble as anybody. So let's not get into a competition regarding who is
more humble than whom.
What I am confident of, however, is my knowledge of what is in the
synoptic gospels, since I've been studying them from an academic
perspective for over 40 years & have been teaching them for the past 30.
The point of my introducing Mark into the equation is that most of the
material in Mark is also in Matt & Luke. So the frequency of the
appearance of Markan material in GThom is a good objective test of
whether the compilers of that text were deriving their material from
both Matt & Luke.
If GThom was dependent on Matt & Luke, the author was bound to see that
some material is common to both gospels & one could expect to find a
higher proportion of parallels to this shared material than to sayings
that were unique to Matt & Luke. That is the case. But the shared
material in Matt & Luke is from 2 separate sources: Mark (triple
tradition) & Q (double tradition). If the compilers of GThom had only
Matt & Luke, they could not distinguish these sources. So, we would
expect that, if they were concentrating on the material common to Matt &
Luke, the percentages of Markan material in GThom would also be
substantially greater than single tradition material. But that is NOT
the case. In sorting out the synoptic parallels in GThom by source, the
most parallels are to Q, the next most to special Matt, the next to
special Luke, & the fewest to Mark. This is statistically surprising &
not what one would expect to find if GThom was really dependent on Matt
& Luke.
Add to that another phenomenon: in some of the sayings where GThom does
parallel a saying that is in all 3 synoptics, the form in GThom is
closer to Mark than to Matt & Luke (e.g., parable of the mustard). So if
one is arguing Thomasine dependence on the synoptics, one cannot claim
that Matt & Luke as the only sources. But if the compilers of GThom knew
Mark as well as Matt & Luke, it is doubly mystifying why there are so few
parallels to Mark in GThom. For then the authors would have deliberately
discounted most of the triple tradition.
Thus, the point of my argument regarding Mark was not to claim
definitive knowledge of the redactional prejudices of the authors of
GThom, but to illustrate the theoretical problems raised by the
hypothesis that GThom is based on the synoptics. The more one assumes
this the less one is able to explain what is in GThom.
But if one assumes that GThom is dependent on oral tradition rather than
any written text, then it is fairly easy to account for the randomness
of the parallels in GThom & the synoptics. Moreover, this assumption
allows the material in GThom to shed light on the composition of the
synoptics. For many of the sayings that we previously thought were
unique to Matt or Luke -- and therefore possibly fabrications of this or
that author -- can now be proven to be derived from common oral
tradition even though they were not recorded by either Mark or Q. Follow
me?
Bruce responded to my calling attention to Mark 4:11::
But let's consider it. Mark 4:11 is one of the two most terrible
sayings in that book: it asserts an intentional obscurity in Jesus'
parables, with the intention that those hearing them should not
understand them, and be accordingly.
I wouldn't say that because Mark doesn't. Granted Mark 4:11 is a very
puzzling & troubling saying, if one takes it literally. That is probably
why Matt revised it & Luke dropped the ending. But Mark does not claim
that those who don't understand Jesus' parables are "damned to hell
forever." For Mark previously has Jesus proclaim every human sin &
blasphemy will be forgiven except the sin against the HS (Mark 3:28-29)
& this spin on that saying is unique to Mark. It is Matt, rather than
Mark, who delights in consigning people to hell (or at least the outer
darkness). And the compilers of GThom had no problem including variants
of such Matthean sayings (e.g., parables of weeds & banquet).
My point was precisely that Mark 4:11's emphasis on intentional
obscurity, the mystery of God's kingdom, that is plain to insiders but
hidden from outsiders, is a theme that the compilers of GThom probably
would have been attracted to had they known it. For there are several
Thomasine sayings that use similar themes: e.g., GThom 1-3, 5.
Bruce continued:
I hope to be forgiven if, in charity to the intent of the rest of the
book I see in this a late addition to Mark.
I'm sure you'll be forgiven, but I hope you will forgive me for saying I
think you are wrong here. There is no textual basis for assuming Mark
4:11 is a late addition to Mark, especially since Matt & Luke try to
emend it. In fact the motifs of the mystery of God's kingdom & the lack
of comprehension by "outsiders" are rather central to Mark's narrative
agenda.
Back to Bruce:
Be that as it may, would it really have served Thomas's purpose? As I
read the opening of Thomas, and Mahlon's perhaps lighthearted paraphrase
also supports this, the compiler is eager to tempt people to try to
solve the riddle of the secret sayings, and promises them eternal life
(still a strong drawing card; visit your local New Age bookstore) if
they succeed. The hiddenness or secrecy of the sayings is more of an
attractant (YOU HAVE TO BE PERCEPTIVE to understand this) than a
repellent (YOU CAN NEVER understand this, and will burn in hell
accordingly).
I beg to differ, but again I must insist that it is not the purpose of
Mark 4:11 to consign anyone to Hell. Quite the opposite. This logion
confidently assures Jesus people that they have the secret of the K of G
even though outsiders do not. This type of assurance is more comforting
than GThom 3 that concludes with the warning: "If you do not know
yourselves then you are in poverty & you are poverty."
Besides, GThom rarely has verbatim parallels to synoptic sayings. So if
he altered the thrust of other synoptic sayings, I'm sure he would have
had no problem in reworking Mk 4:11 -- that is, if he knew it.
Bruce concluded:
That quizzical but open spirit, and the thrust of Mark 4:11f, are to
my (simple naive reader's) sensibility almost totally opposite.
So I have no problem at all with Thomas's omission of Mark 4:11f.
Neither, obviously, did the Thomas compiler. Case closed.
Ah, but Bruce, I perceive that you are neither simple nor naïve. In fact
you are a rather cunning fox in sheep's clothes ;-) Your logic betrays you.
Is yours the judgment of a "humble" quester or the confident voice of
someone who is pretending to know why an author "left out" a certain
passage? Instead of testing the possibility that GThom might be
dependent on the synoptics you are here baldly asserting this as a fact
& proclaiming it as obvious.
To "omit" Mark 4:11, the compiler of GThom would have had to have known
it. Such omission is not at all obvious. What is obvious is that GThom
does not contain a parallel to Mark 4:11 or practically all of Mark. A
far simpler & more obvious conclusion from this observation is that
GThom did not have access to this material, not that he had no
problem omitting it. As a teacher I cannot assume that a student knows
something if (s)he doesn't cite it. (If I did I'd have to give everyone
an A).
But if the compilers of GThom did not have literary access to Markan
material, then they also did not have access to either Matt or Luke,
since practically all of Mark is paralleled in these gospels. If that is
the case, then the synoptic parallels in GThom are not evidence that
GThom is dependent on the synoptics. You cannot simply dismiss this case
by declaring it closed. But, if you were a fair judge, you might toss
the arguments for Thomasine dependence on the synoptics out of court for
lack of evidence.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 14:55
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Mark S.Goodacre
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: The Thomas/Q Hypothesis
Mark Goodacre wrote:
Steve [Davies]'s answer (it seems to me) presupposes a great pool of
oral tradition from which Thomas selected, a pool that contained
(what we call) Q, M, L, Mk, Mk-Q overlap, MattR of Mk, LukeR of Mk
and Johannine material.
I have always assumed that Christian origins were somewhat more
diverse than this pool option, and that each evangelist will have
had access to only certain strands of oral tradition, and that this
is one of the reasons that there are diversities among the different
kinds of material. Surely the evangelists (including Thomas) were
spread widely across the ancient world. Has it not been an axiom of
critical study of the New Testament that one of the reasons for
differences between the Gospels is different places of origin, with
accesses to different materials?
It has, Mark, particularly because of the impact of the Robinson-Koester
trajectory model on research in early Xn sources during the last 3rd of
this century. The trajectory model presupposes a point of origin from
which lines disperse in all directions (like the big bang). But the
trajectory model has not totally replaced the syncretism model that
dominated the study of Christian origins for the first half of this
century. It has also been an axiom of textual criticism for two
centuries that scribes are as much influenced by oral memory as by a
written text, so they are always prone to alter a text they are copying
in the direction of wording they recall orally. Such secondary orality
leads to the harmonization of texts, usually in the direction of Matt.
This is not what we find in GThom, however. Thom will have a Matthean
word (e.g., "heaven") in a logion that otherwise is closer to Luke. The
only way the syncretistic model can explain a phenomenon that is a
hybrid not identical to any other is to presuppose an oral rather than
a textual milieu. Christians generally syncretize the gospels' birth
stories precisely because they are working from oral memory rather than
texts. In this case Luke & Matt represent divergent trajectories in the
primitive Jesus tradition, but both strands have come to feed the common
pool of Christian knowledge. For scholars like you & me to try to get
students to separate this pool back into separate strands we have to
counteract intellectual inertia.
In the case of Thomas, however, we are not dealing with the pooling of
oral memory, but, rather, with a written text (and, from the ms.
evidence, an early text at that). And the question is one of the
relationship of that text to other texts. Thus, one has to construct
a rather complex hybrid of trajectory & syncretistic paradigms in
order to support the view that the tradition fossilized in GThom is
derived from a conflation of Matt & Luke. Assuming the authenticity of
a logion, one hypothesizes oral divergence or editorial emendation to
account for variant forms of the saying in Matt & Luke. Then one has to
hypothesize some sort of social milieu like relatively orthodox urban
Christian communities that accepted both Matt & Luke in order to
account for an oral pool that would be able to account for the kind of
eclectic logia forms one finds in GThom. The author of GThom would have
to be a member of such a community in order to syncretize Matthean &
Lukan versions of Jesus sayings. (For it is unlikely that he was an
outsider who ordered personal copies of Matt & Luke from Amazon.com via
the Imperial internet or got it from listening to a gnostic mystagogue).
Then, in order to account for an empire-wide attempt to discredit this
"new" collection, one has to hypothesize that this member of a mainline
church who wrote GThom (or his readers) either became schismatic(s)
or was/were excommunicated by the leaders of the community that shared
the same synthesizing oral pool of information.
Quite frankly, I think a simple trajectory model hypothesizing GThom's
priority to & independence of Matt & Luke is far simpler & more
historically probable. GThom records one early strand of Jesus sayings
tradition. Matt & Luke later record divergent versions of another. In
the social formation of early Xnity, Matt & Luke were accepted into the
common pool by larger & more influential urban churches, while GThom
continued to be used by rural & itinerant types with an ascetic,
mystical lifestyle. Now I ask you? Which of these groups was probably
closer to the social context of HJ & his original disciples?
Mark G. wrote:
It may be that the standard model is wrong, and that we do need to
go for a hypothesis of a homogeneous pool of oral tradition, to which
Thomas is our best witness.
Mahlon counters:
There's nothing wrong with the "standard model" (i.e., divergent
trajectories), just the a priori prejudices that the original pool was
identical with this or that text. Neither the stream model nor the pool
paradigm are exclusive. Streams diverge from a common source, but they
all eventually feed common pools or flow into the ocean. If they don't,
they become like GThom or the Colorado River, disappearing into the
sands of a parched desert.
Mark asks:
I would be interested to know if others see this as a problem.
Thomas, let us remind ourselves, has parallels to every strand of
synoptic material as well as to John. Do others see this as a
potential problem for the theory of Thomasine independence? And if
so, is anyone able to articulate it better than I am?
Mahlon defers:
Don't look at me. I think John preserves some really early stuff: not
only SG but light/dark motifs, etc. (compare Paul). But more on that
another day.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 10:05
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Antonio Jerez
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: The Thomas/Q Hypothesis
The problem with making sweeping generalizations is that they are easily
turned against you.
I wrote:
Quite frankly, I think a simple trajectory model hypothesizing GThom's
priority to & independence of Matt & Luke is far simpler & more
historically probable. GThom records one early strand of Jesus sayings
tradition. Matt & Luke later record divergent versions of another. In
the social formation of early Xnity, Matt & Luke were accepted into the
common pool by larger & more influential urban churches, while GThom
continued to be used by rural & itinerant types with an ascetic,
mystical lifestyle. Now I ask you? Which of these groups was probably
closer to the social context of HJ & his original disciples?
Antonio replied:
How do we know that the Thomas people were "rural & itinerant types".
We don't "know" that for sure, Antonio. But it is an educated guess
from what we do know about GThom for the sake of a source hypothesis.
GThom was not found in a major Hellenistic urban center like Alexandria
but well up-river near the village of Nag Hammadi near Chenoboskian where
Pachomius had retreated from urban life to found monastic settlements.
It is this contrast that I intended to convey by the word "rural." We
also know that GThom was not adopted by major urban churches like
Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, etc. It may have been compiled or flourished
at Edessa, Syria which was itself something of a cultural backwater in
the Hellenistic world. We also know that GThom was used widely enough
that heresiologists from major Hellenistic urban centers like Alexandria
explicitly excluded it & even eventually included it in their
book-burning campaigns. Otherwise, there would have been no need for
someone to bury it at Nag Hammadi. But you're right, GThom wasn't
exclusively a "rural" gospel since at least 3 copies were found at
Oxyrhynchus, which --- though not quite a metropolis comparable to
Alexandria --- could not be described as a village.
Antonio continued:
A single saying like Thomas 14b is not much to base such a hypothesis
on. The same saying is also found in all the Synoptics and we don't claim
that the groups who produced these gospels were rural and itinerant
types.
I did not mean to infer that GThom was the bible of migrant workers &
hobos. But Thom 14 is not the only logion that favors a detached
life-style: cf. Thom 42 (which Steve Patterson translates as "become
itinerants"). And the very style of a random sayings collection is
similar to the collections of chreiai used by cynics whose heroes were
the hippies of the Hellenistic world.
I agree, that Matt & Luke were probably urban gospels. But if one is
going to take seriously their descriptions of J & his disciples, their
sources of authentic J tradition definitely were not urban. GThom draws
on the same sources as Matt & Luke but lacks their polish & cannot be
proven to be dependent on them. Again, my point was merely to sketch a
contrast of social settings to form a source hypothesis to account for
common material in the synoptics & GThom that avoids the convoluted
logic needed to claim Thom's dependence on Matt & Luke. They both
probably had direct access to oral tradition from HJ's itinerant
teaching career in the small villages of Galilee. In the case of the
synoptics, those scholars who are convinced that Matt & Luke used a
common sayings source (Q) generally characterize it as a product of
itinerant Jesus people (on the basis of the mission instructions & the
condemnations of Capernaum, Chorazin, Jerusalem etc.). I simply was
proposing that GThom fits well into that type of environment.
Again Antonio:
And if an "ascetic, mystical lifestyle" is supposed to be closer to
the social context of HJ and his disciples, then how do you explain the
tradition in the Synoptics that Jesus was called "a glutton and a drunkard".
Doesn't sound like an ascetic lifestyle at all.
Agreed. The term ascetic is not apt for describing HJ. It is better used
of JB. But HJ apparently attracted a number of JB's followers & probably
himself joined JB's group for a time (witness: the baptism). His logia
about "selling all" & mocking those who amass Mammon encourage a simple
detached life-style. The main difference between HJ & JB is that former
had nothing against attending parties thrown by secular types while the
latter would rather keep himself alive by raiding bee-hives & eating
grasshoppers. Apart from this I would not read too much into "glutton &
drunk" characterization of HJ. After all, it is introduced as a slur
from opponents not as an objective description. (You can read my
analysis of this Q logion & my arguments for authenticity whenever Funk
gets around to releasing Wit & Wisdom of Jesus).
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 02:49
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Bob Schacht
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: Thomas & gospel formation
Mike Grondin wrote:
Finally, I should be somewhat surprised if "the majority of NT scholars
judge Thomas to be dependent on the synoptics". If they do, it must
be largely on account of their assigning to it a later date than others
(myself included) would want to assign to it.
Bob Schacht replied:
That's the key, Mike; CrossTalk isn't exactly a random unbiased sample
of NT scholars. But because of the work of the JS, not to mention
Steve Davies, et al., attitudes may be shifting. Also, Ryan may be
working with scholarship more than 10 years old.
Thanks for giving the JS credit for shifting the attitude of current
scholarship on GThom, Bob. I wish it were so. But I don't know how many
scholars, other than the Fellows of the JS, are swayed by our
"consensus." (Have to put that in quotes in view of recent CrossTalk
accusations that we reported consensus when there was in fact
polarization, which is the case with GThom: some Fellows giving it great
weight & others none). The work of individual JS Fellows like Steve
Patterson & Marvin Meyers deserves credit for getting GThom accepted as
an independent source, along with that of sometime guest Fellow Steve
Davies, whose pioneering website has probably done more to make the
world aware of GThom than all the books & articles that have appeared in
the past half-century.
Among the scholarly elite, however, the voice that has been the most
influential in getting people to take GThom seriously is probably that
critic of the JS, Helmut Koester (whose work BTW the JS Fellows value
& cite). Koester begins his Ancient Christian Gospels with GThom
even before introducing the synoptic sayings source (Q). As regards
the question of order, it is noteworthy that, for form critical reasons,
he puts "Dialogue Gospels" third (e.g., Dialogue of the Savior, the
Apocryphon of James & NB the dialog portions of GJohn). Next he treats
narrative "collections" (e.g., miracle catenae, Egerton 2, passion
narrative & GPeter). Only then does he turn to the canonical gospels,
treating GJohn first (because of the dating of ms. evidence). The book
concludes with W. L. Peterson's article on the Diatesseron as a
prototypical gospel harmony (a category that some CrossTalkers seem
still disposed to put GThom in).
Koester's work, published in 1990, was hailed as a magisterial piece of
scholarship. This influenced the editors of 5G to present a gospel
chronology similar to Koester's in a simplified & graphic format that
could be more easily grasped by the general public. For this we were
pilloried not only by fundamentalists but by scholars, including
Koester. Maybe in a few years, when critics have tired of venting their
fury on the JS, we will be recognized as having made some small
contribution to changing public attitudes regarding GThom & other
non-canonical texts. But until the attitudes of the scholarly
establishment change towards the JS, I'm afraid we cannot claim credit
for changing their attitudes towards GThom or anything.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 13:18
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Antonio Jerez
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: The Thomas/Q Hypothesis
Stevan Davies wrote:
It is just absurd to think of Thomas taking this phrase from this
source and another phrase from that source and weaving them together
to produce something that is essentially the same as the sources'
versions' anyhow.
Antonio objected:
It may be an absurd way of doing things, but that's exactly
a method that was much in vogue in the 2nd century. The
gospel quotations from Justin Martyr shows it, just like
Tatian's Diatesseron.
Not quite the same thing, Antonio. 2nd c. harmonies like those of
Justin, Tatian & the author of GEgerton tended to reweave units from
discrete sources into a seamless garment so that one can still identify
which source the author was basically using at any point, not to pick
random words from the dialog sections of separate narratives to create
hybrid logia devoid of their original narrative context. The former
process is logical given the synthesizing tendencies of the human mind.
Steve is right, however, in characterizing the latter process as absurd,
since it would require simultaneous use of deconstructive,
reconstructive & selective mental software, a feat that even my new 233
MHz Pentium would find challenging.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 00:07
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Stephen C. Carlson
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: The Thomas/Q Hypothesis & the Synoptic Problem
Bob Schacht replied to Stevan Davies:
If your argument for the similarity of Thomas and Luke boils down to
"They both got it from oral tradition," should not the same considerations
apply to the synoptic problem? Or at least to the (non-)existence of Q
which resolves, on your brand of analysis, into a shared oral tradition
rather than a supposedly written but unattested gospel that both Matthew
and Luke drew on? If not, what am I missing here?
Stephen C. Carlson replied:
There are five basic reasons [for a literary relationship between the
synoptics] that have been explained, of which the first two have been the
most popular.
1. Verbatim agreement. For example, in one Q passage, Matthew and Luke
agree for 61 out of 63 Greek words of a presumably Aramaic speech.
2. Extensive agreement in order and arrangement, featuring a modicum of
creativity (e.g. agreements in topic arrangements of parables and
miracle, which are probably not intended to merely be chronological).
3. Substantially similar selection of material, when it features a
modicum of creativity.
4. Presence of editorial comments and redactional material in two texts.
5. A consistent literary pattern between three documents (e.g. the
fundament synoptic fact that Mark is the middle term in the Synoptics).
Mahlon replies:
This is as lucid & succinct a summary as I've seen anywhere. Mind if I
quote you in my classes from now on?
Stephen continued:
Of the first three classical proofs for literary interdependence, Thomas
and the Synoptics flunk all three, although some agreements may have been
obscured by the differences in language and genre. This leaves
(4) redaction and (5) literary patterns. Furthermore, even if (4) and (5)
turn up in favor of Thomasine dependence, the absence of (1), (2), and (3)
suggest more remote possibilities, such as secondary orality,
unavailability of the documents (from which the author of Thomas learned
them) when Thomas was composed, etc.
Mahlon intervenes:
Amen! The main clause of this last sentence is just the admission that
I've wanted to hear from advocates of the hypothesis that GThom was
"dependent" on the synoptics. From this & Mark Goodacre's recent posts on
this thread I think it should now be quite evident that all sides recognize
that there is no strong evidence that the compilers of GThom used the
texts of the canonical gospels as direct sources for their versions
of sayings which parallel those in the NT. This is the fundamental
concession that Steve Davies & I have been trying to win in these
negotiations. The corollary is the admission that all the Thomasine
sayings with synoptic parallels have clear signs of being transcripts of
sayings drawn from the grab-bag of oral memory rather than snipped
from a polished narrative.
The main difference between you & Mark G. on the one side and Steve [Davies]
& I on the other is over the issue of whether the sayings that the
compilers of GThom recalled can be indirectly traced to synoptic
prototypes or are better interpreted as the product of oral processes
that do not presuppose the priority of the canonical gospels.
By "priority" I do not mean the chronological dating of texts so much as
logical priority of the oral rhetorical constructions preserved in these
texts. I think we can all agree that, particularly in cultures where the
means of communication are predominantly oral & the dissemination of
written materials primitive & expensive, a later text can sometimes
preserve the older form of a tradition better than an earlier one. So,
rather than rehash old arguments, I think it would be more productive to
focus this debate on evidence that points to either GThom's indirect
familiarity with elements of the peculiarities of the synoptic texts or
independence from them.
The case for dependence cannot be decided just by finding a few passages
that can be interpreted as indirectly derived from synoptic models,
Rather, it would have to be based on demonstration that this is a
consistent pattern. For with documents, the case for dependence (direct
or indirect) always has to be demonstrated not merely alleged as
possible. [Otherwise, I could convict students of plagiarism just
because I suspect them of cheating]. The basic presumption of source
criticism must be the independence of texts that do not in some way
give clear explicit or implicit signs of dependence.
Your answer to Bob gives clear reasons why literary dependence can be
confidently argued in the case of the synoptics. But, as you of all
people know very well, even here the evidence is not so clear that there
is unanimity on the direction of dependence. In the case of a text
like GThom, where direct literary dependence on the canonical gospels
is not clear or even probable, the case for the direction of the
relationship of the forms is even harder to establish.
At the current state of investigation, the only thing that gives
automatic preference to an assumption that forms of sayings in GThom are
a redaction of those in the synoptics is the canonical bias that we have
all inherited from the orthodox Christian tradition. We need to
recognize & bracket out this prejudice. The probabilities for dependence
or independence have to be weighed on a case by case basis. And this
Thomas/Q project on CrossTalk is an important step in that direction.
If there are significant cases where the forms in GThom can be shown to
be both (a) free of elements characteristic of the synoptic gospels &
(b) rhetorically & logically more primitive, however, then it has to be
concluded that the case for GThom's dependence on synoptic prototypes is
improbable, no matter how many other sayings may be open to such an
interpretation.
Stephen argued:
I believe that the (commonly accepted) solution to the Synoptic Problem
can help us identify prima facie redaction of the tradition.
<SNIP>
Thus, when we compare Thomas to Mark/Luke parallels, a theory of
Thomasine non-dependence predicts that this prima facie Lukan redaction
won't occur in Thomas, while Thomasine dependence predicts that some of
it will occur.
Mahlon interjects:
In theory this is so. But the validity of the predictions of such a
theory depends totally on literary -- i.e., textual -- evidence. The
theory takes no account of the impact of oral traditions. Thus, it is
probative only if it can be shown that elements of "Lukan" redaction are
the product of Luke's own distinctive literary creativity & not derived
from pre-Lukan oral tradition.
This is particularly important in view of Luke's agenda that he states
clearly in the prologue. He claims awareness of the existence of "many"
texts that record earlier traditions (how many he has actually seen or
read is another matter). But he bases his own authorial credentials on
assurance that he has personally "followed all things closely from the
first" [PARAKOLOUQHKOTI ANWQEN PASIN], which presumably means not only
those texts but early oral traditions with which he was personally
familiar: "just as [KAQWS] those who were from the first eye-witnesses
& ministers of the word [hYPHRETAI TOU LOGOU] delivered to us
[PAREDOSAN hHMIN].
This describes Luke's redactional agenda. He presumes to edit & correct
the writings of others because he is confident that he personally has
direct access to a pristine oral tradition from the earliest witnesses.
Whether that was really the case is irrelevant. Since Luke stresses that
he is writing "accurately" [AKRIBWS] in representing earlier tradition,
one cannot automatically assume that every Lukan alteration of Markan or
Matthean material is the product of Luke's personal logic. Indeed, since
Luke's avowed rationale for writing is to produce a text that represents
primitive oral tradition more accurately than others that were
available, there is always the possibility that Luke learned at least
some of those elements that are usually labeled as "Lukan" from the oral
tradition available to him.
If these elements are paralleled in GThom, which everyone appears ready
to concede is the product of orality of some kind, then there is good
reason for maintaining that they are the residue of primary oral
tradition & not evidence of Thomasine dependence on synoptic literary
developments.
Back to Stephen:
This prima facie Lukan redaction shows up in Thomas.
Mahlon objects:
Things are not always as they appear on the surface. "Prima facie Lukan
redaction" may actually be pre-Lukan forms that Luke learned from oral
tradition.
Stephen continues:
In fact, some of these examples are bolstered when the apparent redaction
of Mark is shown to be very Lukan stylistically.
Mahlon objects:
E.g.? Does "very Lukan" mean? idiosyncratic? Does "stylistically" mean
displaying Luke's sophisticated vocabulary, grammar & literary style? Is
it certain that "the apparent redaction" is not just a correction of
Mark, restoring a saying to its more primitive form? I regularly edit my
students papers to present a more precise wording of things I know they
had heard or read. Is such "apparent redaction" evidence that I made
everything up?
Back to Stephen:
Therefore, natural presumption arises that Thomas knew Luke in some manner,
shifting the burden of proof to those who would argue otherwise.
Mahlon comments:
This presumption is "natural" only if one presumes that Luke is sui
generis & invented "Lukan" style de novo. If there is not strong
evidence that one text is literarily dependent upon another, then it
seems to me more "natural" to presume that parallel elements are derived
from a common source that each drew upon independently, especially when
the common denominator is snippets of sayings material rather than
connected narrative.
Stephen thrusts:
In law, the burden of proof is like a game of hot potato. Whoever is
holding it when the music stops loses.
Mahlon parries:
So, who stopped the music?
Stephen serves for match point:
Because of the presence of Lukan redaction of Mark in Thomas, advocates
of Thomasine non-dependence should not be allowed to benefit from the
lack of evidence in their favor. They are still clutching the
hot potato and can't get rid of it.
Mahlon returns service:
Really? I don't feel my fingers burning. In fact, in case you haven't
noticed, I just tossed the potato back to you & Mark [Goodacre]. And my
next reply to Mark (God willing) will give evidence of how hot it really
is ;-)
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 14:07
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Stevan Davies
Cc: Crosstalk
Subject: Tribute to Caesar Correction
I wrote:
The ambiguity of this pericope ["Pay Caesar what is Caesar's,
pay God what is God's" (Thom 100 / Mark 12:17 & parallels)]
may be what prompted Mark to interpret it as a trap & to make
it impossible to read it as encouragement to avoid paying taxes.
Stevan Davies replied:
With the exception of yourself and some other JSem folks (first I
ever heard of this line of thought was from [Stephen] Patterson),
everybody from Mark to yours truly over 2,000 years or so has found it
to be such an encouragement... and so not quite an "impossibility."
Steve clarified:
I'm objecting here to my erroneous reading "impossible to read it as
encouragement to pay taxes" rather than your original. I don't
understand the original, upon re-reading. Is it a triple negative
construction?
Mahlon clarifies:
As Bob Funk & Tom Simms have often reminded me, my syntax (like Paul's)
often gets convoluted & therefore my logic hard to follow (e.g., the
present sentence). Accept my apologies. The basic thrust of my argument
is three-fold:
1. The variant versions of this pericope in GThom & the synoptics is
evidence that the central aphorism ("Return to Caesar & God...")
circulated independent of any set narrative frame. Even the minimal
prose narration needed to introduce J's bon mot could & did vary.
Therefore, one should not presuppose that any of the narration depends
on eyewitness observation of the original occasion in which HJ uttered
it.
2. The Thomasine narration is simpler & probably earlier than the
Markan, since it only presents the minimal information that is necessary
to make sense out of J's saying:
a. J is shown a coin
b. J is confronted with the imperial demand for taxes.
To read more into the Thomasine pretext for J's pronouncement is to read
it through Markan glasses which the author of GThom probably did not
own. Thomas does not specify who showed the coin to Jesus, so any
attempt to identify the speaker requires speculation. My facetious
suggestions that this could have been either disciples or peasants was
meant to demonstrate this & your arguments that it could not have been
either only proves my point. The speakers & their motivation are not
explicitly identified in GThom as they are in Mark. So the only reason
to assume that the situation that prompted the logion in GThom was
identical with that in Mark is that we had prior knowledge of Mark's
interpretation. I was arguing that we need to avoid this type of
circularity if we want to hear the logion as GThom readers, who did
not own a copy of Mark or any of his redactors, might have read it.
3. Presupposing the priority of the Thomasine form of this logion, I
tried to argue that the narrative features peculiar to Mark are the
product of his own imagination & were probably the result of
(a) deductive reasoning (like your earlier reply to me) &
(b) Mark's prejudicial conviction that Pharisees were engaged in a
conspiracy with Herodians to trap J.
Then I speculated on Mark's rationale for inventing this expanded
narration:
a. The pre-Markan narration was so vague that the implications of the
logion was not explicit. Note that Mark does not specify that it was
a "gold" coin. So one cannot be certain that this element of GThom was
original or universal wherever this chreia was repeated. And even if one
assumes that a 1st c. person would automatically assume that the coinage
was imperial (because of the tax question), the question of ownership of
the coin is not self-evident. As far as I know, Roman rules of private
wealth were not all that different than ours. So, if I am in possession
of a coin, it is mine, not Bill Clinton's just because the department
of the treasury that answers to his directives minted it. Therefore,
Jesus' logion of returning things to their rightful owners does not
give an unambiguous answer to the question of foreign taxation.
b. Mark's interpolation of J's question about whose image is on the
coin & the emphatic response that it is Caesar's makes an explicit
link between the coin in question & J's logion, so that it is (almost)
impossible to interpret that logion as anything other than advice to pay
one's taxes. This is in line with Mark's repeated claims those who
thought J meant to spark a nationalistic revolt were dead wrong.
It is in line with Paul's advice to Christians in Rome. But it
is not necessarily what J had in mind when he told fellow Palestinian
Jews "give Caesar what is his" since
(a) the exact historical stimuli for this logion are not certain
(different narrators introduced it differently) &
(b) the logical conclusion of the logion gives primacy to giving
God his due.
Josephus gives us a pretty good historical basis for assuming that
many Jews would have interpreted God's claims as preempting any
imperial demand for taxes. E.g., his summary of the rhetoric of Judah of
Gamala & Zaddok the Pharisee its effect on public unrest :
"They said that the tax was nothing other than outright slavery &
they called for the people to claim their freedom... Now as the men
received all that was said with pleasure, this plot made great progress"
(Ant. 18:4-6).
I seriously doubt that there is any historical precedent for your
exegetical inference in your previous reply that J's counsel to give God
what is God's was referred to paying the temple tax with silver Tyrian
half-shekels. The first time I ever heard that was minutes ago when I
read your note. Herakles may have been the model for the Hebrew Samson,
but I hardly can imagine that any Jew would have thought that an image
that had been identified with Antiochus indicated YHWH's ownership.
Tyrian silver was the sole coinage acceptable for use in the temple of
the 1st c. for a very simple reason: conservative economics. It was the
Swiss Franc of the 1st c. world because its silver content was
guaranteed to be precise & stable, while other currencies including
those of the emperor himself were easily debased.
If your reservations about the historicity of the temple incident are
based on a conviction that J advised fellow Jews to pay the half-shekel
tax, please reconsider the historical evidence for the latter. I think
you will have to admit that it is of dubious historical merit at best.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Thu, 01 Oct 1998 02:28
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Stevan Davies
CC: Crosstalk
Subject: Thoughts of GosThom
Andrew Bernhard wrote:
Without going deep into detail (yet) can you list the arguments that
you would make for Thomas' independence (that is, Thomas
not depending on the synoptics).
Steve Davies replied:
Gee. I thought I had just a minute ago.
1. Thomas' sayings almost always lack the redactional material
in the synoptics.
2. They are often in more primitive form than paralleled materials.
(This second does not follow from the first, it is another
proposition.)
3. Lists are a primitive form within the Christian tradition, taken
over by narratives etc.
I think that's about it.
Mahlon butts in:
Not to question Steve's masterful summation of the arguments re GThom's
independence of synoptic texts. But I think there is a fourth argument
to support Thomasine independence that puts the dependence people on the
defensive:
4. Randomness: GThom is regularly more disorganized than parallel
synoptic material.
It is this phenomenon that ultimately convinced me (trained in literary
criticism before I became a biblical scholar) that GThom was composed
without dependence on the texts of Matthew, Mark, Luke or Q.
Almost invariably Thomas publishes separately what the synoptics publish
together, without imposing any discernible logical pattern of his own.
If one presupposes that the editor of GThom got his material from the
synoptics, then one has to suppose that he invented deconstructionism
almost 2 millennia before Derrida.
E.g., compare the arrangement of parables in GMatt 13
with Luke & GThom
1. Sower: |
Matt 13:1-9 |
Luke 8:5-8 |
Thom 9 |
2. Weeds & wheat: |
Matt 13:24-30 |
-- |
Thom 57 |
3. Mustard Seed: |
Matt 13:31-32 |
Luke 13:18-19 |
Thom 20 |
4. Leaven: |
Matt 13:33 |
Luke 13:20-21 |
Thom 96 |
5. Buried treasure: |
Matt 13:44 |
-- |
Thom 109 |
6. Pearl: |
Matt 13:45-46 |
-- |
Thom 76 |
7. Net: |
Matt 13:47-48 |
-- |
Thom 8 |
If you add to this the observation that GThom's parable of the mustard
seed is closer to Mark's version than to Matt or Luke, you get an even
greater pattern of disorder, since Thom does not reproduce the elements
of the Q wording in which both Matt & Luke agree. (Similar lists
illustrating GThom's randomness could be constructed for the Beatitudes,
etc.)
The human mind may recall sayings from oral memory eclectically. But
memory itself depends on organization of data (catchwords, logical
patterns). If a logical pattern based on catchwords has been already
established in a written document, it is not likely to be totally
ignored or forgotten by someone who really knew & used that text. For
language itself is the primary human tool for organizing, preserving &
using data. An editor might prefer a different organization because of a
different dominant motif (hence, Matt modifies Mark's list of seed
parables because he favors the "kingdom of heaven" motif). But
collectors of previously written bons mots do not generally fragment
organized speeches & pepper the fragments around their work without
producing some discernible plan of their own. Those who deny Q by
arguing that Luke redacted Matt have to justify Luke's "dismantling" of
Matthean speeches by indicating Luke's reasons for moving a passage
(e.g., the Lord's prayer) to a more appropriate location in Luke's
outline. But there is simply no good reason for preferring the Thomasine
order over the Matthean (or Lukan) even at the basic level of mnemonics.
Ergo, GThom was composed without reference to any synoptic gospel or
source.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 09:24
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Bob Schacht
CC: Crosstalk
Subject: Thomas/Synoptic Parallels
Bob Schacht wrote:
H0 ('aitch-zero' i.e., null hypothesis): Thomas was formed by copying
selected sayings from first one synoptic gospel, then another,
interspersed with an eclectic assortment of quotes from unknown sources.
There's another applicable statistic here: if we consider the synoptic
gospels collectively, we could do a Wald-Wolfowitz Runs test. That is, you
take all the GThom sayings in order (all 114 or 156 or whatever of them).
For each saying write "A" if it has no synoptic parallel, and "B" if it has
any synoptic parallel. You then have a sequence of letters like
AABABAABBBABBBBAABAABB... or maybe, as Renee suggested, something more like
AAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBABBBB.
The idea of Wald-Wolfowitz is
that if the order is random, then consecutive runs of the same letter
should not be very long (the longer the run, the rarer it should be). This
test can be found in standard statistics books such as Blalock.
Using this kind of notation with, say, I = no parallel, M = Markan
parallel, N = Special Matthew parallel, L = Special Luke parallel, Q = Q
parallel, then H0 above could be expressed something like this: GThomas =
IIMMMMMMMMMMIIIIQQQQQQQQQQIIIIIINNNNNNNNIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMMMMMIII
I assume that special rules will be needed, e.g. triple tradition material
will always be recorded as 'M', etc.
Dear Bob:
In the JS alphabet M = special Matt & K = Mark/par. One should also add
a J for John. Using the marginal source/parallel table in 5G Thomas for
distinct aphorisms rather than the standard calculation of Thomas'
"sayings" (many of which are compounds), one gets the following pattern:
JQIIIKKIQQIMKKLIIIIQKIQIIIKIQKKIIKJIQIIIIJLMQQKKQIIJQMMKIIKQQQLKKIIIII
QQKIMIIIIQQIIMLKQKKKIQQQIJLQIIMQIIQLIIIIIIQIIQMQQIMQQQKIIKKQQQIKIIK
QIMIIIIQI
I did not double-check the published "source" list to see how close the
parallels really are or whether a Q parallel is closer to QM or QL or,
in the case of Mk-Q overlaps, which the Thomasine saying is closer to.
(Many of the K parallels are the oft repeated "whoever has ears to hear"
-- always in a context not found in Mark).
So this list is in need of fine tuning. But it is sufficient to make the
point that other than independent sayings GThom rarely has 3 (& never 4)
sayings in tandem with a parallel in the same "source." This would be
true even if one removed the sayings special to GThom. That would
produce this sequence:
JQKKQQMKKLQKQKQKKKJQJLMQQKKQJQMMKKQQQLKKQQKMQQ
MLKQKKKQQQJLQMQQLQQMQQMQQQKKKQQQKKQMQ
Moreover, wherever there are tandem sayings with parallels in the same
source, they are almost never from the same context in that source. This
clearly demonstrates the randomness of sayings in GThom.
As for H0 (the null hypothesis: "Thomas was formed by copying
selected sayings from first one synoptic gospel, then another..."): No
one who has ever bothered to compare the wording of GThom sayings with
canonical parallels could ever seriously propose this. Even a
superficial reading of GThom proves that its sayings are not "copied"
from any canonical text.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 02:36
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Mark S.Goodacre
CC: Crosstalk
Subject: Thomas Gospel & Q
Jeff Peterson wrote:
I was actually thinking of three kinds of relationship between Q and
Thomas one finds suggested in the literature:
1) The generic relationship that Mark mentioned (Q and Thom as
"Sayings Gospels," unlike the canonicals)
2) The common theological milieu to which these texts attest, an
alternative to Pauline-Nicene crucified-and-resurrected Messiah
Christianity
3) The literary relationship between Q or a proto-Q and Thomas or
proto-Thomas.
Steve [Davies] contests whether the latter relationship has in fact
been mooted in the following (written at 9:40 PM 11/12/98!):
"Q1 evolves into Q2, Thomas into Thomas2 which have now
taken on entirely different ideological trajectories.
Since I'd maintain that nobody has ever suggested such a thing
I'd better insist that I'm not suggesting it, just exploring the
logic of the position. It does have a nice symmetry to it, doesn't
it? No evidence... but nice symmetry."
I agree with Steve about the problematic nature of the evidence for
this proposal; here it is in print, 18 years after the remark in
Trajectories that Mark [Goodacre] helpfully supplied (emphasis mine):
"The materials which the Gospel of Thomas and Q share must belong to a
very early stage of the transmission of Jesus' sayings . . . Thus, the
Gospel of Thomas is EITHER DEPENDENT UPON THE EARLIEST VERSION OF Q,
or, more likely, shares with the author of Q one or several very early
collections of Jesus' sayings. . . . The close relationship of the
Gospel of Thomas to Q cannot be accidental. . . . The Gospel of
Thomas is EITHER DEPENDENT UPON Q'S EARLIER VERSION or upon clusters
of sayings employed in its composition" (Helmut Koester,
Ancient Christian Gospels, 95, 150, cited by John Dominic Crossan,
The Birth of Christianity, 247-248).
Jeff cites Koester as evidence of a "relationship between Q and Thomas
one finds suggested in the [secondary] literature" in reply to Steve
Davies speculation about independent parallel trajectories of Q1>Q2 and
Thom1>Thom2 (which he claims "nobody has ever suggested").
Just a few comments & clarifications:
1. Jeff's highlighting of Koester's words in Ancient Christian Gospels
tends to obscure Koester's own emphasis in this passage. So pardon a
revised version (boldface mine but emphasis Koester's):
"Thus, the Gospel of Thomas is EITHER dependent upon THE EARLIEST
version of, OR, MORE LIKELY, SHARES with the author of Q one or several
VERY EARLY COLLECTIONS of Jesus' sayings" (p. 95).
"The close relationship of the Gospel of Thomas to Q cannot be
accidental. . . . The Gospel of Thomas is EITHER dependent upon Q'S
EARLIER version OR upon clusters of sayings EMPLOYED IN ITS COMPOSITION"
(p. 150).
The fact that Koester presents Thomas before Q in his own chapter on
"the collection of the sayings of Jesus" is clear evidence that he
favors the second of these alternatives. The fact that parallel sayings
that are conjoined in Q appear independently in random order in GThom is
one of Koester's reasons for championing the priority of Thomas over Q.
It represents a more "primitive" (i.e., less thematically organized)
stage in the compilation of aphorisms ascribed to Jesu. No one has been
more consistent than Koester in championing this position. The reason he
mentions the *possibility* of GThom's "dependence" on a very early
version of Q is due probably to two factors:
a. As an objective scholar he recognizes that "a large number of
authors" including "respected scholars" like R. M. Grant, E. Haenchen,
etc. have argued that GThom is dependent on canonical material (ACG p.
84). Thus, the real point of Koester's "either" in the rhetorical
alternatives quoted above is that IF (for argument sake) GThom is
dependent on canonical material, its source must be a very early
version of the synoptic sayings source which was not identical with
the version in Matt & Luke.
b. As a good dialectician, Koester knows that the best way to dispose of
objections to one's own argument is to show the weakness in alternative
positions. IF the only way a theory of GThom's dependence on material in
the canonical gospels can be defended in detail is to admit that this
"canonical source" is a version (much) earlier than the current
canonical text, then the alternative that GThom was independent of the
canonical logia & better represents the pre-canonical version of Jesu's
words becomes all the "more likely." That is Koester's actual position.
So his "suggestion" that GThom may be "dependent" on Q is a rhetorical
straw man. Thus, to cite Koester to support a hypothesis that GThom was
dependent on the synoptics is grasping at illusory straws.
2. Ditto Crossan. While the early Dom favored the priority of Q
material, his work on the aphorisms of Jesus (In Fragments) convinced
him otherwise. In analyzing the composition & rhetorical structure of
parallel sayings in Q & GThom, Crossan repeatedly argued that GThom
preserved the more primitive form of the saying. He ascribed the
elements unique to the canonical (=Q) version to the process of
hermeneutical development in paraphrasing & applying sayings to later
literary/social contexts. Thus, when Crossan came to spelling out his
own theory of the chronological stratification of early Christian
sources in his big HJ (1992), he like Koester lists GThom1 before
Q1. He describes GThom1 (source #5) thus (my emphasis):
"A serial collection of Jesus' sayings with LIMITED individual linkage
by means of theme, word or expression... There may be at least two
separate layers in it... The collection is INDEPENDENT of the
intra-canonical gospels (Davies; Crossan 1985; but esp. Patterson)... it
also emphasizes how much of this collection is very, very early." (HJ
p. 427f).
Crossan describes Q (source #10) thus:
"A serial collection of Jesus' sayings but with MORE COMPOSITIONAL
ORGANIZATION than the Gospel of Thomas... There may be three successive
layers in its development" (p. 431).
But even the earliest of these layers (Kloppenborg's "sapiential"
source) is more rhetorically complex & thus logically later than the
parallel material in GThom.
Koester & Crossan base their arguments for the independence of GThom
from Q or any canonical text largely on a neutral examination of the
form & content of the sayings themselves. The details they focus on
anyone with eyes to see should be able to see. By contrast those who
argue for GThom's dependence on canonical works have to discount the
structural & rhetorical differences between GThom & Q (even more the
synoptics) which most of the time point to the primitive character of
GThom. This I can only ascribe to an a priori canonical bias (pace
Mark Goodacre).
What puzzles me is Steve Davies' remark that "no one ever suggested"
independent parallel developments of the trajectories Q1 > Q2 & Thom1 >
Thom2. As I read Koester & Crossan this is precisely what they suggest.
Koester even suggests that Thom1 (=parallels to canonical sayings) is
useful for constructing Q, since sayings in Thom echoed only by Matt or
Luke are more plausibly traced to the same source (Q) than to claim that
they were either fabricated by the synoptic author or that Matt & Luke
used another sayings collection (Thom) whose structure, spin & other
contents they ignore.
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 23:36
From: Mahlon H. Smith
To: Stevan Davies
CC: Crosstalk
Subject: Who was Who? (was Didymos Judas Thomas)
Stevan Davies wrote:
Some guy had the nickname "twin." He had some other name too.
Why not Judas? Jesus had a disciple with the nickname "twin."
Andrew Bernhard objected:
Wait, how do you know that Thomas is a nickname? Would it have to be a
nickname or could it be his real name? It was never used as a surname
in Aramaic, but was it in Greek?
Steve replied:
Dunno. Don't think so though.
Mahlon intervenes:
As usual, Steve's candor cuts through the BS. But lest someone mistake
his expression of ignorance as a lack of learning, let me point out it
is really due to lack of concrete evidence. But some rational analysis &
judicious speculation are still in order.
1. QWMAS was an Aramaic name like KHFAS. GJohn supplies both with Greek
translations; while the synoptics used the translation for Kephas
(PETROS), they preferred the transliteration for Thomas. Why? To
minimize readers' speculation over a sibling relationship? Why else
would Greek-speaking Christians have preferred an alien name to its
Greek equivalent, when they did not do this with either PETROS or CRISTOS?
2. Neither QWMAS or KHFAS is documented as a proper name in Aramaic
prior to the association with a disciple of Jesus (not withstanding Tom
Simms' intriguing suggestion of Thomas' ultimate derivation from
Thothmses). So whether Thomas or Kephas could have been used as a
proper name in Aramaic culture will probably never be known for
certain. If, as Matt & GJohn indicate, "Kephas" was a nickname for
someone whose given name was quite different (Shim'on bar Yonah -- or
bar Yochanan, if GJohn is right), then by analogy it seems likely that
QWMAS was also a nickname.
3. Could QWMAS be regarded as a proper name in Greek culture? Of
course, just as PETROS or KHFAS was used by Paul as the name of the
chief apostle to the circumcised. In fact, was even PAULOS a given name
or a nickname (Latin Paulus = "Shorty" transliterated into Greek)?
Where's the evidence that PAULOS was a given name in Greek culture
prior to the 2nd c. CE? Yet a self-styled apostle to the uncircumcised
regularly signed his correspondence that way. Whether any of these names
were given proper names in Greek culture prior to the Christian
missionaries who were popularly identified as such is historically
doubtful. At least, I have never found evidence that they were. Has
anyone else?
What was the real given name of the Christian missionary who identifies
himself as as PAULOS? Was it Saul, as the author of Acts supposes? If
so, Saul son-of Whom? Or does "Luke" invent that name since Paul himself
claims to be of the tribe of Benjamin (Phil 3:5)?
4. The real identity of QWMAS seems to have been a total cipher for the
writers of canonical Christian texts. The name apparently was included
in Greek lists of the Twelve (Matt 10:3//Mark 3:18//Luke 6:15; John
20:4; Acts 1:13). But like BAR QOLOMAIOS, with whom his name was
sometimes linked, his full proper identity seems to have been either
forgotten or suppressed. "bar Tolmai" was a patronym (like Johnson)
rather than a proper given name. So even if the group called him that
(to distinguish him from others with the same first name?), his parents
obviously gave him some other name.
5. Likewise QWMAS. Even if Galileans were in the habit (like the
Latins)-- which they probably weren't -- of giving their children birth
numerical names -- e.g., Secundus, Tertius, Quintus, Sextus, Septimus,
Octavius, Decius, etc.), QWMAS could not have been the given name for
one of a pair of twins, since it would have been equally descriptive of
his identical (or fraternal) sibling. Ergo, QWMAS must have been a
nickname, even if this shadowy Christian missionary was called &
identified himself by this name.
6. As a descriptive name, "Thomas" must have been someone's double. The
question is whose? To be called simply "the twin" by one's comrades is
like being called "junior." It implies that one is a reflection of
someone whom everyone recognizes is more prominent. The only reason I
can imagine for the Greek Christian community conveniently "forgetting"
to mention this twin's given name & that of his brother is that he was
Yeshu's identical but less charismatic sibling (more likely Yehudah
rather than Ya'akov, since the later was regularly named).
7. As Hellenists like Paul came to venerate Jesu as "son of God," it
would still have been acceptable to recognize James as his (half?/step?)
brother. But it would have been out of the question to publicly continue
to identify Judas (or anyone else) as Jesu's twin. For then logically he
would have had equal claim to all the theological & messianic claims
being made for Jesu, like Castor & Pollux, the celestial twins of the
constellation Gemini, who were equally sons of Jupiter (whose own name
was a corruption of Deus Pater: "God the Father").
That's just my hunch. Anyone have a better
one?
Shalom!
Mahlon
|
Key
to Standard Abbreviations |
5G |
The Five Gospels |
L |
material special to Luke |
ACG |
Ancient Christian Gospels |
M |
material special to Matt |
BTW |
by the way |
MattR |
Matthean redaction |
CE |
common era |
NT |
New Testament |
GJohn |
Gospel of John |
Q |
source of non-Markan sayings
common to Matt & Luke |
GThom |
Gospel of Thomas |
Q1 |
earliest draft of Q |
HJ |
the historical Jesus |
QL |
version of Q material in
Luke |
H0 |
null hypothesis |
QM |
version of Q material in
Matt |
J |
Jesus |
SG |
Signs Gospel (early stratum of
GJohn) |
JB |
John the Baptist |
Thom1 |
earliest draft of GThom |
JS |
the Jesus Seminar |
Xn, Xnity |
Christian, Christianity |
K of G |
kingdom of God |
;-) |
winking smiley face (to
indicate humor) |
- This page was revised
21 February 2023
-
|