Qiwi

When I first encountered the 'Gospel of Thomas' some fifteen years ago I was astounded.......
The claim that it was a later agnostic construction seemed a predictable response from the conservative christian element, and not at all unexpected considering the message contained within the collection of sayings was diametrically opposed to that found in the New Testament.
Of course the full text only surfaced with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices in 1945, and the first translations became available in the early 1970's.
It is now widely accepted that the 'Thomas Gospel' is indeed very early and does preserve the earliest 'sayings' atributable to Jesus....
Stripped of the flashy miracles & the angels and demons it represents exactly the type of teaching one would expect from a compassionate & wise man teaching simple fishermen and ordinary working class people.
The most revealing passage for me is the 'parable' concerning the wise fisherman.
In the Thomas Gospel it appears as the eighth saying of the collection of 114.

8) And He said, "The man is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of small fish. Among them ther wise fisherman found a fine large fish. He threw all the small fish back into the sea and chose the large fish without difficulty. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear."

...and there the parable ends.... simple enough for any 'wise' fisherman to understand. But turn to the NT and the Gospel of Mathew and we find a veritable horror story.... :devil3:

13:47 The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind; when it was full, the men pulled it ashore and sat down and put the good fish into baskets and threw the bad ones away. That is how it will be at the close of this age. The angels will come and seperate the wicked from the righteous, and will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

...suddenly there are now good fish & bad fish......wicked vs righteous.... wailing & gnashing of teeth....
This twisted interpretation of a simple fishing parable is a theme that runs right through the New Testament....
Indeed it is hard to imagine anyone 'lending their ears' to such psychopathic babbling, let alone a simple fisherman......

Chris Weimer

I've my doubts on Thomas being authentic, can you show that it is?

Diogenes the Cynic

Whether it's authentic or not, I still like the sayings. They remind me of Zen koans.

Chris Weimer

Sure, but liking them has nothing to do with authenticity that the OP implied. If Christianity consisted of Thomas and not the polemical gospels, then I'd might actually convert, but it's not, so I won't. :thumbs:

Qiwi

More to the point can you show that it isn't?
Another point worth remembering is that whatever the core of his teachings was it most certainly had nothing to do with his dying for our sins or any of the other Pauline gobbledy-gook.... :down:

Chris Weimer

I'm sorry, but the burden of proof is on you. But I've posted my doubts in various forms...

http://neonostalgia.com/bible/forums/viewtopic.php?t=59
http://neonostalgia.com/bible/forums...opic.php?t=111

andrewcriddle

FWIW the first translations of Thomas became available in the early 1960's eg 'The Secret Sayings of Jesus' by Grant and Freedman published 1960.
Identifying the original form with the version which one personally finds most attractive is methodologically dubious. It may just mean that Thomas replaces what Jesus actually said with what people wished he had said.

The more general issue is whether or not parables that occur in the NT with an apocalyptic/eschatological emphasis and in Thomas without such emphasis were originally eschatological and de-eschatologized by Thomas; or whether the Thomas version is original with the eschatology a later addition.

For saying 8 either could be true.

However if we take for example saying 57 with parallel in Matthew 13 I have doubts whether this parable ever existed without the Matthaean eschatological meaning which Thomas has IMO removed. (I'm not sure what else it can originally have meant)

Hence there are at least some cases where Thomas has reduced the apocalyptic elements in his source. Hence the non-eschatological nature of Thomas is probably a result of Thomas modifying and selecting his material and not evidence about the authentic teaching of the historical Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

Diogenes the Cynic

As a rule of thumb, it's generally safer to assume that the simpler the saying, the earlier it is. In Thomas we have a wisdom saying. In Matthew, we have the same saying with an added commentary forcing it into an eschatological context. The "Son of Man" language and all it's Messianic connotations are not found in Thomas. The Jesus in Thomas is never identified as the Messiah or as God. I think that shows an earlier layer of development because those are elements that you can't wash off once they're there. I also dont find it credible that someone would go through a collection of Messianic/eschatological sayings and strip them down so that they sound like wisdom sayings. To me it looks obvious that Matthew is forcing his theology on sayings that were originally sapiential. I think the same thing was done with much of Q (at least Q1).

None of that means that Thomas has to be "authentic" in the sense that it came from HJ but I think they do represent part of a pre-Canonical sayings tradition attributed to Jesus.

I also think that if there was a HJ, that Thomas and Q1 are probably the best bets we have for an authentic sayings tradition.

Chris Weimer

No, Diogenes, you can't always assume that. You can wish it true, but you must look not only at theology and simplicity but also context and linguistics. Thomas has a much more developed theology than simple wisdom sayings, such as the unification of genders. Early gnosticism clearly didn't want fire and brimstone to be associated with it, so there is a motive to remove context completely. Linguistically, it has been shown, though to an one hundred percent agreement, that Thomas borrowed from Luke and Matthew, and most likely Mark. If you refuse to read my forum's posts, at least read this: http://www.gospelthomas.com/gospelthomas54.html

And I'm still trying to find Judaism in Thomas... :huh:

Diogenes the Cynic

I didn't say you could always assume it, I said it was a generally safe rule of thumb. It's a prima facie starting point is all I was trying to say.
I don't believe Thomas is Gnostic even though it was admittedly used by Gnostics. I think it's entirely consistent with a mystic/sapiential tradition and that TO ME, the eschatological renderings seem labored and forced. YMMV. I read this link and the argument that the Thomas saying was derived from Luke seems to be based on an assumption that it agrees with a Lucan redaction of Q against Matthew (Luke and Thomas say "'yours' is the Kingdom," while Matthew says, "theirs.") but what is the basis for the assumption that Luke made the redaction rather than Matthew...especially since it's believed that Q is better preserved in Luke?
They're wisdom sayings, not a statement of theology but there are at least some references which specify a Jewish context. It is monotheistic, it makes reference to dietary laws, it mentions Adam and John the Baptist. It (dosparagingly) mentions the Pharisees, the disciples talk about Israel and the prophets. If it's not Jewish, what is it? It isn't Pagan.