mlinssen wrote: ↑Sun Apr 24, 2022 10:38 am
You can keep throwing texts like these at me[/quote[
I think it is important. Thomas cannot have appeared in a vacuum. If it is indeed non-Christian than it must bear some relational aspect with other NON-CHRISTIAN texts in antiquity. The author must have lived sometime in the political history of antiquity.
... but why don't you read Thomas for yourself? Or am I so very biased when I say that it clearly has nothing to do with religion?
I have read your translation of Thomas and am happy to agree that it has nothing to do with religion (especially Christianity) and more to do with some kind of non-dual philosophy.
Have you read Ivan Miroshnikov's "THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS AND PLATO:
A STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF PLATONISM ON THE “FIFTH GOSPEL” ?
If so, setting aside the problems in translation, what are your impressions?
Note that the author believes that Thomas is related to Christianity. Setting this aside he also admits (Concluding remarks) that:
Thomas is neither a philosophical text nor a Platonist one. Unlike philosophical works, Thomas does not attempt to persuade its readers by means of an argumentative discourse. The majority of Thomasine sayings have nothing to do with Platonist philosophy. Thomas savored the delight of philosophy with the fingertip, which makes it quite understandable why the Platonist flavor of this text went almost unnoticed by scholars of Thomas. Yet even a gentle touch of philosophy makes a significant impact.
////
Having made this clarification, it is now appropriate to make an inventory of the Platonizing sayings in Thomas:
* Sayings 56 and 80 make use of the Platonist notions that the world is a body and that every human body is a corpse in order to express a view of the world that is essentially anti-Platonist: the world is nothing but a despicable corpse.
* The opposition of the body to the soul portrayed in sayings 29, 87, and 112 presupposes a stark dualism of the corporeal vs. the incorporeal and appears to be indebted to Platonist anthropology.
* The Thomasine notion of being/becoming Ŀʼnġ (sayings 11 and 106), ĿʼnġേĿʼnőŇ (saying 4, 22, and 23), and ĹĿĻġōĿŅ (sayings 16, 49, and 75) has the closest parallels within Platonist speculation about oneness as an attribute of a perfect human, a perfect society, and God.
* The expression őƙĩേĩŃġŇƑ in sayings 16, 18, 23, and 50 reflects the Platonist usage of the Greek verb ἵστημι as a technical term for describing the immovability of the transcendent realm.
* Thomas 61 appropriates the opposition of being equal (to oneself) vs. being divided from the Platonist metaphysics of divine immutability and indivisibility.
* The imagery of the lion and the man in saying 7 portrays the struggle between reason and anger and is derived from Plato’s allegory of the soul, reinterpreted from a Middle Platonist perspective.
* The notion of the image in sayings 22, 50, 83, and 84 should be interpreted against the background of the Middle Platonist metaphysics, where the Greek term εἰκών came to designate both the model (= παράδειγμα) and its imitation (= ὁμοίωμα).
As this inventory shows, there are at least nineteen Thomasine sayings (i.e. one-sixth of the entire collection) that were in some way influenced by the Platonist tradition. While this discovery is important, its significance has its limits.
Perhaps some of Thomas comes from Plato?
This does not solve the problem of where Thomas actually fits into the literature of antiquity. Do you have a solution to this problem?
I've read all of Miroshnikov, I've read them all, unfortunately.
They're all dumb, every single one of them - they see a word somewhere and then go off on a limb, never to return again.
Miroshnikov wrote
his thesis on Plato in Thomas:
https://www.academia.edu/28917659/The_G ... th_Gospel_
You will notice the absence of arguments in most works: there's something in Thomas, there's something in Plato, hence Thomas got it from Plato - that's the typical way in which biblical academic reasons, how "they make their case". Is Thomas either for or against Plato with anything what he says? If he agrees with Plato it's heavily emphasised, and if he doesn't then not so much so...
Miroshnikov is different, fortunately, and sums up why and why not, and how, Thomas does our doors not agree with Plato
But it's hits and misses, really:
That the word μοναχός has these three aspects is evident from the way it is used in the translations of Aquila, Symmachus, andTheodotion. First, it means “the one who is lonely.”This aspect of the term μοναχός is evident from its use in saying 16, where it designates the individuals who acquired aloneness through the dissolution of family ties. Moreover, I believe that the context in which the word is used in Gos. Thom. 75 reveals that it means “the one who is sexually abstinent.” Second, it means “the one who is unique,” “one of a kind,” which is quite in accord with the way the word is used by classical authors and in docu-mentary papyri.The fact that the word has this aspect of meaning explains why the Gospel of Thomas associates being a μοναχός with being chosen. Third, it means “the one who is a unity.”That the word is supposed to have such a mean-ing may be inferred from the fact that in sayings 16:4 and 23:2 the words ⲟⲩⲁ ⲟⲩⲱⲧ and ⲙⲟⲛⲁⲭⲟⲥ are used as if they were synonyms. Another argument in favor of this hypothesis is that those who are ⲟⲩⲁ ⲟⲩⲱⲧ and ⲙⲟⲛⲁⲭⲟⲥ are both called “chosen.” It is, therefore, tempting to understand the Thomasine term μοναχός as an equivalent to Philo’s μονάς and Clement’s μοναδικός.
How Plato is the word, really?
Platonists on Becoming One According to James Adam, the phrase εἷς ἐκ πολ λ ῶν “is a sort of Platonic motto or text.”39 Plato uses the expression twice in Respublica. In one of the passages (443d–e), Socrates discusses justice, pointing out that a just person is one who is able to make peace between the rational (τὸ λογιστικόν), the appetitive (τὸ ἐπιθυμητικόν), and the spirited (τὸ θυμοειδής) parts of the human soul:
Really, twice!
Surely Thomas got a lot from a lot, but what does it matter? No one exists in a void, we all get our ideas by judging and evaluating other ideas - and the we form our own, we apply all the different notions in our very own unique way
What is the relevance of your questioning here, it eludes me.
Did Thomas speak Greek? Likely. Aramaic? Unlikely. Norwegian? Impossible
What's your point Pete?