The self-evident emergence of Christianity

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mlinssen
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Logion 27, gospel of Thomas

Post by mlinssen »

Jair wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 5:44 pm
mlinssen wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 10:38 am Done with the dumb sayings, they're nauseating

(345) It is better to die than to darken the soul because of the immoderation of the belly.

Have you done the "word count" for god in Thomas? And seen that it is used only as something irrelevant?
You can keep throwing texts like these at me, 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?

Honestly, could well be. Just asking
After reading through the thread so far I looked up a translation of GThomas. Logion 27 seems very religious to me, as it is specifically about Shabbat observance. Is this one to be interpreted as an interpolation? Could I be reading a poor translation?
The above quote is not from Thomas who has 115 sayings, but from The Sentences of Sextus

The word Sabbath is in logion 27, yes - but you highly likely are reading a false interpretation. Let me try to help out

From the Commentary, page 272-288:

27. In case you don't make be Fast to the World you will not fall to the reign of king;
in case you don't make be the Sabbath Father's-day you will not behold the father.

I am sure that this is something you haven't read anywhere, and it is an interpretation of the Translation:

27. In case you don't make be Fast to the World you will not fall to the reign of king;
in case you don't make be the Sabbath sAB'BAth you will not behold the father.

And the real literal one is

in-case you(PL) …not… make-be Fast to the World
you(PL) will fall not to the(F) reign-of(F) king
in-case you(PL) …not… make-be [dop] the Sabbath [dop] sABBAth
(not) you(PL) will behold not [dop] the father

The last one is what the text literally says, and that is where the wordplay is at. The Greek copies this verbatim including the apostrophe yet 180's the message by doing so as it turns the first Sabbath phrase into a verb

Long story, too much to copy, but this is the gist - and a vile pun on Sabbath observance.
There are no interpolations in Thomas, and in the first 56 logia I have observed 1 scribal error - it is a pristine text, and everyone who emends it is an incompetent idiot (and you may quote me on that)

Here's the papyrus: https://www.gospelofthomas.eu/blog/wp-c ... scan07.jpg

Both words cover 2 lines:

ⲉ ⲧⲉⲧⲛ ̅ ⲧⲙ ̅ ⲉⲓⲣⲉ ⲙ̅ ⲡ ⲥⲁⲙⲃⲁⲧⲟⲛ ⲛ̅ ⲥⲁⲃ`
ⲃⲁⲧⲟⲛ


High resolution at https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/cust ... ifest.json
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The self-evident emergence of Christianity

Post by Leucius Charinus »

mlinssen wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 10:30 am Either way, I just scanned The Sentences of Sextus. Stoic stuff, Socrates, virtue and all that. I'll read up later but it's a bit dumb, usually there needs to be an explanation to simple rules like these. Check Epictetus and such, this just looks like a combination of the lesser side of both Thomas and those: no explanation yet no riddles either.
Thanks for your assessment on that other "Sayings List" from the NHL.

Do you accept that whoever the editorial team was that packaged the sayings of Thomas in the NHL also packaged the sayings of Sextus and Philip, and the rest of the other scores of tracts in the NHL? Also do you accept that the physical production of the codices contained in the NHL actually occurred around about the middle of the 4th century? (NOTE: Accepting as a caveat that these tracts may have been re-publications of texts from earlier centuries)
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Re: The self-evident emergence of Christianity

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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?
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Re: The self-evident emergence of Christianity

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Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 6:29 pm
mlinssen wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 10:30 am Either way, I just scanned The Sentences of Sextus. Stoic stuff, Socrates, virtue and all that. I'll read up later but it's a bit dumb, usually there needs to be an explanation to simple rules like these. Check Epictetus and such, this just looks like a combination of the lesser side of both Thomas and those: no explanation yet no riddles either.
Thanks for your assessment on that other "Sayings List" from the NHL.

Do you accept that whoever the editorial team was that packaged the sayings of Thomas in the NHL also packaged the sayings of Sextus and Philip, and the rest of the other scores of tracts in the NHL? Also do you accept that the physical production of the codices contained in the NHL actually occurred around about the middle of the 4th century? (NOTE: Accepting as a caveat that these tracts may have been re-publications of texts from earlier centuries)
Sure! I haven't done any research into it but the codices have their tractates in a certain order. I'm unsure about the order of the codex numbering that we use but it's fine by me

A production date of the texts that coincides with the production date of the covers is highly likely, and given the fact that the fragment from the concert is dated 300-400 round and about, that's likely the range we should look at.
But the original texts could be of any date and it is naturally absolutely unfeasible that these 52 codices all saw the light only at, during and for the creation of this time capsule
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Re: The self-evident emergence of Christianity

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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?
Last edited by mlinssen on Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The self-evident emergence of Christianity

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Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 6:41 pm This does not solve the problem of where Thomas actually fits into the literature of antiquity. Do you have a solution to this problem?
Why is that a problem?
Thomas is unique exactly because it doesn't fit in a purely western world, it is fairly eastern in thinking, spiritual. It is really refreshing, yet it plays against a 100 BCE-CE background with the Pharisees around

And how is Thomas a problem? Can't a text be original, must it be the sequel to another sequel?
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Re: The self-evident emergence of Christianity

Post by Leucius Charinus »

mlinssen wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 1:07 am
Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 6:41 pm This does not solve the problem of where Thomas actually fits into the literature of antiquity. Do you have a solution to this problem?
Why is that a problem?
Thomas is unique exactly because it doesn't fit in a purely western world, it is fairly eastern in thinking, spiritual. It is really refreshing, yet it plays against a 100 BCE-CE background with the Pharisees around

And how is Thomas a problem? Can't a text be original, must it be the sequel to another sequel?
All I mean by my questions is that I'd like to know its provenance - who wrote it, and when and where it was written, whether there were any sources, and stuff like that. I understand that we may never know the answers to such questions. I agree it is original, refreshing, spiritual and likely an exposition of non-dual philosophy.
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The provenance of Thomas: Alexandria, 100 BCE-75 CE

Post by mlinssen »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 2:03 am
mlinssen wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 1:07 am
Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 6:41 pm This does not solve the problem of where Thomas actually fits into the literature of antiquity. Do you have a solution to this problem?
Why is that a problem?
Thomas is unique exactly because it doesn't fit in a purely western world, it is fairly eastern in thinking, spiritual. It is really refreshing, yet it plays against a 100 BCE-CE background with the Pharisees around

And how is Thomas a problem? Can't a text be original, must it be the sequel to another sequel?
All I mean by my questions is that I'd like to know its provenance - who wrote it, and when and where it was written, whether there were any sources, and stuff like that. I understand that we may never know the answers to such questions. I agree it is original, refreshing, spiritual and likely an exposition of non-dual philosophy.
Well you should just ask those questions then, what could be more straightforward than that?

1. If you look at the anti-Judean content, the easiest explanation for that is a Samarian (not necessarily Samaritan) origin.
2. If you look at the anti-Judaism, the easiest explanation for that is an anti-religious stance, a religion fatigue, that could come from anywhere or the metaphysical approach - but I think that the Sea represents the latter given logion 3 and 8, so religion fatigue it is, and a general explanation fatigue: we will always make anything work for us in our mental models, so instead of changing the Rules we should change the entire Game: not stop finding an Answer, but instead question the Question that leads to that. That is radical, brutally revolutionary in the Western world - and the outcome of this is that not seeking an answer in either religion or philosophy means that we have something truly unique in our hands

3. If you observe that the Greek fragments each are lazy copies of the Coptic, an Egyptian provenance is highly likely

When we combine those we get a Samarian milieu in Egypt, radically upset by new thoughts and ideas - and in the latter context we can see how Eastern thought could have played a role there; and when we locate the last we can either move the scene to India etc and/or back again, or we can make Moses come to the mountain and envision an Alexandria as a thriving centre of the world where everything meets

4. When? Again, let's assume that Thomas writes about contemporary issues, so Pharisees must be "a thing", and then we find ourselves roughly in 100 BCE-75 CE, going by the sources that we have. Romans don't narrow that down unless we presume that it really is about Palestine and then we would get to 50 BCE-75 CE.
A text like this wouldn't be about the Nazis if it were written today, for example - Judaism and Pharisees must be real "threats" to Thomas, there's no point in them otherwise unless he himself was continuing someone else's story about those and in that way was bound to them.
Judea, Samaritan: those are not narrowing down anything on top of this

5. Who wrote it? A single person I think, it is so obstinate a text, I doubt that could have survived multiple authors / cooperation. Do I think it is a first and final version? I do, and that's just a gut feeling, unfortunately - or rather, I don't see anything that points into the opposite direction
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Re: The self-evident emergence of Christianity

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Thanks for your thoughts on all these issues. I will certainly add them to my notes on Thomas. I have been trying to think of any known author in the ancient world who could possibly fit the bill. The only author I can think of atm - and this is obviously just a wild guess - is Apollonius of Tyana. We know this dude wrote highly influential books which were destroyed by Constantine's raising of the temples of Asclepius (where they were preserved). One fragment is preserved by Eusebius and it runs like this:

Several fragments of it have been preserved, [See Zeller, Phil d Griech, v 127]
the most important of which is to be found in Eusebius,
[Præparat. Evangel., iv 12-13; ed Dindorf (Leipzig 1867), i 176, 177]
and is to this effect:

“ ‘Tis best to make no sacrifice to God at all,
no lighting of a fire,
no calling Him by any name
that men employ for things to sense.

For God is over all, the first;
and only after Him do come the other Gods.
For He doth stand in need of naught
e’en from the Gods,
much less from us small men -
naught that the earth brings forth,
nor any life she nurseth,
or even any thing the stainless air contains.

The only fitting sacrifice to God
is man’s best reason,
and not the word
that comes from out his mouth.

“We men should ask the best of beings
through the best thing in us,
for what is good -
mean by means of mind,
for mind needs no material things
to make its prayer.
So then, to God, the mighty One,
who’s over all,
no sacrifice should ever be lit up.”

Noack [Psyche, I ii.5.] tells us that scholarship
is convinced of the genuineness of this fragment.
This book, as we have seen, was widely circulated
and held in the highest respect, and it said that
its rules were engraved on brazen pillars
at Byzantium. [Noack, ibid.]

As I said this is only a wild guess made in the absence of firm evidence. Can this be ruled out?

I will give further thought to what you have written above. Thanks.
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Re: The self-evident emergence of Christianity

Post by Leucius Charinus »

mlinssen wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 12:40 am
Sure! I haven't done any research into it but the codices have their tractates in a certain order. I'm unsure about the order of the codex numbering that we use but it's fine by me
The order of the codices probably cannot be relied upon. I tend to view the NHL as an unordered cache. However the order of the tracts within each codex probably has some logic behind it. Editors will be editors.
A production date of the texts that coincides with the production date of the covers is highly likely, and given the fact that the fragment from the concert is dated 300-400 round and about, that's likely the range we should look at.
Fragments from the cartonage on the bindings seem to date as late as 348 CE so this may be important.
But the original texts could be of any date and it is naturally absolutely unfeasible that these 52 codices all saw the light only at, during and for the creation of this time capsule
The elephant in the room as far as I am concerned is that the date of the NHL is post-Nicene and thus after or during the epoch of Constantine's sole rule (325-337 CE). Few scholars make an issue of this. That is after the NT and LXX Bible codex became a massive political instrument in the empire.

Yes some tracts could be older - much older. But some could be reactions to the NT LXX
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