James Bean’s collage of “Jesus sayings” [“Sermon on Light”,gthomas 12/17/00]
is a thought-provoking illustration of how an author can fashion a new text
by “borrowing” from other documents. The “Sermon” is almost certainly an
example (although perhaps exaggerated) of how some texts were created in
antiquity.

In response to Jim Bauer’s poignantly obtuse remarks on the “Sermon on
  Light” [gthomas 12/18/00], Bean properly refocuses on a fundamentally
important question: How did the Thomean Redactor(s) and other authors of
antiquity understand and use the metaphors of light/darkness in their
creative efforts?

Perhaps a useful point of departure for additional discussions about this
topic would be to survey some of the literary artifacts from the ancient
Mediterranean basin in which the concept of light seems to play a prominent
role.

One might begin with Homer who uses the word most commonly in what might be
called a “literal sense.” In other words, the Greek word for light used by
Homer (which, by the way, is never FWS, but FAOS), generally describes what
we conventionally call daylight or some other occurrence of brightness in
nature (_Od._ 23.371, 21.429, 19.33-34; _Il._ 1.605, ). There are of course
a few exceptions in which the Bard uses “light” in a more figurative sense
such as _Od._ 16.15 (the bright eyes of Zeus), 18.10f (separation of life
from death) and 16.23 (used as a virtual synonym for joy).

Figurative uses of the concept of light become more common in post-Homeric
Greek literature. Light is given a positive sense in Pindar _Nem._ 4.37-38
where light seems to denote that which is publicly known. Similar
applications may be found in Plat. _Leg._IV.724a, VI.788c and _Phaedr._
261e. Still later, light accompanies the manifestation of the divine in
Euripedes _Ba._
1082-1083. In Plut. _Aud._ 17 knowledge leads to self-understanding in the
world. It is assumed that this must first be discovered, hence the use of
verbs like “to shine” in describing the process of knowledge. A decisive
step seems to emerge with Parmenides _Fr._ 1 where he describes the way from
the “house of night” to the light. Here the way of truth is the way to being
which is directly equated with light! The mythical/mystical starting point
may still be seen when the illumination leads back to god. In reality, here
it is the experience of pure thought in which being is known. Light becomes,
therefore, the presupposition of all understanding. Parmendes writes, “But
after all things were named light (FAOS, not FWS), and night (NUX), and what
is proper to their to their powers was imparted to them as names, so
everthing is full of both light and invisible night (THANATOS !) , which are
equally important, for nothing is possible which does not stand under one of
the two…”(_Fr._ 9.1ff). This seems not to be meant in a moral sense.
Darkness is not guilt but the mere antithesis of light (cf. _Fr._ 8.54). The
structure of the cosmos corresponds to that of the organ of knowledge.

Jim Bauer’s assessment that the “Sermon on Light” is “a-historical &
a-cultural… a mish-mosh” [gthomas 12/18/00] completely fails to recognize
the point that James’ post seems to imply.  While Bauer’s assertion that
“the twin archetypes of light and darkness were derived from early adaptive
structures by which organisms became self-aware & (sic) became eventually
developed language & (sic) cause- & -effect” [gthomas 12/18/00] may
represent a viable hypothesis in evolutionary philosophy, it does not seem
to be relevant either to Bean’s poesis or to the source texts which he
utilizes.

If there is an example of what Bauer argues to be a progressive development
in light darkness symbolism [gthomas 12/18/00] it seems to begin later
rather than earlier in the literary artifacts of antiquity, and then in
philosophical speculation, not in religious affirmation. This would seem to
bring into serious question his “hypothesis” that “sleep and the entire
light-darkness symbolism derived from [a primordial?] adaptation to the to
the day-night nocturnal cycle.” If this is the case, where is the evidence
in the literature? I submit that such evidence is entirely absent.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Hubbard" <rhubbard@...>
To: <gthomas@egroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 10:28 AM
Subject: RE: [gthomas] Re: Re: The Sermon on the Light


> >
> In response to Jim Bauer's poignantly obtuse remarks on the "Sermon on
>  Light" [gthomas 12/18/00],
Why do you call my thought "poignantly obtuse"?  What do you mean by that,
anyway?  & don't you think that someone in your discipline might sound
"obtuse" to a sociobiologist?
>
.
>
> Jim Bauer's assessment that the "Sermon on Light" is "a-historical &
> a-cultural. a mish-mosh" [gthomas 12/18/00] completely fails to recognize
> the point that James' post seems to imply.  While Bauer's assertion that
> "the twin archetypes of light and darkness were derived from early
adaptive
> structures by which organisms became self-aware & (sic) became eventually
> developed language & (sic) cause- & -effect" [gthomas 12/18/00] may
> represent a viable hypothesis in evolutionary philosophy, it does not seem
> to be relevant either to Bean's poesis or to the source texts which he
> utilizes.

My point was simply that if you go around cutting & pasting together
bits-&-pieces of literature you're not understanding it in a holistic sense
& you can get it to "mean" just about anything.  Such literary meanderings
are useless from a scientific perspective.  They have about the same degree
of validity as the "Bible codes" the Fundamentalists talk about.  Reading
every tenth verse (or whatever) is supposed to have a "hidden meaning".
>
> If there is an example of what Bauer argues to be a progressive
development
> in light darkness symbolism [gthomas 12/18/00] it seems to begin later
> rather than earlier in the literary artifacts of antiquity, and then in
> philosophical speculation, not in religious affirmation. This would seem
to
> bring into serious question his "hypothesis" that "sleep and the entire
> light-darkness symbolism derived from [a primordial?] adaptation to the to
> the day-night nocturnal cycle." If this is the case, where is the evidence
> in the literature? I submit that such evidence is entirely absent.

Archetypes evolve much more slowly than memes so of course there's no
evidence in the literature.  To those unfamiliar with the jargon, a meme is
a gene analog, a replicating system.  This includes ideas & other
socio-cultural artifacts.  In a conversation with Bill Wimsatt I once
stated, "an archetype is a sign-stimulus married polygamously to the
environment."  His response was, "you could also say thar archetypes are
pleiotropic (multi-functioned) memes."  However, they do possess a genetic
element (at least in theory); the evolution of religious & philosophical
texts is an upper-level phenomen & so it evolves on a much shorter
time-scale than archetypes.  The type of memes--ancient texts--which you
cite here will never enter the collective unconscious as there is no
Lamarckian selection.

If you have trouble with the jargon, look it up, you're on the web.

Jim Bauer>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> To post to gthomas, send email to gthomas@egroups.com
> To unsubscribe, send a blank email to gthomas-unsubscribe@egroups.com

Bauer Wrote:
Why do you call my thought "poignantly obtuse"?  What do you mean by that,
anyway?  & don't you think that someone in your discipline might sound
"obtuse" to a sociobiologist?

You may be correct that there exists some "cross disciplinary communication
interference." Your post is sufficient evidence to support such a
conclusion. Please read the following, however, about the purpose of the
gthomas list:

"The Papyri Oxyrhynchi 1, 654 &; 655 and Nag Hammadi Codex II,2 (The Gospel
of Thomas) are literary papyri of interest to biblical scholars specializing
in extra-canonical texts (the writings outside of the New Testament). This
list is dedicated to the scholarly discussion of the Gospel of Thomas and
provides an online forum for those working or interested in New Testament,
History, or Religious Studies."

Do you see anything in the list description that mandates any deference to
your particular point of departure? I do not.

Bauer wrote:
My point was simply that if you go around cutting & pasting together
bits-&-pieces of literature you're not understanding it in a holistic sense
& you can get it to "mean" just about anything.

And THAT, of course is poesis!

Bauer wrote:
Such literary meanderings are useless from a scientific perspective.  They
have about the same degree of validity as the "Bible codes" the
Fundamentalists talk about.  Reading every tenth verse (or whatever) is
supposed to have a "hidden meaning".

"Literary meanderings", as you characterize them, are not scientific
postulates. Their intent is to goad the mind into activity, or into hyper-
activity. The nature of science (as I'm sure you will agree) is to present
hypotheses that are subject to falsification. The inherent nature of
religion is that it is precisely UN-scientific (i.e., not subject to either
confirmation or falsification). When one discipline legitimizes the other,
then one or the other is in-valid (so you are correct in your assessment
about "Bible Codes" and the like).

Bauer Wrote:
If you have trouble with the jargon, look it up, you're on the web.

If I were interested in the relevance of the jargon, I would do so. I am not
interested, so I will not. By contrast, if you are interested in the
"jargon" of religion I suggest you spend 8-10 years in formal study of the
discipline of religion, then you too can be TRULY confounded!

Rick Hubbard
Humble Maine Woodsman

Someone on the group once proposed that the author of Philip had an open copy of
Thomas before him.  Indeed, Philip follows Thomas in NHL.  Consider the two
following statements.  Could Thomas have been the original?  Alternatively,
could they both have come from the same tradition, perhaps a non-canonical
saying which originally might have been present in Q?

Thomas 19a:  Blessed is he who came into being before he came into being.

Philip, NHLe page 145:  Blessed is he who is before he came into being, for he
who is was and shall be.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I've long puzzled over the use of the definite article in Coptic in phrases
such as
'the man' - where there is no qualifier such as 'the man who ...'. The
following survey may help to elicit discussion to clarify this point.

'The man' occurs 12 times in GThom. Two of those occurrences are clearly
terms of address - Th61 (Salome says, "Who are you, man?") and Th72 (J
says, "Who has made me a divider, man?") This seems to be on the same order
as when the definite article is used with the name of a country, for
example, which in turn seems to be a method of handling the function of
capitalization in a script that has no differentiation between upper-case
and lower-case letters. So then, to capitalize in English AND ALSO to leave
in the definite article would seem to be redundant, because the function of
the definite article is to indicate capitalization, and once that has been
done, it no longer serves a purpose. We can have 'the christ', for example,
or 'Christ', but not 'the Christ'. Or 'the god' or 'God', but not 'the
God'. Back to our uses of 'man' in direct address, however, both 'the man'
and 'Man' seem odd in English in this context. Perhaps the best might be to
translate it 'Sir', which is naturally capitalized in English.

Of the remaining 10 occurrences, 4 are qualified and hence non-problematical:

Th04: 'the man old in his days'
Th57: 'the man [who had good seed]'
Th58: 'the man who has struggled'
Th103: 'the man who knows at which point the thieves will enter'

Th07 contains two occurrences of 'the man'. I'm going to leave those aside
to concentrate on the remaining four, in which I'm going to capitalize the
word 'man' to see if it makes sense that way:

Th08: "Man is like a sensible fisherman ..."
       (some commentators think this should read 'The kingdom is like ...')
Th83: "The images are visible to Man ..."
Th86: "The son of Man has no place to rest."
Th106: "... you will become sons of Man ..."

We can explain the latter two as involving the title 'Son of Man', but what
about the former two? Why doesn't Th86 say "The images are visible to
MEN..."? Well, why should it, I guess. It may very well be talking about
mankind (humanity, if you will), rather than individuals. Unlike Th113,
where [some] "men" don't "see" the kingdom as it spreads out upon the
earth, Th83 is apparently asserting something about human sense perception
(which is common to everyone), rather than human insight (which isn't). So
then, maybe the best solution is to translate all four cases as 'mankind'
(or 'humanity').

Which leaves Th08 and the mysterious Th07:

"A fortunate one is the lion, the one which the man will eat ...
and he is despised, namely the man, the one which the lion will eat ..."

Is it mankind (or humanity) that eats the lion? Or should we understand
'the man' as being qualified in this context? Or is it a combination - the
first occurrence being taken one way and the second the other? If so (and
treating 'the lion' in a similar fashion), we might get:

"A fortunate one is the lion which Humanity will eat ...
and despised is the man whom Lionhood will eat..."

To complete this picture of the use of the definite article in places that
are odd in English, we need to also look at the occurrences of other
phrases such as 'the life', 'the death', etc. I'll leave that for future.

Regards,
Mike

The Coptic Gospel of Thomas, saying-by-saying
http://www.geocities.com/athens/9068/sayings.htm

This message is in part a test, since the previous message I sent to the group
wasn't relayed back to me, but it's also to point out an interesting
relationship between Th08 (the wise fisherman) and Th107 (the shepherd with 100
sheep).
In Th08, the fisherman falls upon (discovers) the largest fish with no trouble,
and tosses the rest back into the sea. In Th107, the shepherd goes out and
seeks the largest sheep, eventually falling upon (discovering) it, but after
much trouble. Now bearing in mind that the numbering is ours, we may still see
here
the boundaries of a group of 100 sayings (08-107), and one of the interesting
facts about this group is that there are seven to either side of it (1-7,
108-114).
If we take this seriously as an intentional structure, we might hypothesize that
1-7 is "the above" and 108-114 "the below". One way to test whether this was
indeed an intentional structure might be to see if "the above" and "the below"
can be made like each other. There are some similarities already evident, as
well as some curious anomalies, such as that #6 needs #14 (=08+6) to complete
it.

Mike


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Mike,
     I am convinced that the Coptic had no firm grammatical rules for the def
art. It definitely isn't the same as English grammar. For awhile, I thought
it was something like, "this and no other", but that won't fit all uses. The
Greek as you know, uses prefixes and suffixes for syntax. The def art is
used for emphasis. "The son of man" becomes "son the man". I think that it
is up to the context to give the def art meaning in a sentence. Unless you
can unearth some Coptic grammar book, that is all I can come up with.

Another thought. Maybe the usage in the Coptic is an anomaly that shows up
as part of the translation from an assumed Greek text of the GoT.

Regards,
Chris

--- Christian Jensen wrote:
> Mike,
> I am convinced that the Coptic had no firm grammatical rules for
> the def art. It definitely isn't the same as English grammar. For
> awhile, I thought it was something like, "this and no other", but
> that won't fit all uses. The Greek as you know, uses prefixes and
> suffixes for syntax. The def art is used for emphasis. "The son
> of man" becomes "son the man". I think that it is up to the
> context to give the def art meaning in a sentence. Unless you
> can unearth some Coptic grammar book, that is all I can come up
> with.

I have several Coptic grammar books - no need to unearth them - but
they only talk about the normal, qualified use ("the X which...")
and the titular use. The other usage ("emphasis" as you put it -
which seems to correlate with the capitalization function I was
talking about) seems to be the province of more advanced study.
Maybe Sytze can help out here.

> Another thought. Maybe the usage in the Coptic is an anomaly that
> shows up as part of the translation from an assumed Greek text of
> the GoT.

But the same usage of the def article shows up in Greek ('the god',
'the christ', etc.)

Now here's another case: "He who knows the mother and the father
will be called 'son of harlotry'." What's the best translation
here? If one goes with "He who knows Mother and Father ...", then
you get tangled up in the English deviant usage where 'Mother' is
sometimes used to refer to MY mother, even when speaking to a
third party. In fact, I recall seeing at least one translation
that rendered it "He who knows his mother and his father...",
which turns the saying away from a heavenly "mother" and "father",
and directs it toward another interpretation entirely.

Considering the harlot saying, and also the use of 'the father' in
the phrase 'the kingdom of the father', it seems best to capitalize
the noun, but leave the definite article in. Even though the def
article has "done its job" of emphasizing (via capitalization) the
noun, it still seems needed, becuz our sensibilities are not such
that we regard 'Father' as being on a grammatical par with 'God'.
In other words, we'd get confused.

Mike

It seems to me that Chris is on to something here. While I certainly don't
wish to represent myself as an authority on this matter, it might be useful
to recall that the Coptic language was an adaptation of Hellenistic Greek to
an Egyptian predecessor. One wonders if the authors/editors/compilers of
GThom had any sense of the subtleties of whether or not the definite article
was present in some of the phrases they adopted.

Nevertheless, it is a rather fascinating phenomenon that Mike has called to
our attention and could be worth discussing at greater length.

Rick Hubbard
Humble Maine Woodsman

-----Original Message-----
From: Christian G Jensen [mailto:cgj@...]
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2001 12:35 AM
To: gthomas@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [gthom] Re: [gthomas] The Man Sayings


Mike,
     I am convinced that the Coptic had no firm grammatical rules for the def
art. It definitely isn't the same as English grammar. For awhile, I thought
it was something like, "this and no other", but that won't fit all uses. The
Greek as you know, uses prefixes and suffixes for syntax. The def art is
used for emphasis. "The son of man" becomes "son the man". I think that it
is up to the context to give the def art meaning in a sentence. Unless you
can unearth some Coptic grammar book, that is all I can come up with.

Another thought. Maybe the usage in the Coptic is an anomaly that shows up
as part of the translation from an assumed Greek text of the GoT.

Regards,
Chris


-------------------------------------------------
To post to gthomas, send email to gthomas@egroups.com
To unsubscribe, send a blank email to gthomas-unsubscribe@egroups.com

This is in reply to Mike's recent comments on "the Man".  Since then I've been
wondering if "the Man" might possibly be a reference to the Gnostic idea of "the
Anthropos", an idea which goes back at least as far as the "Apocalypse of Adam".
It is the concept that the entire cosmos is found in the body of a man.  For
example, in alchemy, which was in large part derived from Gnosticism, "veins" of
metal within the Earth were assumed to be there because the body possesses
veins.

I apologize if an alchemical example is used here but I have more familiarity
with it than Greek philosophy.  However, it does show the persistence of the
idea, especially since these supposedly X-ian alchemists seem unaware that they
are propagating Gnostic philosophy.  Same goes for the Islamic alchemists.

To bolster the argument that the "man" sayings may refer to what Jesus allegedly
said here, I'd like to refer to #77:  "I am the All".  The apparently literal
statement used here probably means a metaphor instead, "I am a symbol of the
All". I believe this may have been an insertion on the part of a later editor as
people rarely refer to themselves as symbols.

So if the "Man" sayings can be treated as Anthroposophical where did they
originate?  Did J borrow them from a Greek source?  Were they added later by
someone who _was_ familiar with the philosophy?  Or are they a case of
independent invention?

Jim Bauer


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I originally wrote this to another list, but as it develops some new
ideas I hadn't written about here previously, I thought it might be
appropriate to post here as well:
--------------------------------------------

--- Chris wrote:
> The end tag in brackets [in some translations of #5], was found
> on a Christian burial shroud in Oxyryhnchus and is probably a
> theological addendum, not a part of an original saying.

There's actually two things going on here. There is that Christian
burial shroud you mention, but also the Greek fragments contain
that extra line that's not in the Coptic. Or rather, it IS in
the Coptic, but at the end of #6, not at the end of #5. Those
translations that tack it onto the end of #5 are evidently following
the Greek. But this creates a distortion, because they don't
REMOVE it from the end of #6, to accord with the Greek of THAT
saying. So I think the best thing for a translator to do is to
follow the Coptic in both 5 and 6, and not try to get cute.

The two parts of #6 aren't connected in any way - semantically or
syntactically. The standard matching pattern of 'they said to him
... he said to them' is broken. The first part begins with 'they
said to him' alright, but then the second part begins not with the
expected rejoinder 'J said to them', but rather with the simple
common 'J said' (or 'J says') that begins almost every non-dialogue
saying - clearly implying that the second part of #6 is not any
kind of an answer to the three questions posed in the first part,
but rather is an entirely separate saying. This is borne out by the
beginning of #14, where (eureka!) we have the matching "J said to them"
that we expected to find in the second part of #6, but didn't. Needless
to say, no other saying begins with "J said to them" without any mention
of someone first saying something to him. So 6A and 14 were clearly "made
for each other" - literally. And this is what is in front of our face as
we finish reading #5 and start into #6.

OK, so removing 6A, we get the following:

5.1) Know that which is before your (sg) face,
  and that which is hidden from you (sg) will be revealed to you (sg).
5.2) For nothing hidden will fail to appear forth.
--------------------------------------------------
6.2) Do not tell lies
6.3) and that which you (pl) hate, don't do it.
6.4) Thus they are all revealed in the presence of heaven.
6.5) For nothing hidden will fail to appear forth;
6.6) and nothing covered will remain unrevealed.

5.2 and 6.5 are the same, word for word. This is apparently the
connecting link. But there's a number of contrasts between the two
sayings that almost seem deliberate. For one thing, #5 uses the
singular form of 'you/r' - as if addressing a single person -
whereas #6 uses the plural form - which is invariably the form used
in the vast number of sayings where J is addressing "you, the readers".
So there's a possible contrast being drawn here between addressing
"the one" (singular, #5) versus "the many" (plural, #6).

Two other contrasts I didn't notice before: (1) #5 is positive,
whereas #6 is negative, and (2) #5 seems to be "internal" and #6
"external". What I mean is, #6 clearly is talking about bodily
actions (lying, doing what you hate), while #5 seems to be talking
about internal perceptual knowledge.

Putting these three contrasts into words:

#5 tells ME what I SHOULD PERCEIVE (singular, positive, inner)
#6 tells US what WE SHOULDN'T DO   (plural, negative, outer)

Now, of course, these contrasts might be just accidental. I prefer
to think, however, that they reflect several kinds of duality that
the GThomists believed needed harmonizing - this being the reason
for their pairing #5 and #6. We might further speculate whether
one of the above set of contrasts would have been considered "male"
and the other "female" - in which case we might be said to be
performing some kind of a "marriage" by putting these two
sayings together.

Mike

The Coptic Gospel of Thomas, saying-by-saying
http://www.geocities.com/athens/9068/sayings.htm

It occured to me that this is a familiar pattern/first that jesus would teach
a positive /then turn next to the negative(for example the blesseds are
always followed by curseds).This appears to be a patern of One teacher, a
teaching method that was used numerous times. It might be the reason these
are linked, that is they were originally taught together as one(mirror images
of the same concept). this would of course link them forever in the minds of
the followers of that teacher.     BitsyCat1


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

7) Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed
by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion
becomes man."

Stevan Davies has suggested that this is an example of textual
corruption, since we should expect that the second case should
involve the man becoming lion. The whole saying is mysterious and I
haven't yet met with a convincing  explanation of it. But the other
day I came across the following in Romans:

Romans 4:

6: [He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. ] He
also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to
God; while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives
thanks to God.


8: If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the
Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

It struck me that here we have a very similar structure in 4:6 (which
also has the motif of eating). The format is basically if A happens
the result is C, if B happens (which is a reversal of A) the result
is C. The same is true of GOT #7 and also Romans 4:8. The long
section at the end of Thessalonians 1 can also be summed up in the
same way.

So I would suggest that GOT#7 has parallels in the Pauline letters
and is therefore not late.

Best Wishes

Andrew Smith

I see it appears from Andrew Smith's post as if we are in for another round of
debate on "the lion consumed by man".  The last round of debate was initiated by
me with a brief post--"is he talking about Yaltabaoth or the Lion of Judah?" 
Since nobody picked up on the Lion of Judah back then I ran a search on the
subject.  I also learned that the figure of a lion is used besides Christ to
indicate the devil in the NT (1 Peter 5:8):  "Be sober.  Be watchful.  Your
enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour". 
Note also that the devil is seeking to "devour" or "consume" as in Thomas.  In
any case "consuming" always strikes me as a symbol of communion which may
indicate an early beginning of a sacerdotal system in whatever group of
Christians of which the authors of Thomas were members.

I would argue that "lion" in Thomas is a symbol of Christ which would indicate
an early strata of mythologization of the historical Jesus as noboby (or very
few people, at least) go around pronouncing themselves symbols of themselves. 
It is also possible that "lion" means both "Christ" and "devil" in Thomas and
that this dualism was deliberately employed to locate Jesus within the "two and
the one" which has been a symbol in virtually all religions since sometime early
in man's grasp of spirituality.

The Christ/devil syzygy might also indicate early Gnostic influences on Thomas. 
Certainly Gnosticism was prevalent enough in Jesus' times to have influenced
some of the authors of Thomas.  Here I agree with Stephan Davies that it looks
like Thomas was written by a bunch of people sitting around trying to remember
things Jesus said.

Two lines of scripture which I turned up on a search engine are below.

Genesis 49:8 Judah, your brothers will praise you; Your hand will be on the neck
of your enemies; Your father's sons will bow down before you. (9) Judah is a
young lion; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He couches, he stretches
out like a lion...
Revelation 5:5 ...behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has
overcome...

Jim Bauer


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jon Peter writes [11/29/00]:

"The forcefulness of these anti-family sayings strikes at Judaic
identity itself, and hence is evidence he was no Zealot or upright
guy like his brother James. - JP"

And yet, the whole concept of the Essenes "adopting"
children also touches on the conflict within Jewish
society.  So I don't believe you can use this anti-family
"spin" as an indication that Jesus was no Zealot.

According to Hippolytus, there was a faction of Zealot
who would follow men who held themselves out as Hebrew
who they suspected did not have circumcision.  And
then they would surprise them in some out of the way
area and give them a choice:  prove circumcision, receive
circumcision or DIE!

This is certainly not what we moderns would expect
from Jews who might have been DELIGHTED to have gentile
converts to Judaism.  But here we see that their ZEAL
was so great, that it could have DEADLY consequences
to those who were luke-warm in their zeal.

By comparison, Mark's quote of Jesus that a person
should SHUN parents if they were luke-warm (instead of
KILLING them), does not sound nearly as bad as it
did initially.

Thus, I would suggest that if Mark's text is validly
applied to Jesus (and I think it is), then I would use
it as a good indicator of Jesus' zeal, not an indicator
that he wasn't.

George

In a message dated 3/22/01 3:27:54 PM Eastern Standard Time,
smithand44@... writes:


>
> 7) Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed
> by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion
> becomes man."
>
> Stevan Davies has suggested that this is an example of textual
> corruption, since we should expect that the second case should
> involve the man becoming lion. The whole saying is mysterious and I
> haven't yet met with a convincing




  ... my lowly take   ...this is like the wineskin parable. The lion who eats
the man and becomes man is like the christ/divine who comes and the
servant/man is not ready...the christ becomes man but the unprepared man is
left behind, cast aside, burned, etc...better to cut off the offending arm
than enter into hell because of a minor impurity...thus, if the man is
prepared/ready and so is able to eat of the golden fruit of perfection/lion
then the divine dwells within him in its perfection and the divine is blessed
as is the man, for they are vritually one now, hermaphroditic as it
were....so it is that if the man is not ready, the lion will come and consume
him anyway, becoming man and the consumed one, th eunprepared, slothful,
etc., will be forgotten, like grass in the fire, or that offending arm or
eye...he who humbles himself will be exalted...therein lies the key to
preparedness, as the bridechamber readies itself within the humbles....the
wineskin parable is very similar in that new wine must be used in wineskins
which are "ready", ie new wineskins, or wineskins *made* ready, renewed,
reborn, etc...old wineskins wont work for new wine...great for old wine
tho...:)...you must be born again... you must be born again...

anyway that's my humble take on it...





FRH


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

One generally accepted historical fact about GThomas is that it died out.
We might want to think about why that was.  The easy answer is that it was
labelled heretical.  Or that it was pigeon-holed as non-canonical. Or that
there were church leaders who ran roughshod on those who respected it.
Mainstream Christianity, however, suffered lots of persecutions and
survived.  Why didn't GThomas gain enough steam to survive except on paper?

One of my recurring thoughts on this is that there is not quite enough
there to provide a living religion, i.e., something one would want to live
by.  Yes, there is an atmanistic theme, but it doesn't quite light the
bonfires.  4G did.

Could this be because the author(s)  [or transcribers] felt a need to be
obscure? Or was it because the author(s) didn't fully grasp their subject
matter?

Or maybe the desert got to it? Both Jesus and Socrates seemed to thrive in
cities and towns. Perhaps the seeds of Thomas fell on soil that was too dry .

Undoubtedly, I am simplifying.  But  during the last few months this site
has been kind of desert-ed.  Would anyone care to light a bonfire?

Joe Baxter

By comparison, Mark's quote of Jesus that a person
should SHUN parents if they were luke-warm (instead of
KILLING them), does not sound nearly as bad as it
did initially.

I met an Indian saint who told me of similar things he did with his own
parents.  To begin with, it is part of a practice which requires one to give up
his family identity.  Just like Gautama did.

This saint told me about his own mother.  He told her years earlier he would
see her again at her time of death.  So years later she called and he appeared
and she left in the peace she sought.  So the shunning achieved its purpose.

Joe Baxter

>> 7) Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed
>> by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion
>> becomes man."

> ... my lowly take   ...this is like the wineskin parable. The lion who eats
>the man and becomes man is like the christ/divine who comes and the
>servant/man is not ready

Well, I always thought it wasn't good to be consumed by anything, including
Jesus Christ.  Too fundamentalist.  But consuming Him  means we are taking him
inside.  As you say, to consume him is to be born again.

Joe Baxter

----- Original Message -----
From: "joseph baxter" <joseph@...>
To: <gthomas@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2001 1:40 AM
Subject: [gthom] bonfire


> One generally accepted historical fact about GThomas >is that it died out.
Mainstream Christianity, however, >suffered lots of persecutions and
survived.  Why didn't >GThomas gain enough steam to survive except on
>paper?

Probably because when X-ianity was made the state religion of the Roman
Empire there were enough X-ans scattered around the world in groups which
were too large to assure the group was sure to survive somewhere.
>
> One of my recurring thoughts on this is that there is >not quite enough
there to provide a living religion, i.e., >something one would want to live
by.  Yes, there is an >atmanistic theme, but it doesn't quite light the
bonfires.  >4G did.

There are numerous examples in evolution of memes (non-genetic replicating
systems) of instances where an inferior system replaced a better one.  For
example, technically Beta is better than VHS.  Yet Beta became the standard.
This can all be explained by Herbert Simons' coined word, "satisficing".  It
is a hybrid between "satisfy" and "suffice".  The idea is that one examines
a set of alternatives until s/he finds one which crosses a threshold.
Marriage, for example, is a satisficing system.  4G satisficed, Thomas
didn't.
>
> Could this be because the author(s)  [or transcribers] felt a need to be
obscure? Or was it because the author(s) didn't fully grasp their subject
matter?

Alchemy was deliberately obscure yet it lasted 2,000 years.

Jim Bauer
> -------------------------------------------------
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>

Joe Baxter wrote: "...during the last few months this site
has been kind of desert-ed.  Would anyone care to light a bonfire?"


I have to say that I am quite glad and fairly excited that I ran across this
web-group when I did recently.  I'm currently in the process of getting a
Master's Degree in Theology, and the course in which I am currently enrolled
-- "Quest for the Historical Jesus" -- has covered GTh extensively.  I have
to admit that I am by no means a biblical scholar or qualified to discuss
this topic in as much detail as many of you, but I have found it to be very
useful to me academically and beneficial for my own enrichment.  

The bonfire might be burning out, so I'm hopeful that the fact that you have
drawn a new "student" into the fold might help fan the flames!

Best,
Matt Rhodes



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Lets consider the source and location and the time. Today the allusion to
lion (or lions) might seem odd at first, but, in Jesus day it was not. In
that part of the world stories of Lions abounded. There was the Lion of
Judah. The lion that Sampson found the Honey in and his famous riddle. There
were Lion hunts by Kings and, even documented hunts by roman officers.
Therefore that it is used in a story of allusion is not
  odd at all. It is something that everyone probably identified from a shared
history.
    Up into recent history to Kill a Lion was a sign of becoming a man (in
that general part of the world).
    I ve heard a lot of explanations as to what "exactly" this meant, Lets
also consider first that Jesus used a lot of allusions, of consumption, That
probably caused a stir at the time. "I" am the bread of life-, This IS MY
BODY…, This is my Blood,..., i.e., communion. (for centuries non Christians
did not understand that).Accusations flew that this was an act of witchcraft
or worse.(That is the Christians were using real blood).
    Therefore, while at first, the allusion to consumption by a Lion. Or of a
Lion, appears to be a different concept, it actually follows the pattern of
the time, and the pattern of stories that Jesus puts forth in the accepted
gospel. It is a pattern that The teacher Jesus uses over and over. That is
there is a familiar theme (for the time). An act of consumption (which
alludes to a spiritual matter) rather than a physical, then comes the
familiar Blessed is he..........., followed by the cursed is he............
I'm sure in that day and time the saying sparked debate and conversation,
over what was meant.
    I think we are not meant to be persuaded as to the meaning, but we are
meant to "seek" after the meaning, and to seek meaning in the saying. Those
are a few of my thoughts trying to go back in time, to the Place and time and
society where the saying originated in.  That is just my humble take on that
aspect. johnmoon3717@...

All the listed reasons are good reasons. But, One might consider that the
GOSPEL of Thomas, is not really a Gospel (in the same sense as Matthew, Mark,
Luke or John). That is the sayings are not set down in a format that
chronicle the history of Jesus, as
  a story.
      The New testament (before it was a written document) Was of a necessity
an ORAL document. That is the story of the risen Christ was repeated orally
to those that heard it.
      If you read Mark (especially the way that it ends. I think you will find
that the author tells it almost as a Ghost story.( or who done it). This is a
simplification, but the reader is left with the big question to ask the
teller. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT> What happened to Jesus, where did he go.
      The answer< By the teller would be to explain that the Lord had risen,
conquered death. It must have been very effective, an awe inspiring chronicle
that raised questions in the Minds of all the hearers. A nail biter, as it
was.
      Compare this to Thomas, who has original, true, sayings, BUT, But there
is NO STORY. Nochronology. The reader, Must first KNOW the story before he
can make any sense out of the Sayings.
      That they follow No apparent order does not help. We are Blessed NOW to
have e the 4 Gospels, In order to reference, to make comparisons. This was
not the case for the common man of that day.
      That, the format, lack of story line, or chronology, Probably relegated
the Gospel of Thomas, to a group far smaller than the oral tradition, 4
gospels. These few could have considered this a reference for the initiated,
or the studious, If they died out, or a combination of both. A dying group,
the fact that it didn't form a complete story, etc. most probably did in The
Gospel of Thomas. johnmoon3717@...

There was recently an e-mail, that lamented the fact that there was
"apparently going to be a debate(again) over the saying ... Lion becomes
man..Man becomes Lion.
      It has occurred to me that this is the same pattern, that is used in the
accepted Gospels. I have heard many a debate over the multiple meanings that
a saying in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John had. Or might have.
       It is probable that this is exactly the thing that was meant to occur
by that teaching.
       Whether you believe it refers to Jesus himself (as in the communion),
Or to the Lion of Judah, or believe that it is dualist in nature. It is this
spirit exactly that it was meant to bring out. That a saying might have
multiple meanings should not amaze anyone and new thoughts on the matter are
always appreciated.  That is of course my opinion on the matter.     thank
you, johnmoon3717@...

----- Original Message -----
From: <BitsyCat1@...>
To: <gthomas@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 9:03 AM
Subject: [gthom] Lament over debate of man and Lion sayings/ in a previous
mailing


>   There was recently an e-mail, that lamented the fact that there was
> "apparently going to be a debate(again) over the saying ... Lion becomes
> man..Man becomes Lion.

This was no "lament".  I welcome discussion of the lion-man.

Jim Bauer

> -------------------------------------------------
> To post to gthomas, send email to gthomas@egroups.com
> To unsubscribe, send a blank email to gthomas-unsubscribe@egroups.com
>
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>

List members are hereby reminded that this is not a religious list, and
statements that imply a certain faith-view are to be avoided. There is
another list which is more open in that regard, and can be subscribed to by
sending email to GospelofThomas-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Thanks,
Mike

The Coptic Gospel of Thomas, saying-by-saying
http://www.geocities.com/athens/9068/sayings.htm

Forgive me for using HTML, but I needed to include a table. If this is
incomprehensible in the ASCII digest versions, please refer to the web
interface of the message, which I hope *will* be legible.
"George" said:

>>By comparison, Mark's quote of Jesus that a person should SHUN parents if
they were luke-warm (instead of KILLING them), does not sound nearly as bad
as it did initially.<<

The phrase "if they were luke-warm" seems to be an interpretation on your
part, not part of the original text(s). Maybe we are on the wrong track
here.

Looking at the relationship between the elements of these several passages,
it seems to me we are dealing with two separate sets of sayings about
discipleship. One (Mk 8:34/Mt 16:24/Lk 9:23) is about sacrificing oneself,
ostensibly by "taking up his cross" (whatever that means). The second (Mt
10:37/Lk 14:26-27/GOT 55/GOT 101) is through denial of family relationships.

In almost all cases the second theme appears (Mt 10:37/Lk 14:26-27/GOT 55),
connects this family idea with the first theme on self denial and bearing
his cross. GOT 101 is clearly contrasting Mt 10:37 (love his father &
mother) with Lk 14:26 (hate his father and mother). GPT 55 also uses the
same elements of Mt 10:37 but uses the "hate" phraseology of Lk 14:26.

Only Lk 14:26-27 contains all six elements under consideration. Either Lk 14
conflated a saying with a version similar to Mt's, or the family
relationship denials are secondary expansions of the "deny one's self" theme
found in Mk 8 or Mt 16, or a common source. For reasons stated in the
paragraph above, I doubt that Lk 14 made use of Mk 8 + GOT 55 (unless GOT
101 is a later addition to a work originally containing GOT 55).

From this small sample, it seems more likely that GOT was influenced by Mt &
Lk, redacting passages from those gospels (or their sources) to reflect the
ideological and theological perspective of the author of GOT.


       Pericope
      self denial
      father-mother
      wife-son-daughter
      brother-sister
      carrying cross

       MAR 8:34
      1) deny himself
            2) take up his cross

       MAT 16:24
      1) deny himself
            2) take up his cross

       LUK 9:23
      1) deny himself
            2) take up his cross daily

       MAT 10:37
        1) loves father or mother more than me
      2) loves son or daughter more than me
        3) take his cross

       LUK 14:26-27
      4) (hate) even his own life
      1) hate his own father and mother
      2) (hate his own) wife and children
      3) (hate his own) brothers and sisters
      5) bear his own cross

       GOT 55
        1) hate his father and his mother
        2) hate his brothers and sisters
      take up his cross in My way

       GOT 101
        1) hate his father and his mother as I do

       2) love his father and his mother as I do



MAR 8:34  And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to
them, "If any man would come after me, let him *deny himself* and *take up
his cross* and follow me."

MAT 10:37 "He who *loves father or mother more than me* is not worthy of me;
and he who *loves son or daughter more than me* is not worthy of me; 38 and
he who does not *take his cross and follow me* is not worthy of me."

MAT 16:24 Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any man would come after me,
let him *deny himself* and *take up his cross and follow me*."

LUK 9:23  And he said to all, "If any man would come after me, let him *deny
himself* and *take up his cross daily* and follow me."

LUK 14:26  "If any one comes to me and does not *hate his own father and
mother* and *(hate his own) wife and children* and *(hate his own) brothers
and sisters*, yes, and *(hate) even his own life*, he cannot be my disciple.
27 Whoever does not *bear his own cross* and come after me, cannot be my
disciple."

GOT 55)  Jesus said, "Whoever does not *hate his father and his mother*
cannot become a disciple to Me. And whoever does not *hate his brothers and
sisters* and *take up his cross in My way* will not be worthy of Me."

GOT 101) <Jesus said,> "Whoever does not *hate his father and his mother as
I do* cannot become a disciple to Me. And whoever does [not] *love his
father and his mother as I do* cannot become a [disciple] to Me. For My
mother [gave me falsehood], but [My] true [Mother] gave me life."

Regards,

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Group,

My apologies, as it seems my HTML experiment failed to deliver the
table I had hoped for. However, I do hope that the essential idea was
preserved by the way the program unscrambled that table.

Dang!

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Gentlemen,
By no means am I a scholar.  I was fortunate to stumble across this particular
forum recently.  I am curious as to the consensus of this group for the dating
of Thomas.  I understand that most scholars affirm late first and second century
as the time Thomas was likely put together.  I would be willing to place the
dating of Thomas earlier still.  Paul writing to Corinth 1 Cor 2:9-10(a)
virtually quotes Th 17.  Many scholars have held that the statement "as it is
written" could only mean a reference to Isaiah 64:4.  My opinion is that Paul is
quoting (or paraphrasing) what he has read.  This leads me to believe that
Thomas must have been extant mid first century.  That would be decades before
the 4G.
I find the connections between Thomas and the teachings of Paul to be
fascinating.
Jeffrey Fyffe


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bravo, Jeff.

I've been waiting for someone to raise this. A careful reading of Paul
suggests that he may have seen a copy of Thomas as early as 54 AD. An
allusion to the same saying is found in the Prayer of Paul the Apostle that
appears in the opening of the Jung Codex.. I think someone was circulating a
copy and sent one to the Corinthians and they accused Paul of withholding
teachings from them. You have to read between the line of course. In my
humble opinion Thomas in some original form may date to before this, and I
also suspect that Thomas, Q and Mark all borrowed from a still earlier
sayings collection possibly put together by the Apostle Matthew. The Timothy
letter also seem to be railing against Thomasine Christians. I think the
best view is that at least some of Thomas predates even Mark and Q.

Ron McCann
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff and Rosie Fyffe" <fyffe@...>
To: <gthomas@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2001 12:43 PM
Subject: [gthom] Dating GThomas


> Gentlemen,
> By no means am I a scholar.  I was fortunate to stumble across this
particular forum recently.  I am curious as to the consensus of this group
for the dating of Thomas.  I understand that most scholars affirm late first
and second century as the time Thomas was likely put together.  I would be
willing to place the dating of Thomas earlier still.  Paul writing to
Corinth 1 Cor 2:9-10(a) virtually quotes Th 17.  Many scholars have held
that the statement "as it is written" could only mean a reference to Isaiah
64:4.  My opinion is that Paul is quoting (or paraphrasing) what he has
read.  This leads me to believe that Thomas must have been extant mid first
century.  That would be decades before the 4G.
> I find the connections between Thomas and the teachings of Paul to be
fascinating.
> Jeffrey Fyffe
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
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>
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>
>