schillingklaus wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 2:45 am
With the "I am" Jesus betrays that he is a theophany of the Jewish god, who used this self-designation when appearing to Moses in the flaming bush.
This is more obvious in the Gospel according to Thomas, where Thomas, afraid of being convicted for blasphemy, refuses to pronounce what he thinks about Jesus's identity.
That is one interpretation, and a shallow one at that as it is explicitly stated that IS reveals 3 words to him, and Thomas' "buddies" inquire after what was said - upon which:
Thomas said to them: if I should say to you one in the words he has said to me, you will carry stone and you cast to me, and a fire comes from the stones, and she* burns you.
So it's not what Thomas thinks of his identity, all this is about is only repeating the 3 words - and Thomas merely hints at them this way via telling that him committing blasphemy in any of them would elicit the throwing of stones, which is a non sequitur of course.
The three words will remain a riddle but even if they had been written down in the text, their interpretation would have to be found, and perhaps this is all just one great joke by Thomas to verify whether or not the reader, presumably now in the role of Seeker, is not still after heaven (or Sea) or a Great Fish Good - it really doesn't matter what IS allegedly has said to Thomas, the Disciples would envy and dislike him for being singled out in the first place.
And perhaps that is why Thomas tells the Disciples exactly that what he does: no matter which word(s) he would tell them, they would take offense at it because he has been favoured by I(H)S while the others have been either ignored or told off - and all they need to compensate for their hurt pride, their jealousy, is some justification for what they already have in mind.
And anything will do, really - and Thomas (the author) doesn't sarcastically refer to them as "comrades" for nothing.
Hence the hidden reference to their hurt pride via ⲕⲱϩ, 'envy, zeal' and the crooked construction of "burn", ⲣⲱϩⲕ, a word unattested by any dictionary. The next play to that is the feminine reference to what will burn them, which can only point to the boiling Fountain
And naturally, the IS of Thomas pisses down the throat of any god, especially the Judaic one - that, on a side note