Tercel

Some of the early church writers took it upon themselves to criticise the non-othodox groups. (eg Irenaeus' Against All Heresies c180AD) Hence we know at least some of what the various gnostic groups taught and which books of the Bible they used.

Vorkosigan

That would be zero, then. Thanks, Tercel.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

The problem is that you are seaking of Thomas as a whole. It may have been composed in stages like Q qith layers added. I find Thomas to be independent opf the canonical Gospels and I think part of it is EXTREMELY ancient.

Vinnie, have you read Bernard Muller's arguments for a late date of Q? Muller notes that Q corrects and elaborates on Mark.

Vorkosigan

Vinnie

Haven't read it but it looks interesting. I wouldn't call that too late as I see Mark being ca 70 ad and the final stage of Q before Luke and Matthew used it being sometime around around 70 ad as well. I'll try to chack that out a little later today once I get these html files up.

Does he argue the whole Q Gospel is late? I'm not sure its even remotely feasible to consider Q to have been written all at once.

Vinnie

Vinnie

I started reading it a little and I must say that I'm not finding it very convincing.

I will say that one potential prospect I am thinking of is it could resolve a difficulty. If there are a very large number of Mark/Q overlapps then at some point one does have to posit literary dependence between the two.

Mark knowing Q suffers from the same difficulty as Mtthean priority. I've never really thought about it the other way around though. I can't accept a total late dating of Q though. I do think its conceivable that a later redactor may have been aware of a version of Mark though.

Vinnie

Volker.Doormann

I think this is not a problem; but it can be a problem to think in fragments, if one is trying to understand the meaning of parables in the Gospel of Thomas in hole.
47 of the Sayings in the Gospel of Thomas one can find as well in the canonical Gospels of Marc, Luke, Mathew. If one can read 47 sayings as well in the canonical Gospels and in the Gospel of Thomas, I think it is allowed to say, there is a common saying in both, is it not?

I think it is more helpful to see for the things, who are in common, than to look for extreme (BTW, there is a common teaching in the can. G and in the G.T., that a disciple of Jesus must hate his father and his mother. Is it ancient? Modern? Cool? Christianity belief?).

If one analyses the Sayings in the c.G. versus the Sayings in Thomas G. as they occur in the text lines and chapters, you can find a positive correlation between all three canonical Gospels and the Gospel of Thomas (s. grafic on the German site: doormann.org/tomkorr.htm ). This positive correlation indicates, that it is more likely, that there is a depending in the text lines of both, as an independence. An independance is IMHO to perceive between the stupid story board in the canonical Gospels and the great - hidden - spiritual meaning of the (47) (common) Sayings of Jesus; these Sayings have IMHO a very common consequence holeness.

Volker

Vinnie

My point was that GThomas did not draw from the synoptics, not that there is no overlapping material. If there wasn't any overlapping material we wouldn't even be discussing the issue.

I agree that the final redaction has things oriented towards a certain viewpoint but there are many instances where GThomas seems to have preserved the original wording of various sayings.

Vinnie

Vinnie

and for those readings, the dating and question of dependence for GThomas is fiercely debated by scholars. Its been so since the beginning and will probably not be resolved anytime soon. John Meier is pretty cautious here. In Marginal he points out "with all due hesitation" that he finds dependence on the synoptics to be supported by cumulative evidence. No certainty is to be had by either side on this issue though as far as I am concerned. Its more of a working hypothesis.

Vinnie

Volker.Doormann

You have said:"The problem is that you are seaking of Thomas as a whole. It may have been composed in stages like Q qith layers added ... I find Thomas to be independent opf the canonical Gospels and I think part of it is EXTREMELY ancient."

I cannot see, that your answer do relate to this your personal claims and the questions in my reply.

My point is, that if there are no answers on the kernal issue, each personal speculation on problems or drawings are without any worth.

Volker

Yuri Kuchinsky

Greetings, all,

I don't think that dating the Gospel of Thomas is really all that different from dating the canonical gospels. I think that both the canonicals and the GOT had been _works in progress_ from ca 90 to 250 CE. All of these works contain both some early material, as well as plenty of later additions and emendations.

Fundamentally, if you're asking which is earlier, GOT or the canonicals, I would say that perhaps GOT contains a bit more early material than the canonicals, but it also has quite a lot of late stuff.

Regards,

Yuri.