The Gospel Of Thomas, an interesting perspective
The Gospel Of Thomas, an interesting perspective
I've made a fluke discovery. An interesting perspective of each Logia can be derived from reading it from bottom to top, last line to first line. Odd as this may seem, many of them appear to actually make more sense in so doing.
Re: The Gospel Of Thomas, an interesting perspective
Can you provide an example?
Re: The Gospel Of Thomas, an interesting perspective
I'll only suggest that you try it yourself on a few selected at random. Sane outcomes appear achievable for many to perhaps most of them.
Last edited by lsayre on Wed Jul 20, 2022 11:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Secret Alias
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Re: The Gospel Of Thomas, an interesting perspective
Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."
Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life."
Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life."
Re: The Gospel Of Thomas, an interesting perspective
I'm doing this via using the Detlev Koepke translations.
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Charles Wilson
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Re: The Gospel Of Thomas, an interesting perspective
Thanx for this, lsayre.
John 18: 19 -23 (RSV):
[19] The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.
[20] Jesus answered him, "I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together; I have said nothing secretly.
[21] Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me, what I said to them; they know what I said."
[22] When he had said this, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, "Is that how you answer the high priest?"
[23] Jesus answered him, "If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?"
You cannot simply rearrange things to your liking. There must be an apparent reason to do so.
Intentionality and Sensibility must figure into it.
I read the above Passage and saw awkwardness until I looked at it in a rearranged version that followed a more reasonable dialogue:
[19] The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.
[21] Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me, what I said to them; they know what I said."
[22] When he had said this, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, "Is that how you answer the high priest?"
[23] Jesus answered him, "If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?"
[20] Jesus answered him, "I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together; I have said nothing secretly.
Arranged this way, a smooth dialogue results and also a reason for changing the text: "Jesus" is supposed to speak in riddles that confuse.
[21] Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me, what I said to them; they know what I said."
[20, in Part] ...I have said nothing secretly.
Uh-Oh.
I would hope the mlinssen would check in with a comment or two here. It would make sense that Thomas would, if as powerful as appears, be appropriated and then rewritten to suit certain sensibilities. Inverting textual order would be a cheap Code to use as in John above: The words haven't been changed but the order (and perhaps the Intentionality) has.
Nice, lsayre!
CW
John 18: 19 -23 (RSV):
[19] The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.
[20] Jesus answered him, "I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together; I have said nothing secretly.
[21] Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me, what I said to them; they know what I said."
[22] When he had said this, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, "Is that how you answer the high priest?"
[23] Jesus answered him, "If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?"
You cannot simply rearrange things to your liking. There must be an apparent reason to do so.
Intentionality and Sensibility must figure into it.
I read the above Passage and saw awkwardness until I looked at it in a rearranged version that followed a more reasonable dialogue:
[19] The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.
[21] Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me, what I said to them; they know what I said."
[22] When he had said this, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, "Is that how you answer the high priest?"
[23] Jesus answered him, "If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?"
[20] Jesus answered him, "I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together; I have said nothing secretly.
Arranged this way, a smooth dialogue results and also a reason for changing the text: "Jesus" is supposed to speak in riddles that confuse.
[21] Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me, what I said to them; they know what I said."
[20, in Part] ...I have said nothing secretly.
Uh-Oh.
I would hope the mlinssen would check in with a comment or two here. It would make sense that Thomas would, if as powerful as appears, be appropriated and then rewritten to suit certain sensibilities. Inverting textual order would be a cheap Code to use as in John above: The words haven't been changed but the order (and perhaps the Intentionality) has.
Nice, lsayre!
CW
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The Gospel Of Thomas, an interesting perspective
In so doing to actually make more sense many of them appear as this may seem odd. Last line to first line, from bottom to top derived from reading it Logia can be. An interesting perspective - a fluke discovery made have I.
Jedi talk. A type of ordered cento.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cento_(poetry)#History
The insurmountable barriers to manuscripts < 700 CE
This exercise is entirely useless really.
Do you know what the text really looks like?
https://www.gospelofthomas.eu/blog/wp-c ... scan01.jpg
Scriptio continua is what it's called: consecutive letters without spacing, punctuation, and whatnot. One great grand large consecutive string of letters alone, sometimes interspersed with an apostrophe, a period of some kind
1. The first task over every single MS before 700 CE (bout a precise date of course across all languages and sorts) is to break it up into pieces - and there we run into challenging issues already regardless of the language used.
2. Then on top of that we run into contraction issues, metathesis ones, and the fact that words can be identical yet have different meanings
3. We run into the issue that nouns and verbs are similar
4. Specifically with regards to Coptic we run into the issue that dialect forms of e.g. verb a are identical to those of noun b, etc - and then
5. we run into the specific Thomasine issue that his looks like a very early text where different dialects are used together, when the boundary between them all wasn't strictly defined - or perhaps he did that on purpose?
6. But in the end, after many months, carefully weighing all the alternatives, we can come up with a carefully separated critical apparatus of which we think that it best presents what the author had in mind.
It is undeniable that a very, very great part of interpretation is already involved in determining the very basis for your translation! And we all should really abort at that point and decide that there is no way at all whatsoever to translate one of these texts because most of it is just a guess - an educated guess, yes. But still a guess
7. And then we start translating - and while we translate we 8. start dividing the text into phrases, sentences - and that is when and where
9. we INVENT logia numbering, verse numbering, chapters: all of which isn't anywhere in the text at all and entirely of it own making.
And of course the translation drives that and vice versa, and we're already caught in our own circular reasoning
10. And then, depending on our own translation, we divide our translation into phrases and order those, format them, and so on: and we end up with something that Koepke has
And that is 100% interpretation and conjecture, and the way that Koepke presents it it is entirely untraceable, unverifiable, and as a result of all that it is "unvaluable" to me
I don't take "Yes" for an answer.
I am always and always critical of everything.
I verify and falsify every theory.
As a result I remain with separate pieces of concrete information that I can assign a value expressing its reliability as well as its likelihood of meaning
And that's how I can wade through this swamp without getting stuck and drowning. Accept or Reject something based on having tested its viability.
What is the viability of what you are doing here, lsayre? And I don't mean to put you down although I'm aware of the fact that I have a great talent for that - I welcome every attempt and idea, I honestly do. But I see how you present the idea without giving a demonstration, even when asked explicitly - and that is an indication for me that you're only skimming the surface of something new that you found.
Which is perfectly alright, and part of the process: but now is the time that you should decide on whether to continue with it or not. Naturally that is entirely up to you and I have no say in any of that - but we have enough augurs as it is already
Do you know what the text really looks like?
https://www.gospelofthomas.eu/blog/wp-c ... scan01.jpg
- scan0001.jpg (404.99 KiB) Viewed 1698 times
1. The first task over every single MS before 700 CE (bout a precise date of course across all languages and sorts) is to break it up into pieces - and there we run into challenging issues already regardless of the language used.
2. Then on top of that we run into contraction issues, metathesis ones, and the fact that words can be identical yet have different meanings
3. We run into the issue that nouns and verbs are similar
4. Specifically with regards to Coptic we run into the issue that dialect forms of e.g. verb a are identical to those of noun b, etc - and then
5. we run into the specific Thomasine issue that his looks like a very early text where different dialects are used together, when the boundary between them all wasn't strictly defined - or perhaps he did that on purpose?
6. But in the end, after many months, carefully weighing all the alternatives, we can come up with a carefully separated critical apparatus of which we think that it best presents what the author had in mind.
It is undeniable that a very, very great part of interpretation is already involved in determining the very basis for your translation! And we all should really abort at that point and decide that there is no way at all whatsoever to translate one of these texts because most of it is just a guess - an educated guess, yes. But still a guess
7. And then we start translating - and while we translate we 8. start dividing the text into phrases, sentences - and that is when and where
9. we INVENT logia numbering, verse numbering, chapters: all of which isn't anywhere in the text at all and entirely of it own making.
And of course the translation drives that and vice versa, and we're already caught in our own circular reasoning
10. And then, depending on our own translation, we divide our translation into phrases and order those, format them, and so on: and we end up with something that Koepke has
And that is 100% interpretation and conjecture, and the way that Koepke presents it it is entirely untraceable, unverifiable, and as a result of all that it is "unvaluable" to me
I don't take "Yes" for an answer.
I am always and always critical of everything.
I verify and falsify every theory.
As a result I remain with separate pieces of concrete information that I can assign a value expressing its reliability as well as its likelihood of meaning
And that's how I can wade through this swamp without getting stuck and drowning. Accept or Reject something based on having tested its viability.
What is the viability of what you are doing here, lsayre? And I don't mean to put you down although I'm aware of the fact that I have a great talent for that - I welcome every attempt and idea, I honestly do. But I see how you present the idea without giving a demonstration, even when asked explicitly - and that is an indication for me that you're only skimming the surface of something new that you found.
Which is perfectly alright, and part of the process: but now is the time that you should decide on whether to continue with it or not. Naturally that is entirely up to you and I have no say in any of that - but we have enough augurs as it is already
Re: The Gospel Of Thomas, an interesting perspective
All I can say is that you were the one who directed us to the greatness of Detlev Koepke. I will say that his humility and humanity stands in stark contrast to your self aggrandizing egotistical mania. I merely made an observation. Chill!
Re: The Gospel Of Thomas, an interesting perspective
LOL. Happy conjuring then, I'll leave you to your fantasies and not waste my time and energy on you anymore.
That'll likely make you happy, I know - much obliged then