"Stephen C. Carlson"  wrote:

> The actual use of Thomas in antiquity fascinates me more than what
> meaning it is attempting to convey.  In fact, I would suggest that
> understanding how it was used is an important clue to understanding
> what it meant.

Hi Stephen,

I think that Gthom, ever since its 'second' version (the period when the first
editions were made on the 'kernel'sayings), was used as a 'meditation gospel',
to be 'read' and contemplated maybe one logion per day.


regards,
Jeff

> So now we have 4 cases of 24, including a Coptic one. Maybe my idea of
> the 'Egyptian' background for explaining the interest in '24' in Gthom
> was > not that bad a guess?

But why bother with something that we can only guess at? Seems to me
that where the interest came from is probably undecidable (since there's
several possible sources), but that it's not all that important anyway.
I think it's sufficient to show that Coptic GTh does have an interest in
the number 24 (among others), wherever that came from. Unnecessary
speculation does little but divert attention from the factual findings,
IMO. And since the factual findings run strongly counter to widespread
beliefs about the Coptic GTh, the case needs to be built as rigorously
and with as few unnecessary complications as possible.

Mike

hi all,

So now we have 4 cases of 24, including a Coptic one. Maybe my idea of the
'Egyptian' background for explaining the interest in '24' in Gthom was not that
bad a guess?

Jeff

Hi James (or do you prefer Jaime?):

Since you and Jeff are relatively new subscribers, you've missed out
on some of the fascinating discoveries I've reported on over the years.
In turn, you've given me new food for thought, although I think it's best
to be conservative when ascribing the use of particular numerical
symbolisms to Coptic GThom. It's just too easy to come up with
similarities from elsewhere without properly demonstrating that they
are present in the text being analyzed, and I think that's what has
given this type of analysis a bad name. So my advice would be to
be cautious and not too quick to jump to a conclusion, and especially
to beware of false patterns based on incomplete analysis.

These general remarks bear on what I'm about to tell you, that even
if the number of dialogues can be made to be 24, there's more than
three textual features that number 24. One that I discovered some
years ago is that the number of "sayings-blocks" in Coptic GThom
is 24. Now what I mean by a 'sayings-block' is a set of sayings
where the first one starts at the left-hand margin and the last one
ends at the right-hand margin. The number of lines and sayings
in these 24 blocks varies greatly, but the one of special interest
is a one-liner, viz., L42 on line 280. It's not the only block that
contains a single saying (as I recall, there's 9 of those), but it's of
particular interest for several reasons. One is that it's connected
with the first two perfect numbers: 6 and 28. (A perfect number is
one which is the sum of its factors. Perfect numbers are few and
far between.) L42 is connected to the number 28 via its line number,
i.e., 280. And it's connected to the number 6 because it's the 6th
of the 24 sayings-blocks in Coptic GThom.

Over the years, I've treated this discovery with some caution,
because any manuscript contains a number of text-blocks, and
so it could be that the particular number of such blocks in Coptic
GThom is random. When one considers the special properties
of block 6, however, it appears more likely that the total number
of blocks may have been intentional than not. (BTW, this result
is one indication of what I've said before - one can't get at what
was in the minds of the framers of Coptic GThom without looking
at the Coptic.)

Mike

Hello All,

As an afterthought, it occurs to me that the 3 Gthom "I Am" sayings also have a
parallel in L.13 where Jesus asks his disciples to compare him with someone.

"I Am" sayings:

Jesus said to her: I am he who is from the One (the Son)
Jesus said: I am the light that is upon all of them (Holy Spirit)
Jesus said: I am the all (the Father)

"Tell me who am I like?" (L.13):

Simon Peter said to him: You are like a righteous angel
Matthew said to him: You are like a wise philosopher
Thomas said to him: Master, my mouth will not allow me to say whom you are like

It might be recalled that in Jewish mysticism, the Patriarchs (i.e., Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob) were referred to as the Merkavah (divine throne) and that
previously we found that the numbers 24 and 72 could be linked to these
divisions (as names of god).

Scholem notes that in the Shiur Komah, when the Body of God was interpreted
mystically, the visionary apparently attempted to grasp all of reality in the
shape of the mystical shape of the deity (cf. Isa. 49:18). In general, an
indication the vision that was grasped,  was one of degree, as shown in Gthom
L.13 (cf. L.42, noted by Mike).

-james
 

--- In gthomas@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Grondin" <mwgrondin@...> wrote:
>
> Hey Steve -
>
> Since I suspect you won't be with us beyond the metaphorical
> forty days, I'd really like to take this opportunity to find out
> something about your intellectual journeys over the years.
> I read in Skinner's interview that you're currently working on
> Buddhist thought, and I seem to recall that you did some work
> quite a while back on the Mayan culture, so what I'd like to ask
> you is this: since you must have learned from the setup of the
> Mayan calendar that the world would end in 2012, do you think
> you have enough time left to complete your Buddhist studies?
>
> No, no, that's not it. Forget that. What I'd really like to do is get
some
> general feel for what you've been up to over the years, and how you
> see your various interests as being somehow connected (or not).
>
> Mike


Well, Mike, Rebbe Doctor Zalman Schachter Shalomi wrote me a
recommendation at the end of Grad school that began, "Young Doctor
Davies is a very curious person." And that is why I get involved in
Mayan studies and in the study of Vajrayana Buddist art. That, coupled
with various completely ancillary happenstances like finding NEH funding
for travel to Maya sites and discovering that you can buy authentic old
Mongolian art for very little money via EBay. So one goes from one
interest to another for no coherent reason and one tends to pity ones
peers who find one interest when they are in their early twenties and
then they stay with that for all of the decades to come until their
world ends.

The end of the world in 2012 is something I'm looking foward to because
I expect Jesus to show up and I have a list of names to give him, people
for him to take care of, that I've been compiling for a long time now.
Me and Jesus are on the same wavelength vis a vis religious
self-righteous hypocrites (I take as my text Matthew 23). First, though,
the rapture, where the Faithful who live and their Zombie friends are
caught up into the air to meet the Lord and then, from that great
height, dropped screaming down to splatter on the surface of the earth.
One hopes.

I have been having problems with the Word for a long time, but it
doesn't seem to me that anything interesting is happening. Am I missing
something? There are a host of Scholars who are discovering that Jesus
and the NT and the OT and so forth are all pretty much what they learned
in Sunday School, which of course is just idiotic, and there are some
people applying high level deconstructionist fad theory to things in
ways that don't seem to explain anything at all. We desperately need new
evidence and I'm sure some will emerge from some tomb eventually, but
nothing much has emerged in the past 60 years. The fragmentary Gnostic
stuff  that the headlines love is interesting, but not relevant to HJ or
Xian origins questions, IMO.

I don't think that the Gospel of Thomas is understood any better now
than twenty five years ago; even basic questions like dependence or not,
date, purpose, aren't answered to general satisfaction. The connection
between the guy from Galilee and the Christ of Faith that has puzzled me
since earliest Crosstalk days has received no solution or even serious
investigation and may even not be investigateable, which to me raises
the question, why not? But everybody seems to have an answer that
satisfies them, answers which to me usually seem tautological... it
happened because it happened, and so forth. Actually my progress,
inversely enough, is to have increasingly realized what a complete and
astonishing problem it is.

So, I dunno. Your question, Mike, is pretty vague but I think being a
curious person is largely what I'm up to.

Steve

Hi Jeff and Mike,
 
Jeff, you wrote:
 
So far I have seen 3 ways in Gthom in which the number 24 shows up:
- the 24 kingdoms
- the 24 dialogues
- the 24 prophets of Israel from L.52, where the number 24 is explicitly
mentioned.

Your three groups of 24 remind me of the 3 "I Am" sayings in the Gthom where one
is tempted to equate them with the Christian trinity:
 
62.   Jesus said to her: I am he who is from the One (the Son)
78a   Jesus said: I am the light that is upon all of them (Holy Spirit)
78b   Jesus said: I am the all (the Father)

In the Stroumsa paper mentioned earlier, he notes (p. 280) that in the Nag
Hammadi tractate 'On the Origin of the World' points out 72 forms of the divine
Chariot (the Merkavah, or divine throne). So if the divine Chariot is also
understood as 'throne' (i.e. when not in motion) it may also equate it with 3 x
24 = 72, i.e. in reference to the three seats of divine activity and rest.

A throne appears to presuppose a kingdom, two of which were contemplated in
early Jewish mysticism (a godhead which included Metatron, tending towards
dualism, but rejected) and three in early Christianity where it appears in three
divisions of increasing light (divine truth as light, as in the three heavens of
Paul) maintaining the unity of the One.

A divine throne, represented by the number 24 would likely each be expected to
replicate an image or likeness of the divine "I Am" at each level. Or in other
words, 24 could be taken as a subset of 72, where it comprises the entire names
of god, as in later Jewish mysticism, from which light was reflected at
different levels.

-james
 
 

Hi Jeff,

All your dialogues check out except that I think it's misleading
to count L6A and L14 as two dialogues, since they're two parts
of a single dialogue. So there's 23 dialogues, not 24. But the
6A-14 separation puzzle should give us pause. Not that I think
that the "pages" model that you've developed is the right solution,
(at least in its present form), but that there may be another solution
that would result in 24 dialogues (on the hunch that that was what
was intended).

One way of making two dialogues out of L6A-14 is to separate
off the first three questions and answers (which have no
canonical parallels) from the fourth (which does). This is
suggested not only by the canonical-noncanonical split, but
also by the fact that L6A has what might be called a 'double
lead-in', viz., "the disciples asked him" (which is grammatically
sufficient by itself) together with the redundant "they said to him".
The idea is that this double lead-in could be separated into two
lead-ins, each serving to introduce one of the two prospective
dialogues. Of course, the hunch behind such a move has to be
historically-based, i.e., that it might have been intended that the
reader do this, and support for _that_ can only lie in whether
the thing comes out nicely as far as lines and letter-counts.
Anything less contravenes the hunch, and the solution must
be abandoned as historically groundless, hence worthless.

Mike
p.s.: The two notes I mentioned in my last message as
disappearing apparently didn't do so. They went into the
archives and maybe were sent to some folks other than
myself. At least that's my guess, based on the fact that
you answered one of them (from Tim). Or did you read
it on the web?

At 01:58 PM 11/17/2009, Jeff wrote:
>
>
>
>
>"stevandavies" wrote:
>
> >
> > I try to keep in mind the fact that most folks back then *heard* books
> > rather than *read* them. And that there weren't very many books in the
> > first place what with scribal copying being an expensive process. I am
> > quite certain that Luke heard Matthew although Luke owned Mark and Q.
> > Luke, having heard Matthew, realized what Matthew had done and decided
> > to do the same thing, only better. So there is actual copying from Mark
> > to Luke, but only a basic idea from Matthew to Luke. Similarly, it might
> > be reasonable to think that John heard Mark and, having gotten the idea
> > of a certain sort of narrative biography from Mark, John went off and
> > wrote his own book from his own sources.
> >
> > Stteve
> >
>
>Hi Steve,
>
>About this writing in the old ages being an "expensive" hobby,
>
>I found in
>"The collected biblical writings of T.C. Skeat"
>ch. 8 "Was papyrus regarded "cheap" or "expensive" in the ancient
>world," on pg. 101,
>that mid 1st century a roll papyrus of about 20 sheets or 3,4 meter
>long (upon which if you were a scribe yourself you could copy 1
>complete gospel on)

I don't recall that papyrus was sold by the roll. IIRC all Christian
papyrus documents were either in Codex form, or were single pages or
fragments.

Yes, Crossan argues that early Christian literature was written on
papyrus rather than on vellum because it was cheaper. But in any case
it is not the price of the medium that was limiting, but the cost of
the *scribe*.

Bob Schacht
Northern Arizona University

>  costed on average 2 drachme, which was about two days pay for a
> worker, say 150 dollars in our money of today - which is about the
> same as a copy of Deconick's 'The Original Gospel Of Thomas In
> Translation' costs ;-)


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

"stevandavies"  wrote:

>
> I try to keep in mind the fact that most folks back then *heard* books
> rather than *read* them. And that there weren't very many books in the
> first place what with scribal copying being an expensive process. I am
> quite certain that Luke heard Matthew although Luke owned Mark and Q.
> Luke, having heard Matthew, realized what Matthew had done and decided
> to do the same thing, only better. So there is actual copying from Mark
> to Luke, but only a basic idea from Matthew to Luke. Similarly, it might
> be reasonable to think that John heard Mark and, having gotten the idea
> of a certain sort of narrative biography from Mark, John went off and
> wrote his own book from his own sources.
>
> Stteve
>

Hi Steve,

About this writing in the old ages being an "expensive" hobby,

I found in
"The collected biblical writings of T.C. Skeat"
ch. 8 "Was papyrus regarded "cheap" or "expensive" in the ancient world," on pg.
101,
that mid 1st century a roll papyrus of about 20 sheets or 3,4 meter long (upon
which if you were a scribe yourself you could copy 1 complete gospel on) costed
on average 2 drachme, which was about two days pay for a worker, say 150 dollars
in our money of today -  which is about the same as a copy of Deconick's 'The
Original Gospel Of Thomas In Translation' costs ;-)

So yes, if you were a poor scribe and you had not many customers to make copies
for, it would hurt a little. But in less then a week you would have made enough
denarii or drachmae to buy 3 scrolls for 3 gospels.
So I cannot imagine that an ambitious scribe would not have made sure he owned
every note or gospel he could lay his hands on. (Knowing he did not have to pay
for scribing as he could do the copying of a gospel himself in a day or so).

regards,
Jeff

But there are "stories" in Thomas as well. That's why we find parallels
among some of the parables and pericopes of the Synoptics and Thomas.
Additionally, why would there be verbal parallel among the "stories" of the
Synoptic gospels if they were comfortable with adjusting them so much in the
case of John's gospel?
-------------------------------------------------
> > But if John were written before the Synoptics, and then was used
> > along with Thomas as sources to Mark, why would there be verbal
> > parallels in the case of Thomas but not in the case of John?
> > [Tim]
>
> Hi Tim,
> Maybe for a very simple reason?
> The text in Thomas are the "sayings" of Jesus, so you would not like to
> mess with them too much (I think) if you were a scribe and you had a great
> admiration for these sayings.
>
> The story of the crucifixion and the burial (and the baptist and the
> cleansing of the temple) on the other hand, well ... they're just stories.
> And as a writer you can do whatever you like with a story, as long as the
> content matches the 'original'/'reality'.
>
> regards,
> Jeff

Tim Ricchuiti  wrote:
>
> [Jeff]:
> > Later on Mark, Matthew and Luke would then have combined
> > Gthom and Gjohn into one sayings-narrative gospel.
>
> [Tim]:
> > Wouldn't you expect to see more verbal parallels between the
> > Synoptics and John if this were the case?
>
> [Jeff]:
> > The lack of more verbal parallels between John and the synoptics may in
> > fact be hinting to John being independent of the synoptics - I think.
> >
> > If John had been composed later than the synoptics, would he then not have
> > used the same wording as the three other already existing gospels?
>
>
> But if John were written before the Synoptics, and then was used along with
> Thomas as sources to Mark, why would there be verbal parallels in the case
> of Thomas but not in the case of John?
>
> [Tim]
>

Hi Tim,

Maybe for a very simple reason?

The text in Thomas are the "sayings" of Jesus, so you would not like to mess
with them too much (I think) if you were a scribe and you had a great admiration
for these sayings.

The story of the crucifixion and the burial (and the baptist and the cleansing
of the temple) on the other hand,
well ... they're just stories.
And as a writer you can do whatever you like with a story, as long as the
content matches the 'original'/'reality'.

regards,
Jeff

"Michael Grondin"  wrote:
>
> Hi Jeff -
>
> I'm curious about the "24 dialogues". Could you list them please?
> (No need to quote them.) I'm open to the idea that the number 24
> has some importance in the Coptic text, especially given that I
> believe L42 to be of central importance, but I would like to check
> for myself that there really are 24 dialogues.
>
> BTW, I've approved two messages that were responses to your
> notes, but for some unknown reason they've disappeared into
> cyberspace. If they don't appear by sometime tomorrow, I'll try
> to reconstruct them.
>
> Mike
>

Hi Mike,

you can find them on the "scroll" document that I have put on my download page:

http://thomasgospel.weebly.com/downloads.html

http://thomasgospel.weebly.com/uploads/2/7/5/9/2759065/thomas_eng_1_scroll.docx

I have labeled them all from 1 to 24 at the beginning of the Logia. The number
before the slash (/) refers to the subtotal of dialogues located at a 'corner'
(top or bottom of 'column'), the number after the slash refers to the overall
subtotal of dialogues.

So before the last logion of Gthom we see "L.114 13/24" which means "13th
dialogue on a corner on a total of 24".

But I'll give the numbers here anyway:

n° : L.

1  : 6
2  : 12
3  : 13
4  : 14
5  : 18
6  : 20
7  : 21
8  : 22
9  : 24
10 : 37
11 : 43
12 : 51
13 : 52
14 : 53
15 : 60
16 : 61
17 : 72
18 : 79
19 : 91
20 : 99
21 : 100
22 : 104
23 : 113
24 : 114


regards,
Jeff

Hi Jeff -

I'm curious about the "24 dialogues". Could you list them please?
(No need to quote them.) I'm open to the idea that the number 24
has some importance in the Coptic text, especially given that I
believe L42 to be of central importance, but I would like to check
for myself that there really are 24 dialogues.

BTW, I've approved two messages that were responses to your
notes, but for some unknown reason they've disappeared into
cyberspace. If they don't appear by sometime tomorrow, I'll try
to reconstruct them.

Mike

Hey Steve -

Since I suspect you won't be with us beyond the metaphorical
forty days, I'd really like to take this opportunity to find out
something about your intellectual journeys over the years.
I read in Skinner's interview that you're currently working on
Buddhist thought, and I seem to recall that you did some work
quite a while back on the Mayan culture, so what I'd like to ask
you is this: since you must have learned from the setup of the
Mayan calendar that the world would end in 2012, do you think
you have enough time left to complete your Buddhist studies?

No, no, that's not it. Forget that. What I'd really like to do is get some
general feel for what you've been up to over the years, and how you
see your various interests as being somehow connected (or not).

Mike

Hi Bob,
Thanks for giving me something to think about late at night (here).
You wrote:

> You can't say Thomas is [contrary] to something that was
> not yet an issue.

I can and do. I take it you haven't looked up the word 'contrary', or
if you have, were unable to find a definition to support your position.
My creaky old 1980 OAD, e.g., has the following:

"1. Opposite in nature, opposed; 2. Opposite in direction ..."

No mention of chronological priority there, but let's look at it this way:
Suppose I claim that text A contains ideas contrary to those in text B.
According to you, I can't also claim that text B contains ideas contrary
to those in text A, since one of them had to come first, hence one of
my two claims has to be false. But of course that's not so. If A is
contrary to B, then B is also contrary to A, and vice versa. That's just
the way we use the word in both Logic and ordinary language.

Other examples may suffice: I think you may agree that Paul's accounts
of his travels are somewhat contrary to what was written in Acts. Or that
Mark's report of the final words on the cross is contrary to any of the
other gospels. But how can that be, according to your argument, since
the latter texts didn't yet exist? QED, I believe.

[Bob]:
> Besides, as Steve pointed out, what you call "opposing" is not so
> much opposing as indifferent to. As he wrote in the message that you
> forwarded on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:06:56 -0500,
>
>>No... Thomas is [not] AGAINST the resurrection in the flesh, it just
>>has nothing to do with it. It's not against repeating the Nembutsu
>>or sacrificing goats to Legba either, it just doesn't mention them.

Witty, of course, but somewhat irrelevant, since the text DOES mention
human flesh, and it doesn't much like it. The problem I have with
responding to Steve on this point is that there seems to be no response
that he would deem adequate. If I quote some logia, he might accuse me
of falling victim to what he pointed to as a common tendency to draw a
general ideology out of a few logia. An end-around might work if he would
allow consideration of other Thomasine writings (Book and Acts) which
more clearly denigrate the flesh, hence suggesting that to Thomasines
a resurrection in the flesh would be an abomination, but I'm afraid he
wouldn't do that. That pretty much makes his position impregnable.

Dare I say that Paul's position on resurrection in the flesh was likewise
contrary to the canonical gospels (leaving aside GosMark, and the
endless variations of scholastic reasoning employed to show otherwise)?

Mike

At 10:47 PM 11/12/2009, Michael Grondin wrote:
>
>
> > [if GTh has] a "contrary ideology", as you suggest, that would imply
> > that it was compiled in response to something, which would make it
> > later in date ...
>
>Nice try, Bob, but no cigar. Though there may be a hint of chronological
>order in some of the ways we normally use the word 'contrary', the
>meaning of the word doesn't include that. It simply means 'opposing',
>or something like that, and it doesn't matter which of the opposing
>objects came first. Ex: if a result is contrary to our expectations, it's
>also true that our expectations were contrary to the result.
>
>Mike

Mike,
I can't let you get away with this. First, though, I have to restore
the context. What I wrote was this:

>...Steve was right in another message when he wrote, IIRC, that its not
>that GThomas has no POV, it just has too many of them, and none
>coherent with the others.
>
>And if it is a "contrary ideology", as you suggest, that would imply
>that it was compiled in response to something, which would make it
>later in date, i.e., after the following three ideologies had become
>important enough to dispute that:
>* The death of Jesus was part of a divine plan to atone for something
>* there was resurrection in the flesh
>* belief is sufficient for salvation
>In fact, if that is where you want to rest your case, then a (late)
>date for GThomas ought to be easy to calculate.

If it is contrary, or opposing, as you prefer, then it has to be
contrary or opposed to *something which existed at that time,* which
forces a chronological datum. You wrote,
>it doesn't matter which of the opposing objects came first.

No, it doesn't, but *all three* would have to be in circulation
before Thomas. You can't say Thomas is  opposed to something that was
not yet an issue.

Besides, as Steve pointed out, what you call "opposing" is not so
much opposing as indifferent to. As he wrote in the message that you
forwarded on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:06:56 -0500,

>No... Thomas is [not] AGAINST the resurrection in the flesh, it just
>has nothing to do with it. It's not against repeating the Nembutsu
>or sacrificing goats to Legba either, it just doesn't mention them.
>Salvation lies in figuring out what the list of sayings is communicating,
>we hear at the outset of Thomas, but as I wrote in my skinner interview
><http://pejeiesous.com/>http://pejeiesous.com/ I don't think that
>the Thomas people themselves
>thought they understood the text.


Bob Schacht
Northern Arizona University


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

At 04:43 PM 11/16/2009, Ian Brown wrote:

>Bob, you wrote,
>
> >Does this not lead us back to the old idea that Thomas is "Gnostic"?
> >i.e., intended as secret knowledge for the initiated, rather than
> >public knowledge for the multitudes?
>
> >As I recall the Received version of the conflict between the
> >established church and the Gnostics (perhaps I'm influenced by Pagels
> >here), one of the reasons for the canonical NT is that the
> >established church wanted to say, "Here's everything that is
> >necessary and sufficient for salvation. You don't need anything else
> >but these books." Whereas, the Gnostics were accused of having secret
> >books that would only be revealed to the Elect.
>
>I don't think that the presence of "secret knowledge" forces us to
>assume a document is gnostic. Both Michael Allen Williams
>(Rethinking Gnosticism, 1996), and Karen King (What is Gnosticism?,
>2003) have illustrated quite nicely the problem with using
>"Gnosticism" as a catch all term (one of the things it used to catch
>was "secret knowledge). Indeed by arguing that secret knowledge
>leads to Gnostic interpretations denies other discourses in which
>"secret knowledge" was valued. Here I am thinking of certain
>versions of aestheticism, entraticism, mysticism, and even Middle-Platonism.
>Without hazarding a guess as to how Thomas uses "secret knowledge,"
>I would argue that there are many non Gnostic interpretations that
>can and should be considered before we decide "secret knowledge" is
>not a useful category of description.
>
>ian


Ian,
Thanks for your reply.
Let me take this sideways a little.
Do we know anything about what Valentinian thought of GTH? Or any of
the other well-known Gnostics who were for a time accepted members of
the Christian establishment?

Bob Schacht
Northern Arizona University

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

Bob, you wrote,


>Does this not lead us back to the old idea that Thomas is "Gnostic"?
>i.e., intended as secret knowledge for the initiated, rather than
>public knowledge for the multitudes?

>As I recall the Received version of the conflict between the
>established church and the Gnostics (perhaps I'm influenced by Pagels
>here), one of the reasons for the canonical NT is that the
>established church wanted to say, "Here's everything that is
>necessary and sufficient for salvation. You don't need anything else
>but these books." Whereas, the Gnostics were accused of having secret
>books that would only be revealed to the Elect.

I don't think that the presence of  "secret knowledge" forces us to assume a
document is gnostic. Both Michael Allen Williams (Rethinking Gnosticism, 1996),
and Karen King (What is Gnosticism?, 2003) have illustrated quite nicely the
problem with using "Gnosticism" as a catch all term (one of the things it used
to catch was "secret knowledge). Indeed by arguing that secret knowledge leads
to Gnostic interpretations denies  other discourses in which "secret knowledge"
was valued. Here I am thinking of certain versions of aestheticism, entraticism,
mysticism, and even Middle-Platonism.
Without hazarding a guess as to how Thomas uses "secret knowledge," I would
argue that there are many non Gnostic interpretations that can and should be
considered before we decide "secret knowledge" is not a useful category of
description.

ian


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At 07:57 AM 11/13/2009, stevandavies wrote:
>
>--- In <mailto:gthomas%40yahoogroups.com>gthomas@yahoogroups.com,
>Bob Schacht <Bobschacht@...> wrote:
>
>>I know I'm pushing against the Modern Consensus in this regard,
>>but I kinda like my suggestion that the early core data on Jesus
>>focused on what happened to him, and what he did (the Passion
>>Narrative, Paul's emphasis on the centrality of the resurrection,
>>and the Signs Gospel)
>
>But Bob, the Passion Narrative seems to presuppose a resurrection that
>never happened and a Barabbas story that never happened and various bits
>made up on the basis of OT "prophecies" (gambling for clothing,
>for instance). Paul's emphasis on what happened to Jesus after he
>died isn't exactly prime historical Jesus data and the Signs Gospel
>is completely fiction. So where does this lead you?

I think your conclusions are anachronistic, and do not necessarily
reflect the conclusions of First Century people. I see that my error
was in referring to "early core data" when I should have written
"early core story." I then should have followed up that it "focused
on what [allegedly] happened to him, and what he [allegedly] did (the
Passion Narrative, Paul's emphasis on the centrality of the
resurrection, and the Signs Gospel)."

What it also leads me to is to suspect that whatever stuff Paul was
preaching for the first few years after his conversion (his sojourn
in Arabia) didn't go down so well, so we don't even know what it was.
In contrast, however, his emphasis on the centrality of the
resurrection has since survived for about 2000 years, so apparently
some folks found it worthy of preservation.


> > rather than what he said. I'm going to have to dig out my copy of The
> > Acts of Jesus from my pile of boxes of books from my move back to
> > Flagstaff, I guess.
> > I was never too enthralled by the idea that the earliest data about
> > Jesus was a collection of his bon mots. That sounds like just the
> > kind of approach a bunch of college professors would dream up.
>
>Yes, it does.... and the bon mots don't make much sense. Some
>are so meaningful that they can apply to all sorts of things, but you
>don't know Jesus' application and so you don't know anything
>(proverbs), and some are meaningless as they stand even if they may have
>meant something to HJ (parables).
>
>Then we understand that people had no hesitation in just making stuff up
>(later levels of Q, Thomas, John from start to finish, much synoptic
>filler material). And this means to me that it is absolutely not the
>brilliance and meaningfulness of HJ's bon mots that made people list
>them and narrativeize them. Rather, Jesus was understood to be God or
>something of the sort and then his mots become important. But why was
>Jesus understood to be God? It cannot have been the resurrection, for
>reasons I gave recently.

But the reasons you gave recently are more convincing to you than to
those who became Christians.
Your question, "why was Jesus understood to be God?" is an important
one, however, and distinguishes Christians from Jews, Moslems,
secular humanists, and others..And for most Christians, the answer
seems to lie in what he [allegedly] did, although for some, what he
[allegedly] said was more decisive.

> > As for the development of Christian narrative, I have another idea:
> > Rather than developing as a way to contextualize the sayings of
> > Jesus, I suspect that it started as a basic liturgical formula, the
> > *anamnesis.* To quote *An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church,*
> > "This memorial prayer of remembrance recalls for the worshipping
> > community past events in their tradition of faith that are formative
> > for their identity and self-understanding." [cf. Acts 4:33]
> > This sounds just exactly right, and seems like the nucleus around
> > which greater narratives would be organized.
> >
>
>Sure, as long as you have a nice solid Worshipping Community. But
>where did that come from? Or, as I mentioned in the Skinner interview,
>the key question may be what was up with the Churches of God in Judea
>that Paul was persecuting? To me that is THE key question and I
>don't have any answer except they were breaking the law in significant ways.

Yes, indeed. The answer may lie in the earliest anti-Christian
writings, whether Jewish or Roman, as well as in the early arguments
against the "heretics." Would that Tom Kopecek was participating in
this discussion-- some of that is his specialty.


>...I'm working right now on Japanese Buddhist questions, that
>stem from an interest in a) Mongolian Buddhist questions and b) getting
>a free trip to Oahu out of it. Last night I ran across two sentences in
>an article by an expert on Japanese Buddhism. He wrote, "The
>Buddhist priest's main function in the funeral is to effect the
>successful spiritual transformation of the deceased through symbolic
>ordination, merit transference, sutra chanting, and, in Zen sects, a
>short talk (indo) designed to help the dead attain enlightenment.
>Through proper performance of these rituals the priest ensures not only
>a rebirth in paradise for the deceased, but also safety for the family
>who would be threatened if the spirit remained attached to this
>world." (Rowe: Stickers for Nails in JJRS 27/3-4 pg. 358). Note
>here that in two sentences Rowe shifts from an understanding of the
>afterlife of ordinary folks after a normal funeral as attaining
>enlightenment to their rebirth in paradise while also assuming an
>understanding that without the funeral they would just turn into ghosts
>and haunt people. What happens after death seems pretty incoherent but
>people don't appear to be bothered by it. What was the early Xian idea
>of the afterlife?

Well, you recall the split between the Pharisees and Sadducees on this issue.
I imagine that the Christians were bothered by the same questions.
And no doubt you recall the parable of the Rich Man who died. There
are a number of allusions in the Gospels and elsewhere in the NT
about the afterlife.


>I learned in Sunday School that the apostles went out announcing that
>Jesus had Risen and that this joyful news caused lots of gentiles to
>join up with the church and give birth to what eventually became the
>PCUSA. But wouldn't the reaction have either been, "ho hum, my uncle
>Edgar came back last year and it cost a fortune to get rid of him," or
>"Omigod, Zombies! Hide!" The "He is risen, hallelulia" reaction
>presupposes a solid Worshipping Community who joined up for other
>reasons. What were those reasons?

In such a search, it does not help to exclude "reasons" a priori  on
the basis of anachronistic considerations, and ideological assumptions.

Cheers,
Bob Schacht
Northern Arizona University

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

At 01:48 PM 11/16/2009, Michael Grondin wrote:
>
>
> > The actual use of Thomas in antiquity fascinates me more than what
> > meaning it is attempting to convey. In fact, I would suggest that
> > understanding how it was used is an important clue to understanding
> > what it meant.
>
>I couldn't agree more on both points, Stephen. What I find curious is that
>the Coptic version has certain features which couldn't have been perceived
>from hearing it - such as the numerically-based chiastic structure of the
>prologue. One might even quite easily miss that - as modern scholars have
>done - if the words were right there in front of you. Does this mean that
>the Coptic version was a special, perhaps commemorative, edition? Or did
>other versions of GosThom have something of this same aspect to them?
>The former seems more likely (given lack of support for the latter in the
>Greek fragments), but in that case, doubts arise as to whether our main
>exemplar of GTh was ever used in an instructional setting, even if other
>versions might have been.
>
>Regards,
>Mike

Does this not lead us back to the old idea that Thomas is "Gnostic"?
i.e., intended as secret knowledge for the initiated, rather than
public knowledge for the multitudes?

As I recall the Received version of the conflict between the
established church and the Gnostics (perhaps I'm influenced by Pagels
here), one of the reasons for the canonical NT is that the
established church wanted to say, "Here's everything that is
necessary and sufficient for salvation. You don't need anything else
but these books." Whereas, the Gnostics were accused of having secret
books that would only be revealed to the Elect.

I'm oversimplifying, of course, but isn't this essentially the basic
difference in how the different factions "read" their sacred literature?

Bob Schacht
Northern Arizona University



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

> The actual use of Thomas in antiquity fascinates me more than what
> meaning it is attempting to convey.  In fact, I would suggest that
> understanding how it was used is an important clue to understanding
> what it meant.

I couldn't agree more on both points, Stephen. What I find curious is that
the Coptic version has certain features which couldn't have been perceived
from hearing it - such as the numerically-based chiastic structure of the
prologue. One might even quite easily miss that - as modern scholars have
done - if the words were right there in front of you. Does this mean that
the Coptic version was a special, perhaps commemorative, edition? Or did
other versions of GosThom have something of this same aspect to them?
The former seems more likely (given lack of support for the latter in the
Greek fragments), but in that case, doubts arise as to whether our main
exemplar of GTh was ever used in an instructional setting, even if other
versions might have been.

Regards,
Mike

[Jeff]:
> Later on Mark, Matthew and Luke would then have combined
> Gthom and Gjohn into one sayings-narrative gospel.

[Tim]:
> Wouldn't you expect to see more verbal parallels between the
> Synoptics and John if this were the case?

[Jeff]:
> The lack of more verbal parallels between John and the synoptics may in
> fact be hinting to John being independent of the synoptics - I think.
>
> If John had been composed later than the synoptics, would he then not have
> used the same wording as the three other already existing gospels?


But if John were written before the Synoptics, and then was used along with
Thomas as sources to Mark, why would there be verbal parallels in the case
of Thomas but not in the case of John?

[Tim]

Jeff wrote:
What the meaning of '24' is in Gthom, however I don't know for the moment.
Does it refer to the hours? In this case it may refer to a certain Egyptian
background, because the Egyptians were the first to ascribe a certain value to
the number 24 and seem to be the first to have divided the day in 24 parts. But
that is as far as I get.
>>

A suggested meaning:

If by the 'Kingdom' in the Gthom is meant Jesus himself, i.e. as the presence of
divine light in some revelatory degree, we can also say its a manifestation of
the 'alpha and omega' from which all things are derived and have connection.
Irenaeus points to something like this when he says some Gnostic groups wrote
that the 6 letters of IHEOYE (i.e., Jesus) was also the fullness of eights, or
'Plenitude of Ogdoads' (IHEOYE =888, added together =24, and added again =6)
containing within itself all the elements and letters.

From Paul's vision of the three heavens where he heard "things that cannot be
told, that man may not utter" we might understand there were at least three
revelatory degrees of divine light. The two higher degrees seem to be assumed in
the Gthom, if L.9 is taken as indication of the amount of seed=divine light that
is sown according to spiritual receptivity. In Matthew (13:3-9); Mark (4:3-9),
the same seed parable contains all three degrees (cf. Luke 8:5-8, or to a seven
tiered system of seven heavens).

In this context, its interesting to note the number 24 can be used to make a
palindrome, since in later Jewish mysticism the name of god in 42 letters could
refer to "I Am that I Am." A justification for linking the two comes from noting
that, like Jesus of the Gnostics, Metatron in the Shi'ur Qomah has a double
name, one in 6 letters and the other in 24 letters.

-james

(Ed. note: Mr. Palomares renders the Greek form of the name 'Jesus' as IHEOYE,
rather than the more conventional IHSOUS, presumably on the grounds that one
form of uncial sigma somewhat resembles an 'E' - though it must be pointed out
that uncial epsilon resembles it more, which will surely lead to confusion.
Posters are advised to follow the transliteration scheme at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gthomas/files/CopAsci2.gif, although some leeway
is allowed for the Greek letter upsilon when it functions as a 'Y' or 'V'. -MWG)

On Nov 16, 2009 10:48 AM, stevandavies <stevandavies@...> wrote:
>I try to keep in mind the fact that most folks back then *heard* books
>rather than *read* them. And that there weren't very many books in the
>first place what with scribal copying being an expensive process. I am
>quite certain that Luke heard Matthew although Luke owned Mark and Q.
>Luke, having heard Matthew, realized what Matthew had done and decided
>to do the same thing, only better. So there is actual copying from Mark
>to Luke, but only a basic idea from Matthew to Luke. Similarly, it might
>be reasonable to think that John heard Mark and, having gotten the idea
>of a certain sort of narrative biography from Mark, John went off and
>wrote his own book from his own sources.

Allow me to decline the obvious synoptic problem bait and turn
the discussion round to the reception of Thomas.  It is true
that most folk back then heard books read aloud.  Justin gives
some evidence of this in Christian circles in the mid 2d century.

I wonder about Thomas, though.  Is the kind of text that would be
read aloud in a communal setting?  Or--given its emphasis, right
at the beginning, of disclosing hidden/secret sayings of the living
Jesus--is the kind of text that was read in more private settings?
I wonder if Thomas was the kind of text that was used in small
classes or groups of around 2-5 people, where a teacher would read
aloud from the text a saying or two and the rest of the people in
the group would discuss its interpretation.  Sort of like a modern
seminar.

The actual use of Thomas in antiquity fascinates me more than what
meaning it is attempting to convey.  In fact, I would suggest that
understanding how it was used is an important clue to understanding
what it meant.

Stephen

--
Stephen C. Carlson
Ph.D. student, Religion, Duke University
Author of The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark (Baylor,
2005)

> The lack of more verbal parallels between John and the synoptics may
in fact be hinting to John being independent of the synoptics - I think.
>
> If John had been composed later than the synoptics, would he then not
have used the same wording as the three other already existing gospels?
>
> regards,
> Jeff
>


Hello

I try to keep in mind the fact that most folks back then *heard* books
rather than *read* them. And that there weren't very many books in the
first place what with scribal copying being an expensive process. I am
quite certain that Luke heard Matthew although Luke owned Mark and Q.
Luke, having heard Matthew, realized what Matthew had done and decided
to do the same thing, only better. So there is actual copying from Mark
to Luke, but only a basic idea from Matthew to Luke. Similarly, it might
be reasonable to think that John heard Mark and, having gotten the idea
of a certain sort of narrative biography from Mark, John went off and
wrote his own book from his own sources.

Stteve

Tim Ricchuiti wrote:


> > Later on Mark, Matthew and Luke would then have combined Gthom and Gjohn
> > into one sayings-narrative gospel.
>
> Wouldn't you expect to see more verbal parallels between the Synoptics and
> John if this were the case?
>
> [Tim]


Hi Tim,

The lack of more verbal parallels between John and the synoptics may in fact be
hinting to John being independent of the synoptics - I think.

If John had been composed later than the synoptics, would he then not have used
the same wording as the three other already existing gospels?

regards,
Jeff