Complete Thomas Commentary

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Jax
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Re: Complete Thomas Commentary

Post by Jax »

I appreciate that you always use IS when discussing this subject, I prefer to do this myself. You mention that IHS is also used in Thomas, do you have any thoughts on this?
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mlinssen
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Re: Complete Thomas Commentary

Post by mlinssen »

Jax wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 6:36 am I appreciate that you always use IS when discussing this subject, I prefer to do this myself. You mention that IHS is also used in Thomas, do you have any thoughts on this?
Sure do

Get the beautiful and fully complete concordance from the Translation and you can see it is used only in logion 13, 22 and 90. That's another reason for ditching the Oxyrhynchus papyri: they have it all over the place, whereas it is highly unusual to have a protagonist change names, of course.
The religiots will pretend that it's completely normal, but if you start writing Josus or Jasus instead of Jesus they'll object

IS is a concept, and the eta (H) is added only on very important occasions:

Anyone will agree that logion 13 is a pivotal one with Simon and Matthew giving the dumb answers and Thomas giving the right answer, which is that IS can't be compared at all

Logion 22 is large and continues to stress which two's to make one, and basically it says that everything is two and should be made one: unlearn, stop the separation and dualisation, and you'll enter the kingdom. That actually is all one needs to know and in essence it is very clear, although the various details are puzzling

Logion 90 - I am mulling on it. The yoke can only be a joke, what Thomas tasks one with takes continuous attention, the son of man is not allowed any rest (or Repose, for that matter). I think he is imitating the religious leaders and others, but everyone knows that the easy was only leads to hardship - and vice versa

So there we have the three logia where IS suddenly is IHS: one that declares that he isn't a person whatsoever, one that contains his core message on how to enter the kingdom, and one that is very concise and which I can't take seriously:

90 said IHS : come!(PL) toward I : a Kind-one is my yoke and my(F) lordship a gentle-man is(F) and you(PL) will fall to a Repose to you(PL)

Logion 82 is the one where IS identifies himself, sort of: fire. Feminine fire, not the masculine one that is used on the other 3 occasions - IS equates to feminine fire.
The one crazy idea that I have followed up on is transcribing the Coptic letters by their numeric value (10, 8, 200). Hebrew gives a very interesting result there: יִחַר

Burning with anger, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/le ... 2734&t=KJV

Mad as hell, is what Thomas was, I think. I would need to explain IS in relation to this explanation, but I can't, I know no Hebrew at all.
But is IHS a name? Never in the history of mankind has it occurred that the protagonist of a story changes name back and forth, and everyone waltzes over it just like that. No one has ever tried to make sense of Thomas, all they have done is try to squeeze him into their pathetic little boxes

I don't know what the H stands for, it is not anything Coptic. Coptic does use the letter a a word but only as Greek loanword for the same letter: "or", https://coptot.manuscriptroom.com/crum- ... a&tla=C782

Interesting thing is that it's called heta of course, but in Bohairic (which unfortunately is one of the few dialects NOT used in Thomas) that is written ϩⲁⲧⲉ, "flow of water" and it's verb definition is "to flow".
The feminine fire of logion 82 is ⲥⲁⲧⲉ, https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C3762 - and there comes a point where I'm getting the feeling that I'm merely trying to make ends meet, seeing things that I want to see, gratefully abusing the fact that Thomas allegedly is so cryptic. I just don't know why it's there, logion 13 has masculine fire in it and there is the little riddle of the feminine something burning the disciples, which can only be the boiling fountain.
No burning things in 22 or 90, so it's a dead end in that way

I wish I really knew Coptic. I also wish that those who do know Coptic aren't blind as a bat and more orthodox and conservative than Irenaeus. So very few people who can think outside the box
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Jax
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Re: Complete Thomas Commentary

Post by Jax »

Right on mlinssen, thanks for that nice long response, I'll chew on that for a while. :cheers:

Know what you mean about seeing things that one wants to see, it's a trap that I try to avoid myself, and hopefully I am occasionally successful in not falling for it. Assigning a name to IS (or even IHS) is an example of this in my opinion; it might be Iesous or it might not, who the hell actually knows. Hell it could be an abbreviation for Isis for all we know. All we do know is that IS (with IU and IN in Greek, as well as IHS, IHU, and IHN) is the only way that the name is rendered in our earliest texts, yet people insist on giving IS another name than what it just is, IS.

The fact that someone felt the need to substitute IS for IHS in those three places that you mention is very interesting. It almost seems like they thought something was obvious that we just are not getting.

Your brother in IS. ;)

Lane

P.S. If you don't know about this thread viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7828 come on over. I need all the help that I can get.
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mlinssen
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Re: Complete Thomas Commentary

Post by mlinssen »

Thank you brother!

I'll pass on the nomina sacra thread, I divvy them up in few simple parts:

1) Abbreviations were common, of course - not for all the words in the NT, naturally, but some words were frequently enough abbreviated before 100-200 CE
2) The superlinear stroke was uncommon, and only used occasionally when using letters as numbers
3) There are no abbreviations containing a superlinear stroke before 100 CE
4) IS or IHS aren't abbreviations, as the words in full don't exist prior to 100 CE. They come from somewhere, and naturally I claim that they come from Thomas, who started it all

It was a monkey see monkey do business: IS, IHS and PNA (pneuma) are in Thomas, as is S[TR]OS, by the way, where [TR] represents the one single letter. The text got copied, and the superlinears above the first three words were noticed - and a new custom developed, in a very chaotic way of course, as it was clear that PNA was an abbreviation, but IS and IHS posed problems that way
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Re: Complete Thomas Commentary

Post by davidmartin »

FWIW in the dialog of the saviour fire is explained "The Lord said, "The fire of the spirit came into existence"
So a connection with Spirit as feminine is possible, it also connects water to fire "There was darkness and water, and spirit upon water."
I don't know which 'fire' is used in this text. although i could check for you
In my opinion 'fire', 'water', 'wind' all relate directly to Spirit and are analogies pretty much

what's interesting about the dialog as well, about the only NHL text to show an interest in sayings/parables (g. of Philip is the other and not nearly as much). This sayings source isn't Thomas, but appears very related with several points of contact with Thomas's sayings and parallels. So it's independent but similar. I think discussions of Thomas should include the Dialogue as it's the only thing remotely similar to Thomas
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Re: Complete Thomas Commentary

Post by mlinssen »

The Saviour is a very odd fusion between Thomas, NT stuff and Gnostic-like approach. I should have the Coptic, I'll check tomorrow

Thomas has no water and wind, only the pneuma and this unique female fire, only once. It is the one single word out of 6,500 (some 700+ unique ones) that I couldn't normalise

There definitely seems to be a relation between Saviour and Thomas, although the former gets a few things of the latter backwards and it's more in line with the direction of NT stuff
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Re: Complete Thomas Commentary

Post by mlinssen »

davidmartin wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 11:50 am FWIW in the dialog of the saviour fire is explained "The Lord said, "The fire of the spirit came into existence"
So a connection with Spirit as feminine is possible, it also connects water to fire "There was darkness and water, and spirit upon water."
I don't know which 'fire' is used in this text. although i could check for you
In my opinion 'fire', 'water', 'wind' all relate directly to Spirit and are analogies pretty much

what's interesting about the dialog as well, about the only NHL text to show an interest in sayings/parables (g. of Philip is the other and not nearly as much). This sayings source isn't Thomas, but appears very related with several points of contact with Thomas's sayings and parallels. So it's independent but similar. I think discussions of Thomas should include the Dialogue as it's the only thing remotely similar to Thomas
A few ocurrences of fire in the Dialogue of the Saviour. I'm just going to copy-paste the texts and comment on it.
Nag Hammadi III,5 - edited by Stephen Hemmel

For the crossing place • is fearful (before ... ]. I But
you, [with a] I single mind, pass [it] by! I For its depth is great; (its] 5
height [is] enormous [ ... ] I a single mind ... [ ... ] I and the fire

That's the male fire, ⲕⲱϩⲧ: https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C1524

(18) The Lord [said], "The fire [of the] I spirit came into existence
... [ ... ] I both. On this account, the [ ... ] I came into existence,
and 20 the [true] mind came into existence [within] them [ ... ]. I If
someone [sets his soul] I up high, (then ... ] I be exalted."

Likewise, male fire

5 existing out-side them. [ ... ] I ... the water, a great fire [encircling] I them like a
wall. ... [ ... ] I . . . time once many things had become separated
[from what] I was inside

Dito

rules over the aeons I [above]
and below I [ ... ] . . . take from the fire . . . I [ ... ] . . . it was scat­
tered in the 10 [ ••• ] ••• above and I [below

Oh! A different masculine noun, ⲕⲣⲱⲙ: https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C1302

(35) * "If [one] does not [understand I how) fire came into exis­
tence, I he will burn in it, because I he does not know the root of it

ⲕⲱϩⲧ again

Judas said to I Matthew, "Brother, who
will I be able to climb up to such a height or down to the 10 bottom of
the abyss? For there is a tremendous I fire there and something very
fearful!"

ⲕⲱϩⲧ again

That's it. On a side note, this was the first time I even glanced at the Coptic of the DotS, and the wording looks pretty close to that of Thomas.
However, it is a horrendous translation, with for instance:

(25) [Mary] hailed her brethren 20 [ ..• ] ... you ask the son ...

"hail" apparently is the translation of choice for the verb ϣⲓⲛⲉ, https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C5922
"ask" apparently is the translation of choice for the verb ϣⲓⲛⲉ, https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C5922

Yes, that is not a typo. Check the screenshot:
DialogueOfTheSaviourShittyTranslation.png
DialogueOfTheSaviourShittyTranslation.png (132.2 KiB) Viewed 1283 times
On the line with number 23, the verb is present yet again: this time it gets translated with "inquire"

It would appear that none of these are translations, but gross interpretations.
I am happy to admit that my translation is most certainly not easy on the eye, but at least it gives everyone an insight into what the text says. This? This is biased rubbish. It's even worse than Lambdin's
ebion
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Re: Complete Thomas Commentary

Post by ebion »

The translation of gThomas that I like is directly from the Coptic by the late Patterson Brown, at http://www.metalog.org/files/thomas.html and if that's dead; you can find it at:
He does a lot of commentary to show the links back to the gospel passages, and also has footnotes that highlight the wordplays and asyncdetons in Coptic. And it's a lovely translation - not at all ecclesiastical.
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