I’d like to recommend the audiobook Gnosticism: From Nag Hammadi to the Gospel of Judas by David Brakke (Professor of History, Ohio State University) from The Teaching Company's Great Courses Plus series.
The audiobook is a bit pricey to buy, but many libraries have it (and others in the Great Courses series), and I believe it's available from Audible for those who are subscribers.
I found Brakke especially helpful for thinking about the relationship between Thomas and Gnosticism (I gave an SBL paper called Five Theses on the Gospel of Thomas and the first two theses were to distinguish between capital G Gnosticism and small g gnosticism, based on Brakke) and for lecture 10 on "Re-unifying the Self" in Thomas. I'm including some pics from the relevant pages from the course guidebook (which is sort of the Cliff's notes version of the full lecture) on those topics. The guidebook used to be freely available online, but unfortunately that does not seem to be the case anymore.
Best,
Ken
P.S. Happy birthday, Peter!
Brakke 69.jpg (1.47 MiB) Viewed 2452 times
Brakke 70.jpg (1.51 MiB) Viewed 2452 times
Brakke 71.jpg (1.53 MiB) Viewed 2452 times
Last edited by Ken Olson on Sun May 02, 2021 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ken Olson wrote: ↑Sat May 01, 2021 4:30 pm
Sorry, I could load only three pages for the previous post. here are the pages on Thomas and Gnosticism.
Brakke 63.jpg
Brakke 64.jpg
This actually is a good part of what Brakke says. Concisely put, Thomas can't really be identified with Gnosticism, but he does teach salvation through gnosis
"Gnosticism" is a most meaningless term. It really serves to distinguish true religiosity from superstition, an awareness of being touched by religious meaning. Not religious meaning. That can be apprehended unconsciously. Awareness of the process of acquiring meaning.
It's not a bad summary but he's over simplifying it as well
Firstly, he overplays the Platonic connection. The simple idea that we are eternal souls is far more ancient than Plato and there would need to be more meat to make a direct philosophical connection hold water
Secondly the dualism between spirit and matter is unclear in Thomas. Some sayings such as the 'split a piece of wood and i am there' question it. At some points the dualism is between heaven and earth not spirit and matter. Even the more dualistic sayings in Thomas are not beyond what is found in the new testament if one chose to do the same thing with them.. a clear spirit/matter duality could be claimed for them as well. Does Thomas stop at a spirit/matter duality or go further? It goes further
Thirdly, salvation in Thomas is not directly equated with self realisation but requires recognition and seeking for the divine. If this latter element isn't removed then salvation in Thomas requires seeking something other than one's self
The author is making Thomas fit the paradigms we are familiar with, and yeah he says some interesting stuff but it's incomplete and can't really Pidgeon hole Thomas into the comfortable category that i think he is attempting
The Gospel of Thomas clearly requires interpretation.
These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded.
1. And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."
There may be a difference between the plain meaning of Thomas, which I agree is not Gnostic in the narrow sense, and the way the original authors of Thomas wished enlightened readers to understand it.
