andrewcriddle

The Gospel of Thomas may be slightly off-topic but FWIW have you read April DeConick's article (VC 56 2002 pp 167-199) 'The Original Gospel of Thomas' ?.

She argues that the correct reconstruction of the initial layer of Thomas is actually strongly apocalyptic/eschatological.

Andrew Criddle

Diogenes the Cynic

I'd be interested in reading the article but I frankly don't see a shred of apocalyptic eschatology in the book. It's a wisdom text, IMO.

Toto

DeConick. The article is available online only to subscribers.

Vorkosigan

Pauline ideas are there, filtered through Mark first. I'll put up some arguments from my website in a moment.

Steven Carr

Olson writes(4) Many of the stories in the gospel fulfill what is known as the criterion of embarrassment. The early Christians proclaimed a Jesus who was forgiving and just. They would not have invented stories that might make Jesus appear vengeful or capricious as he might seem to be in some of the stories in the gospel. Thus, these stories must be firmly rooted in early tradition, though suppressed by the canonical gospels.

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Why does the criterion of embarrassment fail so badly, when applied to works other than the Gospels?

andrewcriddle

I think that if the criterion of embarrassment is to be other than subjective it has to be based upon a study of how the tradition developed and the place of a particular narrative in the 'trajectory' of the tradition.

Hence

IF one regarded the Infancy Gospel as a first century work later used in toned down fashion by Luke (main parallel Luke 2:41-52); then one might have to take seriously the idea that it represents an early 'thaumaturgical' tradition about Jesus suppressed in the canonical Gospels.

However

IF one (correctly) regards the Infancy Gospel as from c 140 CE and as being a developed version of passages such as Luke 2:41-52; then it becomes part of the 2nd century production of popular Christian narratives full of miracles some rather unedifying. (See the various Apocryphal Acts)

Andrew Criddle

Vorkosigan

That's certainly an interesting way of looking at it. But it really doesn't solve Steve's conundrum. You have used some other means to determine the correct answer, and thus dispensed with the CoE. If you did not have this method, you would be unable to apply the CoE. It seems that

....the CoE can only work if we already know something is history. In that case it is useless for establishing historicity, which is the way it is used in NT studies....

...but if we already know whether or not something is history, then the CoE is superfluous.


Vorkosigan

Amaleq13

It fails badly there as well because it is too often entirely subjective.

Steven Carr

What you say is all fine, but I don't think I follow your drift.

If 2nd century Christians were quite happy to write unedifying things about Jesus, why would 1st century Christians have been embarrassed to write unedifying things about Jesus (unless they happened to be forced by the dictates of historical reporting)?

John A. Broussard

There are a host of problems involved here, not the least of which is that there is not a single, authentic, surviving document written by 1st Century Christians--so who knows what they may have written?