Rick Van Vliet

It was Robinson and Eisenman. Google will confirm it for you in 30 seconds.

Rick Van Vliet

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Toto

I have reviewed this thread, and you have merely asserted that gThomas was written in the mid first century, and that Robinson says it was written in the first century. I guess I missed any "basic reasons." There are in fact reasons to date some core sayings to the mid first century, but it's not clear how the sayings prove the existence of Jesus.

andrewcriddle

You are entirely correct. Sorry.

Andrew Criddle

Doug Shaver

Suit yourself. But I fail to see how substantiating what you say constitutes a deliberate act of stupidity.

DCHindley

Rick,

It almost sounds like you are confusing James M Robinson's work on the Nag Hammadi Codices (he has also published an English Translation of these as The Nag Hammadi Library), with that of Robert Eisenman who was the principal editor of A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1991. This did indeed break the monopoly, mainly because they were able to locate one of several transcripts of the texts of the original set of fragments that had been in storage at a university, which was never covered by a confidiality agreement like all the others. FWIW, Eisenmann told me that neither he nor Robinson have never received any royalties from the publisher, Hershel Shanks' Biblical Archeology Society, against whom they had filed a lawsuit. Prior to working with Eisenman, J M Robinson has previously published a similarly titled edition of Nag Hammadi texts, called The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices around 1974.

I doubt that Robinson dated the Gospel of Thomas to 1st century. He would have dated the Coptic mss copy in the codices, probably to 4th century CE on the basis of the dates on papryus letters that were used as cartonage in the binding. Greek fragments of the Gospel of Thomas were published as part of Grenfell & Hunt's publication of the Oxyrhynchus papyri from Egypt in the early 20th century. Now one of those three Greek fragments seems to date to around 200 CE based on paleographical analysis. It has been some modern critics who see the original Gospel of Thomas as written in the mid 1st century. Don't confuse this Gospel of Thomas with the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (not that I'm saying you will, but it's still early in the day ...).

Google will confirm this in about 15-30 minutes, and if you really want to understand what you are reading probably want to take a few hours. You can spend 30 seconds if you want .... but I don't think anyone can absorb all that info that fast and not intentionally make oneself seem stupid. But that is just me, and as you say I don't have a clue.

DCH

Toto

Robert_EisenmanThis is James M. Robinson, not to be confused with John A.T. Robinson, who has proposed (perhaps only hypothetically) some very early dating of the gospels (or via: amazon.co.uk).

The arguments for an early dating of gThomas are summarized in the wikipedia article, but neither Robinson is listed there.

arnoldo

Hippolytus of Rome wrote approximately in the early second century concenring the Gospel of Thomas. He also wrote that Thomas was martyred in India however this is disputed by some Hindu scholars.

aa5874

But if you EXAMINE the wikipedia article on gThomas it will state that some scholars do not consider Thomas as the author of the Gospel of Thomas but that it was anonymous.

But, once Jesus did NOT ACTUALLY exist then it is most likely that there was no apostle of Jesus called Thomas.

arnoldo

Clement of Alexandria also wrote about an alleged Thomas in Parthia sometime in the third century.

Early references about the Apostolate of Saint Thomas in India, Records about the Indian tradition, Saint Thomas Christians & Statements by Indian Statesmen