James the Just in the gospel of Thomas.

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Ben C. Smith
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Re: James the Just in the gospel of Thomas.

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Secret Alias wrote: Fri Sep 04, 2020 8:35 pm But Jacob is being celebrated as the paradigmatic reshaped man - the one with Adam's restored glory. Jacob couldn't have been born with this quality. He was made like Adam after already born.
James/Jacob was probably not born as "the paradigmatic reshaped man," true.
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Re: James the Just in the gospel of Thomas.

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The Patriarch Jacob is God's twin because of his encounters with God. He sits on a throne at the top of the heavenly ladder.
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Re: James the Just in the gospel of Thomas.

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“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: James the Just in the gospel of Thomas.

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Secret Alias wrote: Fri Sep 04, 2020 8:38 pm The Patriarch Jacob is God's twin because of his encounters with God. He sits on a throne at the top of the heavenly ladder.
Are you referring to Jacob the Patriarch or to James the Just? Or are you saying they are (somehow) the same character?
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Re: James the Just in the gospel of Thomas.

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There must be a relationship. Too similar. The name Israel is taken from the God he wrestles with so his identity changes. The Church Fathers say he wrestled with Jesus.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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Re: James the Just in the gospel of Thomas.

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There seems to be some connection between the Gospel of Thomas and the Naassenes as described by Hippolytus
E.G.
And concerning this (nature) they hand down an explicit passage, occurring in the Gospel inscribed according to Thomas, expressing themselves thus: He who seeks me, will find me in children from seven years old; for there concealed, I shall in the fourteenth age be made manifest. This, however, is not (the teaching) of Christ, but of Hippocrates, who uses these words: A child of seven years is half of a father. And so it is that these (heretics), placing the originative nature of the universe in causative seed, (and) having ascertained the (aphorism) of Hippocrates, that a child of seven years old is half of a father, say that in fourteen years, according to Thomas, he is manifested
If so, then the passage about James in the Gospel of Thomas may be related to the Naassenes claim to have received secret tradition from James.
These are the heads of very numerous discourses which (the Naassene) asserts James the brother of the Lord handed down to Mariamne. In order, then, that these impious (heretics) may no longer belie Mariamne or James, or the Saviour Himself, let us come to the mystic rites (whence these have derived their figment) — to a consideration, if it seems right, of both the Barbarian and Grecian (mysteries) — and let us see how these (heretics), collecting together the secret and ineffable mysteries of all the Gentiles, are uttering falsehoods against Christ, and are making dupes of those who are not acquainted with these orgies of the Gentiles. For since the foundation of the doctrine with them is the man Adam, and they say that concerning him it has been written, Who shall declare his generation? Isaiah 53:8 learn how, partly deriving from the Gentiles the undiscoverable and diversified generation of the man, they fictitiously apply it to Christ.
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Re: James the Just in the gospel of Thomas.

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andrewcriddle wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2020 3:12 am There seems to be some connection between the Gospel of Thomas and the Naassenes as described by Hippolytus
E.G.
And concerning this (nature) they hand down an explicit passage, occurring in the Gospel inscribed according to Thomas, expressing themselves thus: He who seeks me, will find me in children from seven years old; for there concealed, I shall in the fourteenth age be made manifest. This, however, is not (the teaching) of Christ, but of Hippocrates, who uses these words: A child of seven years is half of a father. And so it is that these (heretics), placing the originative nature of the universe in causative seed, (and) having ascertained the (aphorism) of Hippocrates, that a child of seven years old is half of a father, say that in fourteen years, according to Thomas, he is manifested
If so, then the passage about James in the Gospel of Thomas may be related to the Naassenes claim to have received secret tradition from James.
These are the heads of very numerous discourses which (the Naassene) asserts James the brother of the Lord handed down to Mariamne. In order, then, that these impious (heretics) may no longer belie Mariamne or James, or the Saviour Himself, let us come to the mystic rites (whence these have derived their figment) — to a consideration, if it seems right, of both the Barbarian and Grecian (mysteries) — and let us see how these (heretics), collecting together the secret and ineffable mysteries of all the Gentiles, are uttering falsehoods against Christ, and are making dupes of those who are not acquainted with these orgies of the Gentiles. For since the foundation of the doctrine with them is the man Adam, and they say that concerning him it has been written, Who shall declare his generation? Isaiah 53:8 learn how, partly deriving from the Gentiles the undiscoverable and diversified generation of the man, they fictitiously apply it to Christ.
Thanks. I definitely have those passages bookmarked for further investigation in a text file of mine. Do you think that James appears in Thomas because the Naassenes (or their spiritual predecessors) claimed special knowledge from him? Or do you think that the Naassenes (or their spiritual predecessors) made that claim because James appears in Thomas?
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Re: James the Just in the gospel of Thomas.

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One more thing about Jacob and Adam. The rabbanites understood Adam to have been originally commanded to be a vegetarian (Sanhedrin 59)
Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: Meat was not permitted to Adam, the first man, for consumption, as it is written: “And God said: Behold, I have given you every herb that brings forth seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree that gives forth seed; for you it shall be for food, and for every animal of the earth, and for every fowl of the air, and for everything that creeps upon the earth, in which there is a living soul, every green herb for food. And it was so” (Genesis 1:29–30). It is derived God told Adam: Eating vegetation is permitted to people and animals, but eating the animals of the earth is not permitted to you.
This apparently changed with Noah. But also hidden in this understanding is the idea that 'the world was made for Adam' - i.e. all the things described in the opening chapters of Genesis are given to Adam to feed him. There is something of this in the description of Jacob the Just again.

From my perspective - i.e. where the original nomen sacrum goes back to the Cosmic Man - Adam was made after his image and the world too (see Philo about this viz. the world as a massive cosmic Man). Philo says Adam was made after the image of the world. But we're only a step away from the world being made for Adam even with Philo. Now Christianity is saying Jacob is the new Adam, the restored Adam. By whom? By the Cosmic Man. When Adam eats the herbs which in turn are sustained by the arrangement of 'the world' described in Genesis 1 he is really feeding on a giant Man made after the image of the Cosmic Man who in turn sustains the primal man made of the earth - the earth that is ultimately in the shape of Man.

The idea is present in Mandaeanism too https://books.google.com/books?id=_u2nU ... bs&f=false
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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Re: James the Just in the gospel of Thomas.

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The idea that the world was made for Adam or a man has been discerned in Philo and is close to the view of the Stoa, see P. Borgen, “Man's Sovereignty over Animals and Nature according to Philo of Alexandria,” T. FORNBERG and D. HELL- HOLM (edd.), Texts and Contexts: Biblical Texts in their Textual and Situational Contexts: Essays in Honor of Lars Hartman. Edited by T. Fornberg and D. Hellholm. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press

Apparently Philo's clearest exposition of this position is found in De Animalibus a work preserved originally in Armenian and later translated into Latin. I have never heard of this work! How do we track down an English translation?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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Re: James the Just in the gospel of Thomas.

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Secret Alias wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:59 am The idea that the world was made for Adam or a man has been discerned in Philo and is close to the view of the Stoa, see P. Borgen, “Man's Sovereignty over Animals and Nature according to Philo of Alexandria,” T. FORNBERG and D. HELL- HOLM (edd.), Texts and Contexts: Biblical Texts in their Textual and Situational Contexts: Essays in Honor of Lars Hartman. Edited by T. Fornberg and D. Hellholm. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press

Apparently Philo's clearest exposition of this position is found in De Animalibus a work preserved originally in Armenian and later translated into Latin. I have never heard of this work! How do we track down an English translation?
There is an English translation by Abraham Terian. Refer to my PM to you, too.
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