a new Gospel of Thomas book excerpt

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StephenGoranson
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a new Gospel of Thomas book excerpt

Post by StephenGoranson »

The Words of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas
The Genesis of a Wisdom Tradition
By David W. Kim
Hardback, 312 Pages
$128.00
ISBN 9780367629229
Published July 2, 2021 by Routledge

The first 30 pages (intro, with some history of scholarship) are available at amazon.com—that is, available today and on USA amazon; sometimes previews go away or may be different or not available in different countries.

(As I have written, though I’m interested in gTh, I’m no expert on it. I quoted “authorities” merely to show that the Coptic writing system is not yet attested in many, sometimes-datable, papyri in circa first century CE. Also, though, to me, Coptic Thomas later than gMark etc. seems more probable than the reverse, when looking at one gnomic saying, it may also be possible that a folk proverb preceded both.)

(PS I am not endorsing everything written there, but thought some might be interested.)
(PPS The Coptic writing system apparently did not start out unified, nor, apparently, did the earlier Egyptian Demotic system.)
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Re: a new Gospel of Thomas book excerpt

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StephenGoranson wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 4:32 am The Words of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas
The Genesis of a Wisdom Tradition
By David W. Kim
Hardback, 312 Pages
$128.00
ISBN 9780367629229
Published July 2, 2021 by Routledge

The first 30 pages (intro, with some history of scholarship) are available at amazon.com—that is, available today and on USA amazon; sometimes previews go away or may be different or not available in different countries.

(As I have written, though I’m interested in gTh, I’m no expert on it. I quoted “authorities” merely to show that the Coptic writing system is not yet attested in many, sometimes-datable, papyri in circa first century CE. Also, though, to me, Coptic Thomas later than gMark etc. seems more probable than the reverse, when looking at one gnomic saying, it may also be possible that a folk proverb preceded both.)

(PS I am not endorsing everything written there, but thought some might be interested.)
(PPS The Coptic writing system apparently did not start out unified, nor, apparently, did the earlier Egyptian Demotic system.)
Thanks Stephen, Kim usually has interesting writings. However...
The focus of this manuscript is one stream of Jesus traditions in early Christianity. We can suppose that the Jesus tradition originated when the historical person (Jesus) was performing his kingdom ministry and miracles, and significant oral speeches were formlessly passed on as crucial teachings of the new religious movement. It was due to religio-political factors, including the persecutions by some Jewish and imperial authorities, that the delivered oral tradition of Jesus needed first to be written down in the middle of the first century C.E. The initial written tradition was not comprised of various narratives or episodes, but composed in the style of Logia (sayings), which is also the primary structure of Q. The canonical tradition emerged afterwards, based on the written Q material, and covering the life of Jesus; whilst the gnostic tradition reflects the transformation or development of the Jesus tradition in the cross-cultural communities of the second, third and fourth centuries C.E.

If it is right that the Gospel of Thomas contains one kind of Jesus tradition, where should the Logia tradition of Thomas belong amongst the oral, written, canonical and gnostic developments? This thesis, on ‘the genesis of the Thomasine Jesus tradition’, argues that the Logia tradition in Thomas was independently created before the canonical tradition of Jesus. This pre-canonical character of Thomas does not belong to the gnostic sphere, but represents a kind of Q tradition. The Thomasine Logia, derived from the memories and personal archives of the Thomas circle, were documented by the heir(s) of the community founder before the Jewish War. The three Greek fragments of the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 654, 1, 655, together with the Nag Hammadi Codex (NHC) II, 2. 32:10–51: 28, are used to establish my hypothesis that Thomas is one of the written sources connecting the oral to the synoptic tradition (so called, ‘the Thomasine-Q tradition’)."
I'll pass and wait for the reviews; at over 100 bucks, this looks like a very expensive paper weight - was my first impression

Yet it's available as e-book on Routledge for 30 - I'll get it:
This volume is structured around a reading perspective in which each Logion (114 in all) of the Gospel of Thomas is approached equally and interpreted logically to redefine the genesis of the Jesus tradition in the history of early Christianity. The new hypothesis is demonstrated in the way that the original text, during the time of a generational transition, was creatively written by the ‘one point five (1.5: child eyewitnesses) generations’ of Jesus, out of oral tradition and casual notes once possessed by the historical figure of Didymus Judas Thomas. If the ‘genetic address of Thomas,’ indeed, is in the stream of the written Logia tradition (45-60 CE) before the canonical Gospels, one should not only not deny that the Jewish wisdom (sophia) tradition survived the transitional process, but also recognize that there may be yet more undiscovered Qs. This book, with a pioneering spirit, argues that Thomas does not exactly fit into the traditional Q, but uniquely contains ‘the Thomasine-Q tradition of Jesus.’

Harold W. Attridge, Sterling Professor of Divinity, Harvard University
He will have some good stuff in it though, that's for sure
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Re: a new Gospel of Thomas book excerpt

Post by mlinssen »

A few giveaways from earlier publications:

Conclusion

In the end, the hypothesis that the canonisation of Thomas is primarily related to the circumstances of the era’s history is justified by the interrelationships of the religio-political environment of the Graeco-Roman world. Imperial persecution and the regional criticism of the anti-Christian Jews support the period of 45–60 A.D. as being the most appropriate time for the textual project of Thomas.
There is no certain indication either that the Thomas school was deliberately established for the project of the textualisation or that the canonical project of Thomas brought about the formation of the community institution, but it is worthwhile to speculate about their previous achievements when the Jewish Christians were in the Holy City before the unwanted war. The historical and textual evidence commonly draw the picture of the Judaic-Christian community of Thomas in Jerusalem. The linguistic transformation is also revealed in the fact that the Greek language was not their mother tongue, and yet they did not hesitate to use that common medium of communication of the Graeco-Roman world for Thomas’ textualisation. Many major components of the Coptic language support the argument that the ultimate decision the Logiographer made for the language of Thomas was not an unusual case but was part of the socio-cultural precedent of the era for the generalisation, popularisation, and officialisation of the community canon. If the Thomasine community was such a systematic group, in terms of its goal of global mission, one should not underestimate the religio-political identity of the early Christian movement.

https://www.academia.edu/2029989/Thomas ... _to_Coptic

https://www.academia.edu/1112168/Where_ ... _of_Thomas

https://www.academia.edu/154614/_The_Wi ... holarship_

Just a few picks
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Re: a new Gospel of Thomas book excerpt

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Some interesting stats on Thomasine publications

The history of Thomasine scholarship

What follows is a chronological survey of Thomasine scholarship, reflecting the past stream of Thomas studies in history so as to address the question, “What was the status of Thomas scholarship before the present day?” After the discovery of the secret Logia of Jesus in 1897, the field of Thomas studies became very popular among scholars; but matters were extremely complicated at the start, with little sense of direction offered from the wind-blown desert of Oxyrhynchus. However, initially extravagant theories gave way to scholars’ challenging questions of when these ancient texts—containing substantial numbers of unknown sayings of Jesus and material for studying early Jewish-Christian communities and Christianity in the Graeco-Roman world—were substantiated. Over approximately 100 years of Thomas scholarship, as shown in Figure 0.2, we see that the research output on the subject, after two extreme peaks (1897–8 and 1959–62) with a trough between them, has gradually increased, thereby to some extent diminishing the “sand-wind” (confusion) of the field. According to Figure 0.2, 77 books and articles were published in 1897 and 1898, and 30 in 1904 and 1905, reflecting the serious interest of Biblical readers in the discovery of the three Greek papyri. After a mostly silent half century (between 1906 and 1956), almost 300 research studies are reported in the four years from 1959 through 1962, indicating the successful result of the translation of the complete text of the Sahidic Coptic Gos. Thom. in 1959. In particular, 103 studies were counted in the year following the first English translation (1960), showing the extreme speed at which the Thomas text spread among scholars of the world. The text began to diminish in popularity from about 1963. However, the declining passion of Thomas scholars, which continued through the first half of the 1970s, was restored with the publication and renewal of The Nag Hammadi Library in English, from 1977 to 1996. Interest in Thomas has increased continuously since then, as the literary independence of the Thomas texts from the canonical Gospels became the dominant view, and as readers adhering to this view adopted individual ideologies in their reading practices (1985–present). This historical stream of Thomasine scholarship can be divided into four developmental periods: the age of uncertainty (1897–1944), the age of identification (1945–76), the age of popularization for modern readers (1977–93), and the age of ideological readings (1994–present).

David William Kim, The Words of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas
The Genesis of a Wisdom Tradition
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Re: a new Gospel of Thomas book excerpt

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Some major concerns regarding the "provenance" of the author

Several Christian texts certify the continuation of the verbal traditions as well as their effects in the world of written tradition.10 For instance, the scene in Matthew in which the soldiers deny the story of the Resurrection of Jesus clearly depicts a well-known oral tradition circulating in the Jewishdominated milieu of the Matthaean community: “this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day” (Mt 28:15b).


Apropos Thomas, the Gospel phrase “with many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them (disciples), as much as they could understand. … When he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything (again)” (Mk 4:33–4), also implies that with Thomas’ more intimate attendance, when the private instruction was given after the public discourse, he was engaged in the process of hearing and remembering the words of his master.

The Brits would say "I couldn't possibly comment"

On the other hand, Kim doesn't get distracted:

If we were to consider Thomas as a literary figure (an “evangelist,” let us say), we would be confronted immediately by indicators of the author’s relationship to orality, since the Thomasine Logiographer, or the recorder of Jesus’ Logia, does not engage with other texts as the canonical Gospel writers do: “as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet” (Lk 3:4); “for so it is written by the prophet” (Mt 2:5); “as it is written in Isaiah the prophet” (Mk 1:1); “for these things took place that the writing might be fulfilled” (Jn 19:36). Moreover, the Logiographer does not report or portray Jesus speaking in reference to texts, as the other Gospel authors do: “what is written in the law? How do you read?” (Lk 10:26); “this is he of whom it is written” (Mt 11:10); “have you ever read what David did” (Mk 2:25); “it is written in the prophets and they shall all be taught by God” (Jn 6:45). This striking difference seems to place the Gospel of Thomas closer to the oral milieu and its expectations than other Gospels.

Well, I'll see where this goes
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Re: a new Gospel of Thomas book excerpt

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Other examples similarly illustrate the simplicity that reflects the “primitivism” of the Thomas text relative to parallels in the canonical Gospels. The textual composition of the Sower parable (Logion 9) in comparison with Mk 4:3–8 provides an instance of this phenomenon (Table 1.1). Although this saying is assumed to contain elements of the style of the final editor in such phrasing as “having” (Logion 41)34 and “reaper” (Logion 21),35 the phrase ⲁϥⲙⲉϩⲧⲟⲟⲧϥ̄ (a), “(he) took a handful (of seeds),” which did not appear in Mark’s text (A), offers a form of oral triadic structure. At the same time, one cannot imagine that the phrase about the seeds falling on rock in the Thomas text (c) could have originated from Mark’s nicely descriptive phrase (C). It is implied by the structural analysis that the Thomas terms ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲁ, “rock,” and ϩⲙ̄ⲥ̄, “ears,” belong more to oral expression than do the Markan terms “rocky places” and “(seed’s) root.” If, on the one hand, the Markan image of the “scorching sun” is a secondary element, since the author of the text has included it in developing his personalized interpretation, the reference to the seed which “did not take root in the soil,” on the other hand, belongs to the original oral form preserved in Thomas. Dominic Crossan, regarding the image of “the rocky soil,” asserts that the phrase “where it did not have much soil” is Mark’s editorial style,36 reconfirming the principle that literary simplicity can be a significant factor in evaluating the text’s originality. Likewise, the clause in Thomas that reads ⲁϥⲉⲓ ⲛ̄ⲥⲉ ⲉⲥⲟⲧⲉ ⲁⲩⲱ ϣⲉϫⲟⲩⲱⲧ` ⲉⲥⲟⲧⲉ (f), “it bore sixty per measure and a hundred and twenty per measure,” described from a third-person perspective, is simpler and more logical for its readers than Mark’s “thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times” (F).

Kim doesn't know any Coptic whatsoever, given his use of the very free interpretations, and he even includes (of seeds) when the sower "fills his hands".
Kim is an academic for sure, as they say:

David W. Kim (PhD: Syd) is a Visiting Fellow at the School of History, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra and an Associate Professor of Asian History at the College of General Education, Kookmin University, Seoul. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), UK and the Editor for Book Series in Modern East Asian Religion and Culture (MEARAC). Kim’s publications include Daesoon Jinrihoe in Modern Korea: The Emergence, Transformation and Transmission of a New Religion (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020), New Religious Movements in Modern Asian History: Sociocultural Alternatives (Lexington, 2020), Colonial Transformation and Asian Religions in Modern History (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018), Religious Encounters in Transcultural Society: Collision, Alteration and Transmission (Lexington, 2017), Religious Transformation in Modern Asia: A Transnational Movement (Brill, 2015) and Intercultural Transmission in the Medieval Mediterranean (Continuum, 2012).

I am once again disappointed by the window dressing scholarship of authors using and citing Coptic without having a clue of what it says. It should become mandatory to have an introduction where it says why you do what you do - where is the value in citing the MS when you don't know what it says?

ⲁϥⲙⲉϩⲧⲟⲟⲧϥ̄ (a), “(he) took a handful (of seeds),” is another example: ⲁ ϥ ⲙⲉϩ ⲧⲟⲟⲧ ϥ̄, did he fill hand his

Why is (he) between parentheses, identical to (of seeds), when the former is perfectly present while the latter most certainly is not, and obviously was intended to not be present either?

I'm feeling like I'm on the slippery slopes of Miss April here. I'll try to shut up for a while.
I am greatly disappointed
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Re: a new Gospel of Thomas book excerpt

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Such phrases of Thomas show that the community leaders, through the social rules, attempted to direct and manage the process by which new proselytes from within Jewish society crossed the boundary into the Jesus community. The following, from Jesus Logion 47, indirectly expresses the internal and external trouble experienced by a person undergoing the process: It is impossible for a man to mount two horses or to stretch two bows. And it is impossible for a servant to serve two masters; otherwise he will honor the one and treat the other contemptuously. No man drinks old wine and immediately desires to drink new wine. And new wine is not put into old wineskins, lest they burst; nor is old wine put into a new wineskin, lest it spoil it. An old patch is not sewn into a new garment, because a tear would result. The man mounting two horses or stretching two bows is comparable with the servant serving two masters. This Logion of Jesus, according to Quispel, is proven not to be dependent on Q. The literary uniqueness, moreover, is well argued by Koester, for “the version … completely stays within the limits of natural expansion of a popular proverb.”302 So the notion that “this proverb would have had (circulation) before it was incorporated into Q”303 supports the idea that it entered the Thomas collection independently of Q as well as the Synoptics. The thoughts on the wine drinker and new wine are also connected with the proverb of an old patch. In this regard, the motivation for change, for life in the new society,304 is in accordance with the socio-ethical rules of the Thomasine movement, and this remains the case even if and when we wish to follow Grant and Freedman in their assumption that Thomas, accepting the sense that “an old patch is not sewn into a new garment,” applies the story of the new patch and the old garment from the synoptic texts.305 Such a demonstration of incongruity could carry powerful meaning for new proselytes, who might still be wavering between the new religious life and the old one.306

I'm done. I spend hundreds of euros a year this way, easily over a thousand. I encounter material from all Thomas camps, but as a rule it is always extremely superficial, highly interpretative, devoid of any and all arguments, and in essence impossible to refute because they lack foundation. A one-line review mostly serves best: "Absolutely content-free"

I'll be looking for the gems, and report back either when I find those or when I finish the book
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Re: a new Gospel of Thomas book excerpt

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This third section concerns the parables of Gos. Thom. already known from the synoptics, as a cluster of Logia traditions that might lead one to infer that the gospel is a post-synoptic collection of Jesus traditions. These nine parables, however, actually contain indications that they emerged from a different stream, or at least have a color distinct from the canonical forms.124 To consider the relevant materials, the known parable tradition can be subjectively grouped into “the three seed parables” (Logia 9, 20, and 57), “the anguish of the three rich men” (63–5), and “the three factors of happiness and sadness” (76, 96, and 107), but there is no certain evidence for compositional unity or original clustering behind these groupings. As individual parables, though, and in terms of the pre-canonical tradition, we will find them again interconnected through the Jewish sophia tradition.

9 parables?! How easy it is to find what you're looking for, isn't it.
Rubbish, all of it. Davies gets cited, DeConick gets cited very frequently. I'm sure that Neil will commend this book for its scholarship, with easily over a thousand footnotes

Cuz that's what counts, innit?
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Kim used Grondin (and bad eyesight)

Post by mlinssen »


Whether intentionally or as a mistake, the sowing activity of the sower is performed in four different places: ⲉϫⲛ̄ ⲧⲉϩⲓⲏ`, “on the road,” ⲉϫⲛ̄ ⲧⲡⲉⲧⲣⲁ, “on rock,” ⲉϫⲛ̄ ⲛ̄ϣⲟ̄(ⲛ), “on thorns,” and ⲉϫⲛ̄ ⲡⲕⲁϩ ⲉⲧⲛⲁⲛⲟⲩϥ`, “on the good soil.” The result is metaphorically demonstrated for each reason (environment) or for each attacker (birds, hot sun, thorns, or worms). The sowing initially looks progressively more successful, but the only actual success is in the last case, of the seed on ⲡⲕⲁϩ ⲉⲧⲛⲁⲛⲟⲩϥ⳿, “the good soil.”

The hot sun is in the canonicals, David...
And the birds don't do any attacking at all whatsoever in Thomas, that's their entire point, they lead to utter inaction.
And the word for "thorns" is ϣⲟⲛⲧⲉ, deary, not ϣⲟ(ⲛ). Did you even use a Coptic Dictionary? Or was it Grondin that formed your foundation ROFL

Yup

https://gospel-thomas.net/gtbypage_112702.pdf

Check out 34:09 / 062, last word. If you read really half-heartedly you'll assume it says thornS, whereas the remainder of the word is in the next line.
Can't blame Grondin for this one, all honours go to Kim

I might be wrong, and there could be another reason for Kim so pathetically proving his utter lack of Coptic knowledge. But this is exactly the level of Thomasine research and academics, save scant exceptions: pretending to impart expert (or intimate) knowledge onto the reader by using the literal Coptic from the MS, without having a clue what it says

Trash
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Re: a new Gospel of Thomas book excerpt

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One last

Logion 64,167 the longest saying of Jesus in Gos. Thom., is about a banquet, but it does not tell us the reason for the party. It is merely written that an unknown rich man has prepared a special supper and invited his prechosen guests, only to be told, “Those whom you invited to the dinner have asked to be excused.” The first person whom the servant invites is a businessman dealing with merchants. The second is a home-oriented person, and the third man is helping with the wedding banquet of his friend. The last man has bought a farm and needs to collect the rent. The parable has these four different people all reject the invitation to the banquet. In its conclusion, the parable shows how unexpected people have the good fortune to attend the dinner party of the rich man, with the master allowing his servant to invite ⲛⲉⲧⲕⲛⲁϩⲉ ⲉⲣⲟⲟⲩ ⲉⲛⲓⲟⲩ, “those whom you happen to meet.”

- unknown rich man? The Coptic says ⲟⲩ ⲣⲱⲙⲉ, "a man".
- special supper? The Coptic says ⲇⲓⲡⲛⲟⲛ, "dinner".
- prechosen guests? The Coptic says ϣⲙ̄ⲙⲟ, "strangers" (the noun is singular but its definite article is plural)
- businessman dealing with merchants? http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... Aentry%3De is the Greek word, and it is all about travelling, journey. They are Travellers, as we all are, but let's not get into that shall we
- home-oriented person? The guy bought a house, the proverbial one of course, but how does that make him "home-oriented"?
- bought a farm? The Coptic says ⲕⲱⲙⲏ, a "village". Farm is the secondary meaning in Coptic, in Greek it's the primary, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... %3Dkw%2Fmh
- to collect the rent? The Coptic says ϣⲱⲙ, "taxes", an awkward homonym meaning 'summer' as well. But naturally, you can't collect tax from a farm, so you just have the text say what you want it to say, why not?
- ⲛⲉⲧⲕⲛⲁϩⲉ ⲉⲣⲟⲟⲩ ⲉⲛⲓⲟⲩ, “those whom you happen to meet.”
Really? ⲛⲉⲧ ⲕ ⲛⲁ ϩⲉ ⲉⲣⲟ ⲟⲩ ⲉⲛⲓ ⲟⲩ - they-who you will fall upon them bring them

The scholarly echo chamber will be much pleased with this book, I presume. It is equally as superficial, incredibly inaccurate and wholly unsubstantiated as Miss April's. On par with the Queen of Thomasine research, what more do you want?

Disgusting
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