A question for mlinssen about Thomas

[Giuseppe]

Your memory is incorrect. IS never is called anything in Thomas.

logion 27 is sufficient to make my point: it talks about the Father in opposition to Abbas (in "Shabbat"). Accordingly, Jesus (or IS) is the Son of Father.

As to crucifixion, the impalement is one instance of it.

[mlinssen]

Your memory is incorrect. IS never is called anything in Thomas.

logion 27 is sufficient to make my point: it talks about the Father in opposition to Abbas (in "Shabbat"). Accordingly, Jesus (or IS) is the Son of Father.

That is an entirely unsubstantiated opinion, Giuseppe, and you know it

But I'll leave you to it

[Giuseppe]

The expression "Son of Father" is equivalent to say that the Son is one and the same with the Father.

For example, the fish is a Christian symbol because Joshua ben Nun (=="Fish") means that Joshua is the Nun.

[Leucius Charinus]

But I have questions.

For example:

How are the Gospel of Thomas and the Synoptic Gospels related?

Are there just these three options, and can any be precluded?

1) Thomas draws from the Synoptics
2) The Synoptics draw from Thomas
3) Thomas and the Synoptics draw from a common source
4) or is there some other?

You keep throwing out general findings by general people, Pete.

I don't see a problem in asking questions when confronted by studies in what to me is unfamiliar territory --- such as a study of how Thomas and the synoptics are related. I don't see a problem in walking around the perimeter / boundary of the issue, which was what my question was about.

You ask around for things you can easily find out yourself, and also form an opinion on yourself. But doing so would advance and progress that, narrow down options, and lead to answers that are quantifiable.

So I am interested in other people's opinions on the issue, and the history of the scholarship. You may have been involved in this specific issue / study for years but many, like myself, have not examined the specific issue in any depth. It is true that I can form my own opinion but what use is my opinion if it is not informed? That takes time.

You're merely trolling, keeping people busy. You never have specific questions or answers, you keep dabbling in generalities and mediocrities

I don't think that it is true that I never have specific questions or answers. In the beginning of any study I find it advantageous to canvass the generalities in order to define the boundaries.

You are not interested in any answers, Pete.

That's also not true. But the answers also need to be weighed in a balance in which the specific details of the answer(s) are weighed against the big and general picture of all the answers related to all the evidence.

You want to avoid any outcome of any theory so that your own - rather pathetic and unsubstantiated - can appear to survive

I take this comment to be in relation to the theory / proposition that all the NT apocryphal corpus (including Thomas and the NHL) are a Post Nicene literary "avalanche" reaction to the sudden and unexpected appearance of Constantine's (canonical) Bible (including the LXX). And that Christian heresiology (in the Ante Nicene epoch) has been fabricated by the church industry in order to obscure the appearance of the NTA during the rule of Constantine.

Any and all proposed theories will either be refuted by, or survive by, an interpretation of the evidence. I am happy to get into the evidence underpinning each of these three options outlined in my question at the top of this post. But as a preliminary exercise I have sought to find a recent history of the scholarship on the relationship between Thomas and the synoptics.

The following is from your recommended reading:
The Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas
Detlev Koepke (2021)
https://www.academia.edu/42043037/The_J ... lev_Koepke

Chapter 13: Christian scholarship on the Gospel of Thomas (pp. 205 - 211)

One may sketch six stages of scholarly attitudes toward Thomas as follows:


Summary:

Stage 1: Thomas is a late Gnostic distortion of the New Testament, it has no right to be called a gospel and anything in it that is not in the New Testament is not authentic.

Stage 2: Thomas is a late Gnostic re-editing of New Testament sayings and represents no significant addition to the New Testament.

Stage 3: Thomas is a Gnostic compilation mostly based on the New Testament, possibly with some valuable independent or authentic material, edited in two stages.

Stage 4: No general conclusion can be reached on independence or dependence and each saying must be evaluated on its own merits.

Stage 5: Thomas is a non-Gnostic collective work in several stages based on several independent written and/or oral sources predating the New Testament.

Stage 6: Thomas is the original source of Jesus' sayings and was used by the New Testament.

I take it that your position is expressed here as a "Stage 7" - that is to say a step beyond Stage 6 where there is not necessarily an historical Jesus or any NT canonical writings in the 1st century. (Is this the case?)

Detail as follows:

Chapter 13:
Christian scholarship on the Gospel of Thomas
(pp. 205 - 211)

One may sketch six stages of scholarly attitudes toward Thomas as follows:

Stage 1:

Thomas is a late Gnostic distortion of the New Testament, it has no right to be called a gospel and anything in it that is not in the New Testament is not authentic. This first stage is particularly represented by the initial reaction by a number of Christian scholars who reacted with great defensiveness and hostility when the Gospel of Thomas was first discovered and discussed in the press. What they especially resented was the talk in the press about it being a "fifth gospel" which threw the credibility of the New Testament into question. Some choice epithets were uttered against it: "a false Gnostic teaching" that "still wreaks havoc" (Reichelt 14) and "a late, secondary and mostly falsifying anthology from earlier witnesses" whose "importance must be denied" (Thieme 309).

Grant said in 1960: "What we find in Thomas is...a warping of the lines laid down in our gospels...Most conspicuously, the warping takes place in the author's rejection of the meaningfulness of historical events. Just the fact that his gospel...consists of nothing but sayings means that he has substituted a kind of spiritual understanding for the gospel of Jesus...He has made the kingdom almost exclusively present...The Church insisted on the reality of Jesus as both human and divine... This grasp of reality is precisely what is lacking in the Gospel of Thomas...We have an inadequate and distorted presentation of Christianity. The religious realities which the Church proclaimed were ultimately perverted by the Gospel of Thomas" (Grant 111-113).

Stage 2:

Thomas is a late Gnostic re-editing of New Testament sayings and represents no significant addition to the New Testament. Here scholars do not change their mind about the inauthenticity of Thomas but decide not to denigrate it so overtly and to adopt a more polite tone. Thomas is invariably called "Gnostic" which is essentially a more polite way of saying "heretical" and though it is conceded that there might be authentic material in it, this is considered unlikely and impossible to prove. The consensus is, as DeConick summarizes it, that Thomas "was written by a Gnostic author who revised Synoptic sayings of Jesus in order to convey an esoteric message to elite religionists": thus "the Gospel was dependent, late and essentially irrelevant to the study of Christian origins" (DeC GOT 2).

Tuckett said in 1998: "Nearly all would agree that in its present form the text of the Gospel of Thomas has been overlaid with sayings and ideas placed on Jesus' lips which are somewhat alien to those of the historical Jesus himself...The place of GTh is...in a context of other `gnostic' texts dating (probably) from the second century CE or later, and illustrating the ways in which Jesus traditions...were used by heterodox Christians to develop their own (at times rather strange) ideas" (Tuckett GOT 27, 32).

Stage 3:

Thomas is a Gnostic compilation mostly based on the New Testament, possibly with some valuable independent or authentic material, edited in two stages. In this third stage of acceptance scholars are willing to admit that there is a small amount of authentic material in Thomas along with direct use of the New Testament, but that later Gnostic editors folded that material into their tendentious point of view. As Stead said in 1959: "There is, of course, no question here of a `fifth gospel'. It is in fact an anthology, of rather varying import and value, collected by a not very critical compiler... Nevertheless, we find in Thomas a score of sayings and parables which have the stamp of authenticity...It may well be that in a few similar parables and sayings...we have a precious addition to our store of information about our Master's teaching" (Stead New 325, 327).

And Charlesworth in 1994: "Many scholars today are convinced that the Gospel of Thomas contains primitive, pre-synoptic tradition. This may very well be true, but there are numerous difficulties that attend efforts to cull from this collection of sayings material that can with confidence be judged primitive, independent of the intra-canonical gospels, and even authentic... Thomas could very well be a collage of New Testament and apocryphal materials which have been interpreted, often allegorically, in such a way as to advance 2nd and 3rd century gnostic ideas" (Charlesworth agrapha 496-497).

Stage 4:

No general conclusion can be reached on independence or dependence and each saying must be evaluated on its own merits. Since many scholars do not want to stick their necks out by claiming Thomas to be authentic and independent (and they see what happened to Quispel), a popular approach is to take a completely non-committal view that each saying should be evaluated separately and no general statements can be made whether Thomas as a whole is dependent or independent.

As Robinson said in 1999: "Any one-sided claim that the Gospel of Thomas was, or was not, dependent on the canonical Gospels has come to seem doctrinaire...Each saying must be approached with an open mind, for the pre-history of each saying must be inductively worked out, to the extent possible, one by one, from the text itself" (Robinson Pretext 152-154).

Or as Uro said in 2003: "Most of those who have taken a stand in recent years have formulated their views rather carefully and avoided exclusive conclusions. It has almost become a commonplace to emphasize that each saying or unit must be examined individually and, therefore, dependence in one case does not exclude independence in the other or vice versa" (Uro Thomas 106).

Stage 5:

Thomas is a non-Gnostic collective work in several stages based on several independent written and/or oral sources predating the New Testament. At the fifth stage of acceptance scholars finally get away from the dreaded "Gnostic" label and realize, as even those clinging to the label admit, that there isn't much that is terribly "Gnostic" about the Gospel of Thomas; as Grobel says: "If Thomas is really Gnostic, it is passing strange that it contains no hint of the exuberant mythology of the second century. There are no aeons, no emanation, no celestial marriages, no Demiurge, no Sophia, no divided Father, no divided Jesus, no polemic against the Old Testament" (Grobel 368). Just because Thomas was found in a collection containing "Gnostic" documents doesn't make it Gnostic.

Helmut Koester is responsible for the widespread acceptance today of the idea that behind Thomas is an independent tradition, despite initial criticism when he first proposed it in 1971: "The relationship of these proverbial sayings to their synoptic parallels is most peculiar. To the extent that they represent sayings which Matthew and Luke drew from Q, their synoptic parallels are usually found either in the `Sermon on the Mount' (Matt 5-7) or the `Sermon on the Plain' (Luke 6)...Since no peculiarities of the editorial work of Mark, Matthew or Luke are recognizable in these proverbial sayings of Thomas, there is no reason to assume they were drawn from the synoptic gospels. Rather, Thomas' source must have been a very primitive collection of proverbs, a collection which was incorporated into Matthew's and Luke's common source Q" (Koester traj 181-182).

Still, even the most liberal scholar is not willing to call Thomas authentic; as Patterson said in 2005: "Few (scholars) now are convinced that Thomas will yield up a significant number of new sayings to be added to the corpus of the authentic Jesus tradition. Even the Jesus Seminar, in which a majority of Fellows clearly regarded Thomas as basically an independent tradition, did not ascribe any new sayings from Thomas unequivocally to Jesus.

But just about everyone agrees that the possibility that Thomas, in individual cases, might preserve an independent version of a saying already known from the synoptic tradition necessitates that one always cast an eye to Thomas when working at cases of tradition history" (Patterson GoT+HistJes 669).

Christian scholars have made some progress over the last 50 years. They started by denying Thomas any sort of authenticity, then grudgingly accepted a few sayings as authentic, then postulated an independent source that Thomas used along with the New Testament and then ended up accepting that all of Thomas comes from an independent source that was also used by Q (Quelle), the source of the Synoptics. But the problem with this hypothesis is that not a single fragment of this hypothetical independent source behind Thomas and Q, nor a fragment of Q itself, has ever been found anywhere, although archeologists have by now thoroughly scoured the most promising places. One would think that the owners of the Nag Hammadi Library who were very keen on saving the important spiritual documents of the time and clearly had high respect for Jesus would have been sure to include that original authentic document of Jesus. But it is not there.

Stage 6:

Thomas is the original source of Jesus' sayings and was used by the New Testament. The very last stage is one that few scholars have yet taken yet it follows directly from the problem stated above: no written source for either the New Testament or the Gospel of Thomas has ever been found, not even in fragments. The idea that Thomas is the original source was proposed by Philippe de Suarez in 1974, but among highly respected scholars today it is in particular Stevan Davies who has taken this last and most logical step.

In his book Suarez says that the effect of the publication of the Nag Hammadi Library was “to put the Gospel of Thomas on the same footing as the other less important manuscripts which accompany it. The name `apocryphal’ which was given to this gospel renders it suspect...Indeed, in order to reconstitute the prehistory of the traditional gospels one must have recourse not to the gospels we know but the more ancient ones which constituted their sources, because the editors of the gospels made their own choice from the material which circulated in diverse forms...Is the collection of sayings which constitutes the Gospel of Thomas the source even of the four gospels?...It is likely...that the editors of the Synoptics and John left out the sayings of Jesus that were too difficult to understand. As for the rest, the Gnostic coloration that so many commentators have wanted to see in the Gospel of Thomas does not explain the archaic character of the sayings in comparison with the Synoptics” (Suarez xi-xii, xiv).

Suarez did make a few sensational statements in the French press when his book came out, according to Laurentin: “The Gospel of Thomas is the oldest of the gospels...It alone contains the authentic sayings of Jesus. It alone knows his true face. The Church has deliberately eliminated this fundamental text...Twenty centuries of history have been deceived about the person Jesus. Here is the public undeceived. This stupendous discovery could well constitute one of the greatest events since the origin of humanity” (Laurentin 733).

He elaborated further to Paris Match that the four Church gospels relied on the Gospel of Thomas as their main source to assemble “flashes” of Jesus to create their own collage. And when they were done, the original source, Thomas, was declared heretical because it put too much emphasis on the internal search and could not be fitted into the dogmas of the Church (Serrou 58-59).

But without some of the hype and exaggeration, Stevan Davies essentially takes a similar view. In contrast to most scholars who see Thomas as being put together in several stages of editing, Davies points out that “overall Thomas shows fewer signs of editorial modification than any of the New Testament gospels” and thus “may be our best source of Jesus’ teachings” (Davies Thomas 14, 9). In 1983, in his influential book The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom, Davies concluded: “What then is the Gospel of Thomas? It is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus, some authentic and some not. Its background is that of Jewish Wisdom speculation. It is wholly independent of the New Testament gospels; most probably it was in existence before they were written. It should be dated A.D. 50-70.” (Davies GoTCW 146).

In 1992 Davies announced: “A consensus is emerging in American scholarship that the Gospel of Thomas is a text independent of the Synoptics and that it was compiled in the mid to late first century. It appears to be roughly as valuable a primary source for the teachings of Jesus as Q, and perhaps more so than the Gospels of Mark and John...The Gospel of Thomas should be viewed as a text deriving its special ideas in the main from the wisdom tradition... a text of christianized Hellenistic Judaism, sharing with such authors as Philo and Aristobulus various principal approaches...The Gospel of Thomas is to Christian Hellenistic Judaism what Q is to Christian apocalyptic Judaism” (Davies Christ 663-664, 682).

And in 1996 and 1997 in two painstaking articles in Neotestamentica Davies went further and pointed out the direct use by Mark of Thomas: “Significantly, almost every saying in Mark’s chapter 4 is from the Gospel of Thomas, as is virtually every single saying in Mark’s Gospel that is called a parable there...If Thomas was available to Mark, then Thomas (or traditions contained within or deriving from Thomas) may have been available to the two authors who revised Mark: Matthew and Luke...The preponderance of evidence indicates that the Gospel of Thomas served as a source for the Gospel of Mark” (Davies GoT 118, Mark II 260-261). As Davies summarizes: “The Gospel of Thomas was buried away for 1600 years and has been wished away for another 30. It should now be taken very seriously. Not only is it a fourth synoptic gospel - it is a Q too” (Davies Thomas fourth 14)

[mlinssen]

So I am interested in other people's opinions on the issue, and the history of the scholarship. You may have been involved in this specific issue / study for years but many, like myself, have not examined the specific issue in any depth. It is true that I can form my own opinion but what use is my opinion if it is not informed? That takes time

It would appear that your have excellent qualifications for the definition of religiot: you prefer someone else's opinion over your own even though you have the majority of his info readily available to yourself

Good news for you though Pete: I have written down my opinion and it's available in more than 3,000 pages on academia.edu, for free.
But I also have condensed and concise versions available, for instance out here - so it will take you only an hour to get an answer to your question in this regard:

search.php?keywords=Peculiar+case&terms ... y&sr=posts

[Charles Wilson]

The expression "Son of Father" is equivalent to say that the Son is one and the same with the Father.

That is simply not true and we have a NT example to prove it:

Josephus, Antiquities..., 18, 2, 4:

"About this time died Phraates, king of the Parthians, by the treachery of Phraataces his son, upon the occasion following: When Phraates had had legitimate sons of his own, he had also an Italian maid-servant, whose name was Thermusa, who had been formerly sent to him by Julius Caesar, among other presents. He first made her his concubine; but he being a great admirer of her beauty, in process of time having a son by her, whose name was Phraataces, he made her his legitimate wife, and had a great respect for her. Now she was able to persuade him to do any thing that she said, and was earnest in procuring the government of Parthia for her son; but still she saw that her endeavors would not succeed, unless she could contrive how to remove Phraates's legitimate sons [out of the kingdom;] so she persuaded him to send those his sons as pledges of his fidelity to Rome; and they were sent to Rome accordingly, because it was not easy for him to contradict her commands. Now while Phraataces was alone brought up in order to succeed in the government, he thought it very tedious to expect that government by his father's donation [as his successor]; he therefore formed a treacherous design against his father, by his mother's assistance, with whom, as the report went, he had criminal conversation also. So he was hated for both these vices, while his subjects esteemed this [wicked] love of his mother to be no way inferior to his parricide; and he was by them, in a sedition, expelled out of the country before he grew too great, and died. But as the best sort of Parthians agreed together that it was impossible they should be governed without a king, while also it was their constant practice to choose one of the family of Arsaces, [nor did their law allow of any others; and they thought this kingdom had been sufficiently injured already by the marriage with an Italian concubine, and by her issue,] they sent ambassadors, and called Orodes [to take the crown]; for the multitude would not otherwise have borne them; and though he was accused of very great cruelty, and was of an untractable temper, and prone to wrath, yet still he was one of the family of Arsaces. However, they made a conspiracy against him, and slew him, and that, as some say, at a festival, and among their sacrifices; (for it is the universal custom there to carry their swords with them;) but, as the more general report is, they slew him when they had drawn him out a hunting. So they sent ambassadors to Rome, and desired they would send one of those that were there as pledges to be their king. Accordingly, Vonones was preferred before the rest, and sent to them (for he seemed capable of such great fortune, which two of the greatest kingdoms under the sun now offered him, his own and a foreign one). However, the barbarians soon changed their minds, they being naturally of a mutable disposition, upon the supposal that this man was not worthy to be their governor; for they could not think of obeying the commands of one that had been a slave, (for so they called those that had been hostages,) nor could they bear the ignominy of that name; and this was the more intolerable, because then the Parthians must have such a king set over them, not by right of war, but in time of peace. So they presently invited Artabanus, king of Media, to be their king, he being also of the race of Arsaces. Artabanus complied with the offer that was made him, and came to them with an army. So Vonones met him; and at first the multitude of the Parthians stood on this side, and he put his army in array; but Artabanus was beaten, and fled to the mountains of Media. Yet did he a little after gather a great army together, and fought with Vonones, and beat him; whereupon Vonones fled away on horseback, with a few of his attendants about him, to Seleucia [upon Tigris]. So when Artabanus had slain a great number, and this after he had gotten the victory by reason of the very great dismay the barbarians were in, he retired to Ctesiphon with a great number of his people; and so he now reigned over the Parthians. But Vonones fled away to Armenia; and as soon as he came thither, he had an inclination to have the government of the country given him, and sent ambassadors to Rome [for that purpose]. But because Tiberius refused it him, and because he wanted courage, and because the Parthian king threatened him, and sent ambassadors to him to denounce war against him if he proceeded, and because he had no way to take to regain any other kingdom, (for the people of authority among the Armenians about Niphates joined themselves to Artabanus,) he delivered up himself to Silanus, the president of Syria, who, out of regard to his education at Rome, kept him in Syria, while Artabanus gave Armenia to Orodes, one of his own sons..."

SOOO: "Do I release 'Jesus-Son-of-the-Father' or 'Jesus'?" One certainly doesn't have a Son who was not considered "the same" as the Father here.

CW

[Leucius Charinus]

So I am interested in other people's opinions on the issue, and the history of the scholarship. You may have been involved in this specific issue / study for years but many, like myself, have not examined the specific issue in any depth. It is true that I can form my own opinion but what use is my opinion if it is not informed? That takes time

It would appear that your have excellent qualifications for the definition of religiot: you prefer someone else's opinion over your own ...

Where did I ever indicate preference in any of the above review of other peoples' opinions on the relationship between Thomas and the NT? I have my own views and opinions on Thomas. That is why I entered this thread with the three Delphic maxims.

Thomas would know all about the first: "Know thyself".
The second: "Nothing to excess"
The third : "Certainty brings insanity".

Good news for you though Pete: I have written down my opinion and it's available in more than 3,000 pages on academia.edu, for free.

I too leave my notes and essays on the door of the internet. As yet I have no written opinion on where the Gospel of Thomas fits into the history of Christian origins. But I can work on one.

But I also have condensed and concise versions available, for instance out here - so it will take you only an hour to get an answer to your question in this regard:

search.php?keywords=Peculiar+case&terms ... y&sr=posts

I've already looked through these threads. And read most of your stuff. Your provisional conclusion is in some alignment with Koepke's Stage (6) - Thomas is the original source of Jesus' sayings and was used by the New Testament. Maybe a Stage (7) where Marcion get's involved. At the moment I don't see it that way. I see Thomas drawing from the NT.


My (provisional) opinion on Thomas

I see Thomas as a master of literary synthesis, a collator of synoptic phrases, infusing his literary creation with a deeper spiritual wisdom than that found in the synoptic sources. Thomas is dependent on the synoptics (IMO) because he has data-mined them and then re-assembled his data-mined material into a more primitive and elegant form.

Thomas did not go down the path of a narrative like most of the other (heretical) authors of the NT Apocryphal texts. Thomas went for the jugular and invented a list of the sayings of the Jesus figure whom he found wandering about the canonical writings. These sayings prepared by Thomas obviously had the semblance of close corroboration with the One True (canonical) Jesus Story Book. It was a very dangerous invention. The church didn't like it one iota.


Chronology of Thomas

Thomas' Greek papyrii from Oxyrhynchus are dated before the 4th century by means of paleography in isolation. "Certainty brings insanity". I therefore tend to regard Thomas being written in response the Imperial Edition of the Jesus Story Book c.325 CE. Thomas was a non dual philosopher and a political dissident. Thomas' use of "monachos" fits the rise of large scale monasticism in the 4th century. This monasticism looks like a mass movement and IMO most likely reflects Constantine's prohibition of pagan temple "business". An entire sector of pagan priests and educated elite found themselves redundant almost overnight. Major cities were abandoned. Settlements 400 miles up the Nile flourished. Hellenistic diaspora. The author (and preservers) of Thomas were on WANTED posters.

[mlinssen]

My (provisional) opinion on Thomas

I see Thomas as a master of literary synthesis, a collator of synoptic phrases, infusing his literary creation with a deeper spiritual wisdom than that found in the synoptic sources. Thomas is dependent on the synoptics (IMO) because he has data-mined them and then re-assembled his data-mined material into a more primitive and elegant form.

Thomas did not go down the path of a narrative like most of the other (heretical) authors of the NT Apocryphal texts. Thomas went for the jugular and invented a list of the sayings of the Jesus figure whom he found wandering about the canonical writings. These sayings prepared by Thomas obviously had the semblance of close corroboration with the One True (canonical) Jesus Story Book. It was a very dangerous invention. The church didn't like it one iota.

Again, Pete, as always and always - you utterly fail at presenting anything else or more than a flimsy unsubstantiated opinion.
Motivate your pathetically shallow statement please, and why don't you use the posts I suggested to demonstrate your point?
Just take one then, at the danger of overloading yourself: one single logion of Thomas, 1 out of 115 - just one. Try to make a case just based on just one logion; do you think you can manage that?
Do you feel courageous enough to actually motivate, with arguments based on objective text, your opinion?
That would be the day!

[Leucius Charinus]

Just take one then, at the danger of overloading yourself: one single logion of Thomas, 1 out of 115 - just one. Try to make a case just based on just one logion; do you think you can manage that?

THOMAS SAYING 76

LAYTON (76) - Jesus said, "What the kingdom of the father resembles is a merchant who owned some merchandise, and then learned about the existence of a certain pearl. That merchant was shrewd, sold the merchandise, and bought the single pearl. You (plur.), too, seek the ceaseless and enduring treasure, where moth does not approach to eat nor worm to destroy."

LINSSEN (76) - Said IS : the(F) reign-of(F) king of the father she likens to a human trader has he therein a Consignment did he fall to a Pearl the trader who therein a wise-person is/are did he give-away his Consignment did he buy to him that-one Pearl alone yourselves likewise you seek-after his treasure not-usually he perish in-case he continuing outward the place not-usually moth make-to-approach inward to the-place-there to eat Nor not-usually he worm destroy


RELATED SYNOPTIC REFS:

Matthew 13:45-46:

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it."

Matthew 6:19-21 (and Luke 12:33-34):

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."


TWO THEORIES:

1) Are the Synoptics "split" from Thomas or
2) does Thomas "synthesize" the Synoptics?


1) Synoptics "split" from Thomas.

For example Koepke (p.150) "Saying 76, which tells a very coherent story, is split up by Matthew into two different sayings, while Luke has only one part in abbreviated form." You write: "Assuming that the direction of dependence is from Matthew to Thomas, here is the story of that." viewtopic.php?p=119244#p119244


2) Thomas "synthesises" Synoptics.

For example Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: "This saying is a revised version of the parable of the pearl in Matthew 13:45-48. Since in Matthew the parable is preceded by the parable of the hidden treasure, Thomas adds a statement about treasure, derived from Matthew 6:20 (Luke 12:33). Matthew mentions moth and brosis, which means 'rust'; Thomas takes brosis very literally to mean 'eating,' and therefore adds a word about worms. The treasure is the inner man; what worms eat is the body." (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 177).


WHICH THEORY IS CERTAIN?

NONE IMO, since "Certainty brings insanity". So how do we tell the direction of dependence? I guess we have to argue about which has better explanatory power with respect to the evidence available. Not only with respect to Thomas and the synoptics but also with respect to the overall reconstruction of the history of Christian origins in general, and more specifically with respect to the history of the NHL and the NT apocrypha. Thomas does not stand in isolation inside the NHL.

Both theories are possible unless you have some compelling evidence to the contrary.

[mlinssen]

Just take one then, at the danger of overloading yourself: one single logion of Thomas, 1 out of 115 - just one. Try to make a case just based on just one logion; do you think you can manage that?

THOMAS SAYING 76

LAYTON (76) - Jesus said, "What the kingdom of the father resembles is a merchant who owned some merchandise, and then learned about the existence of a certain pearl. That merchant was shrewd, sold the merchandise, and bought the single pearl. You (plur.), too, seek the ceaseless and enduring treasure, where moth does not approach to eat nor worm to destroy."

LINSSEN (76) - Said IS : the(F) reign-of(F) king of the father she likens to a human trader has he therein a Consignment did he fall to a Pearl the trader who therein a wise-person is/are did he give-away his Consignment did he buy to him that-one Pearl alone yourselves likewise you seek-after his treasure not-usually he perish in-case he continuing outward the place not-usually moth make-to-approach inward to the-place-there to eat Nor not-usually he worm destroy


RELATED SYNOPTIC REFS:

Matthew 13:45-46:

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it."

Matthew 6:19-21 (and Luke 12:33-34):

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."


TWO THEORIES:

1) Are the Synoptics "split" from Thomas or
2) does Thomas "synthesize" the Synoptics?


1) Synoptics "split" from Thomas.

For example Koepke (p.150) "Saying 76, which tells a very coherent story, is split up by Matthew into two different sayings, while Luke has only one part in abbreviated form." You write: "Assuming that the direction of dependence is from Matthew to Thomas, here is the story of that." viewtopic.php?p=119244#p119244


2) Thomas "synthesises" Synoptics.

For example Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: "This saying is a revised version of the parable of the pearl in Matthew 13:45-48. Since in Matthew the parable is preceded by the parable of the hidden treasure, Thomas adds a statement about treasure, derived from Matthew 6:20 (Luke 12:33). Matthew mentions moth and brosis, which means 'rust'; Thomas takes brosis very literally to mean 'eating,' and therefore adds a word about worms. The treasure is the inner man; what worms eat is the body." (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 177).


WHICH THEORY IS CERTAIN?

NONE IMO, since "Certainty brings insanity". So how do we tell the direction of dependence? I guess we have to argue about which has better explanatory power with respect to the evidence available. Not only with respect to Thomas and the synoptics but also with respect to the overall reconstruction of the history of Christian origins in general, and more specifically with respect to the history of the NHL and the NT apocrypha. Thomas does not stand in isolation inside the NHL.

Both theories are possible unless you have some compelling evidence to the contrary.

Excellent start! Pity you don't have a motivated opinion yourself on it, but only give the opinion of others without even commenting on those - even though you seem to address that, yet with a scope that is gigantic and largely irrelevant for this case alone.
Grant and Freedman are biased idiots of course, but Koepke isn't - so it would seem that you have a reasonable summary of opinions. But what are your findings of their findings? G & F have nothing as their argumentation says nothing about any direction of dependence since they don't motivate why either party would use the word they use, nor do they comment on the great unlikelihood of Thomas composing a logion based on Matthew material 12 chapters away from one another - obviously, the reverse is much, much more likely

How about the possibility that Matthew 13:44, 45-46, 47-48 was the source to Thomas 109, 76 and 8?
How about the possibility that it is the reverse?