Hi Mike,

You seem to be getting off track. That's natural, given the wide and
intense interest in the _original_ GTh, but the design features we're
talking about occur only in the _Coptic_ GTh, as far as can be determined.
Nor do they seem to be geared toward orality, since someone hearing
the words spoken wouldn't have been aware of any numerical design
based on number of letters, etc. But this doesn't reflect back on the
_original_ GTh. The question is rather "What were the Copts up to?"
They were evidently doing something with their source text. But why?
One possibility is that they were designing features which they thought
would be "pleasing to God", with no intention that anyone other than
themselves should detect them. Or perhaps they intended that these
special features would be hidden from outsiders, but would be made
known to insiders. The latter explanation is appealing for several reasons,
not least that GTh refers several times to "hidden things" becoming
known by, or revealed to, the true Thomas disciple. And as we know,
one of the appeals of secret groups is that they claim to have secret
esoteric knowledge unavailable to outsiders.

Cheers,
Mike G.