Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

ml, re: saying 52, someone pointed out this is suspiciously similar to John 5:39
"You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life"

here the words of Jesus in John reflect the views of his disciples in Thomas - so did a later editor of Thomas (assuming this is a later saying which i think it is) see the words attributed to Jesus in John as reflecting the views of those who adopted that gospel in his time and criticize them? John is also the gospel which critiques Thomas

very intriguing

"You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life"

Heck, maybe the bolded part is an addition. It would work without it as an aretalogy. The Jesus of the gospels is often reluctant to reveal who he is except to trusted disciples but is happy to be thought of as a prophet? But as a person possessed by the divine spirit, in the true prophetic sense, the spirit speaks through him thus he is not talking about himself directly but about God in the first person via spirit possession. The same applies to "I am the way the truth and the life". When a prophet is speaking is it the prophet or God who speaks? I think there was a source of areological statements that John made use of. It's a blurry line over who is speaking. Thomas takes one side of that coin and John the other
It might be interesting to note that John contains little (none?) of the Thomas sayings that are found in the synoptics either further separating John from Thomas... it's possible to imagine a community rejecting Mark on this basis if Matthew and Luke were yet to be written or widely known, very curious
Anyway yeah for sure Thomas and John, in their later edited forms at least, consciously oppose each other

davidmartin wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:23 am ml, re: saying 52, someone pointed out this is suspiciously similar to John 5:39
"You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life"

here the words of Jesus in John reflect the views of his disciples in Thomas - so did a later editor of Thomas (assuming this is a later saying which i think it is) see the words attributed to Jesus in John as reflecting the views of those who adopted that gospel in his time and criticize them? John is also the gospel which critiques Thomas

Hi David, a lengthy answer this time.

I don't see a reason to believe that the Coptic text is "a later saying". In fact, I very much dislike applying those crazy ideas at all, but most certainly to one single extant text of which we have no copy at all whatsoever save for a few sloppy scraps in Greek. We don't know anything about any development of anything Thomas(ine), so everything that is said about it is mere assumption

The whole layered tradition nonsense is just an invention by biblical scholars to come up with even more unsubstantiated fantasies, exactly like 'oral memory', so that they can continue to write books on any subject without motivating anything. And it is their pet project and invention so tehy can milk it for ages! yay...

It is wishful thinking that can't be proven nor debunked, so it has no place in science: theories must be able to be falsified. Global Warming and Climate Change? Exactly the same issue, it is religion that way: is it good? Well, that's Global Warming but expressed via its actor Climate Change, which is caused by Global Warming. Is it bad? Well, sure - that's Global Warming!
Are you religious and something good happens? That is Gawd, cuz he luvs ya. Is it bad? Well that's either the Devil, or Gawd putting you to the test.
And so on

With regards to your question: you can't - you simply can't - and I can't stress that enough; you simply can't throw a verse into mid-air, without giving your detailed and well-argumented interpretation in full, and then freely associate that with any other verse.
"Hey see that gorgeously hot young woman over there? She reminds me of the neighbour's dog" is equally as useful a comment

So, let me try and show how I would like to see it done

A - Thomas


Login 52 is an odd one because of ϩⲣⲁÏ ⲛ̄ ϩⲏⲧ ⲕ`. We can take it a few ways:

1. upper-part of heart/mind your
2. upper-part . before you
3. "well before you"

Number 3. is a gamble, interpretation. Number 1. leaves us with riddles, number 2. seems the best guess in the sense that ϩⲏⲧ is used as adjective, not as a noun.
The 24 prophets are the 24 books of the Tanakh - not the 51 of the Septuagint!

So the suggestion of the disciples seems to be: hey dude, 24 prophets spoke, in Israel - mind you - well before, I mean AGES before you. So WTF are you? And IS drily comments: you are ignoring (place outward) he-who-is-alive, who is right here, and you're speaking of dead people

B - John


The 'these' are the scriptures, and that is all that appears unclear I think.
So the suggestion of John seems to be: hey dudes, you can read the Tanakh all you want in search for eternal life, but haven't you noticed that those same scriptures talk about me - ME?

C - A vs B

So in the left of this imaginary boxing pen we have Thomas, who gets told by his disciples about scripture.
To the left we have John, who is talking to Judeans, and it is John who is pointing them to scripture

The direction is different, the audience, everything. But Thomas as well as John are finishing with the same one-liner: screw the scriptures, it is ME who is important.
So that's the (flimsy) similarity, and contrary to what you stated "here the words of Jesus in John reflect the views of his disciples in Thomas" it is only the first phrase of John's Jesus that resembles Thomas's disciples.
But, could these two be related? Could be, and it does deal with your remark that very little of Thomas appears in John - verbatim, that is. Yet contextually john is continuously pretending to be thomas, is what I feel when I read him

"A later editor" - I am wholly convinced that Thomas was written in one piece, and that the Coptic text is the Urtext, and is perfectly intact. That is my conclusion based on the linguistic riddles in the text, the wordplay, the tautology, alliteration, and I haven't even begun about the sounds (of which I know nothing but even in that regard there are abundant connections).
I am well aware of the ludicrous of this statement but it is what it is - I fully accept (and expect) to be proven wrong sooner than later, yet this is my verdict at this point in time and I don't expect to change it. I know how hard it is to translate, I have been doing that for 25 years straight now, and I know it's neigh impossible to translate jokes because of their subtleties. Translating a text like this into another language? Simply Hubris, period

(Perhaps you're trying to be nice and assisting me in my theory that Thomas was written prior to the gospels LOL - don't be )

"John is also the gospel which critiques Thomas" - that sure is true, and your other point is equally as interesting, but I'll reaxct to that in another response

davidmartin wrote: ↑Wed Dec 09, 2020 2:13 am "You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life"

Heck, maybe the bolded part is an addition. It would work without it as an aretalogy. The Jesus of the gospels is often reluctant to reveal who he is except to trusted disciples but is happy to be thought of as a prophet? But as a person possessed by the divine spirit, in the true prophetic sense, the spirit speaks through him thus he is not talking about himself directly but about God in the first person via spirit possession. The same applies to "I am the way the truth and the life". When a prophet is speaking is it the prophet or God who speaks? I think there was a source of areological statements that John made use of. It's a blurry line over who is speaking. Thomas takes one side of that coin and John the other
It might be interesting to note that John contains little (none?) of the Thomas sayings that are found in the synoptics either further separating John from Thomas... it's possible to imagine a community rejecting Mark on this basis if Matthew and Luke were yet to be written or widely known, very curious
Anyway yeah for sure Thomas and John, in their later edited forms at least, consciously oppose each other

No, this is a complete verse, this entire monologue is filled with seemingly loose comments.
"The Jesus of the gospels is often reluctant to reveal who he is except to trusted disciples" - the fact that each and every time he has to explain everything to the disciples makes them just as thick as the crowd, and the reader wondering about why the hell they should be on a pedestal anyway

John is a poet, succeeding where Paul failed: to appeal to the divinity of Jesus at the right level. He does that very well and I like John just for what he is. Thomas? He is not talking about IS, he is talking about what you and I are and can re-become: One - all by ourself. John preaches the Jesus that needs following, Thomas preaches the You that needs following

Yes, two sides of a coin, opposed to each other. Mind you, John is heavily edited, and 2021 James David Audlin will finish his 50 years of working on its restoration...

The IS of Thomas is some sort of icon / symbol, it is the process of beginning symbolised by I, the numeral 10, perfection - Oneness, as we come into this world.
Then we get perturbed, separated, confused.
And Knowing, ⲥⲟⲟⲩⲛ, and it is the first letter there, will end all that confusion and separation because it finally makes us aware of our sickness (logion 74), and it will be the End to that all and lead us back to the Beginning, and we'll make the two one by realising that we're neither slave nor slaveowner although we've been that all our life, chasing ourselves into the proverbial curtains of religion and philosophy in Search for the Big Fish that isn't there, as we're One already and always have been

Again, Tony Parsons says it best:


And that is what Thomas is all about - simply a text about self realisation. And it led to Christianity, eventually and inadvertently

thanks for that ML, I do see Thomas as existing prior to the gospels
I think what i'm trying to do is paint a picture of early Christianity and i think that is all anyone else does until a time machine is invented
(if one is invented and we vote someone neutral, eg Ben, to go back and check it out, assuming he survives, he may well return and simply say 'don't ask' and refuse to talk about it. So we might be no better off!)
The most obvious qualitive difference in the paintings we make is which are the better and more scholarly argued or not but I've given up trying to argue in a very scholarly way. Firstly, you can do so and still be quite wrong in conclusions. Secondly Giuseppe get's to post his views pretty freely!
I aim just to reach the lowest bar and no higher

I place myself somewhere between the historicists and mythologists. Yeah, i see a historical background to the Christian origins with actual people. I think mythologizing took place as well. I recon a pure mythological explanation will eat itself in the end there has to be some historical element it's just a question of how much

My basic thought is that it was historical enough to have a bunch of opposing groups duking it out over Jesus and there was a battle to be the authoritative voice. So it's really hard for me to see a text, even Thomas as being immune from this process. It doesn't even matter whether 52 was a later saying or not except I used that to try and date this stage of the controversy a bit. The essential part is the Thomas group is duking it out with the John group. This allows a working recreation of the 1st century that we do not have other sources for. I think it's perfectly possible to fully recreate the 1st century battle-lines. Personally i'm still stuck on Mark and the origin of the 'Judaisers'/Ebionites as i don't think they represent the first incarnation of the Jesus movement whatever went on back then was insanely convoluted and chaotic i recon which makes it very hard to be sure of anything. I think it should be viewed as a historical phenomena though, there was some guy walking around getting shit on his sandals, drunk some beer. Woke up with backache and a bad nights sleep. That's as liberating as a cosmological fairy story is to me, i don't want to have to be forced not to consider anything as possible by any orthodoxy what's the fun in that?

davidmartin wrote: ↑Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:38 am thanks for that ML, I do see Thomas as existing prior to the gospels
I think what i'm trying to do is paint a picture of early Christianity and i think that is all anyone else does until a time machine is invented
(if one is invented and we vote someone neutral, eg Ben, to go back and check it out, assuming he survives, he may well return and simply say 'don't ask' and refuse to talk about it. So we might be no better off!)
The most obvious qualitive difference in the paintings we make is which are the better and more scholarly argued or not but I've given up trying to argue in a very scholarly way. Firstly, you can do so and still be quite wrong in conclusions. Secondly Giuseppe get's to post his views pretty freely!
I aim just to reach the lowest bar and no higher

I place myself somewhere between the historicists and mythologists. Yeah, i see a historical background to the Christian origins with actual people. I think mythologizing took place as well. I recon a pure mythological explanation will eat itself in the end there has to be some historical element it's just a question of how much

My basic thought is that it was historical enough to have a bunch of opposing groups duking it out over Jesus and there was a battle to be the authoritative voice. So it's really hard for me to see a text, even Thomas as being immune from this process. It doesn't even matter whether 52 was a later saying or not except I used that to try and date this stage of the controversy a bit. The essential part is the Thomas group is duking it out with the John group. This allows a working recreation of the 1st century that we do not have other sources for. I think it's perfectly possible to fully recreate the 1st century battle-lines. Personally i'm still stuck on Mark and the origin of the 'Judaisers'/Ebionites as i don't think they represent the first incarnation of the Jesus movement whatever went on back then was insanely convoluted and chaotic i recon which makes it very hard to be sure of anything. I think it should be viewed as a historical phenomena though, there was some guy walking around getting shit on his sandals, drunk some beer. Woke up with backache and a bad nights sleep. That's as liberating as a cosmological fairy story is to me, i don't want to have to be forced not to consider anything as possible by any orthodoxy what's the fun in that?

Well, I couldn't agree more ... up to the point of "a Thomas group".
I can certainly envisage a "Thomas group", but I couldn't possibly see anything in Thomas that pertains to it. Philip could be part of a Thomas group though, or even john as a renegade born-again separatist, and so on. But not Thomas itself

I really have tried hard to match the IS of Thomas with the Jesus of the canonicals, but failed. Sure, I can go all wobbly and stand on my head and utter some vague conceptual wishywashies like April does, but like you I really have given up on being "scholarly" LOL.
But I can't, for the life of me, make myself believe that Thomas had access to all of the NT around 140-200 CE (dating of the Poxy's), nor can I see the direction of dependence between Thomas and the canonicals in any other way than them copying him for 80% of all logia, let alone the sketching of the entire context, as well as the themes of healing the sick, making the two one, and entering the kingdom as children

"I place myself somewhere between the historicists and mythologists. Yeah, i see a historical background to the Christian origins with actual people. I think mythologizing took place as well. I recon a pure mythological explanation will eat itself in the end there has to be some historical element it's just a question of how much"

- couldn't agree more

"i don't want to have to be forced not to consider anything as possible by any orthodoxy what's the fun in that"

- couldn't agree more, and I hope you don't get the feeling that I'm forcing you whenever I state my opinions without elaborately stating beforehand that those are my opinions etc.

It is all very easy really. Look at the bible, the NT - and listen to the religiots who have been brainwashed by their dogmatic leaders. It has come to and beyond the point that simply reading the literal NT makes you question everything you ever heard in Church, for the very sound reason that at least half of what you know isn't in there.
Are people gullible? People are cows, and perhaps that's even an insult to cows. You can take any story and spin it backwards up and down left and right and back again and most will just hang on and hop along and not question much if anything. Trust me, I've worked in multinationals for decades and people are fooled all year long, for their entire career. I was part of that for over a decade even

Imagine Harry Potter, volume 1. Huge success! And then she dies. No copyright nothing, perhaps she even intentionally left it that way. And what we remain with is hundreds of thousands, million of people who "follow Harry".
Then just dive in there, and spin that story, and try to get some revenue off it. Even if you only manage to manage (sic) 1-2% you've made it, and can retire. Of course there will be many who try to do the same, so we would see dozens if not hundreds of people pulling on and poking into the Potter putty.
And Harry himself, or his author? Forever silent, never to speak again.
Just one text, that's all it takes. And Thomas is such a text, it is an octopus with a few dozen arms for those who simply glance at it

I don't see a clear direction between Thomas 52 and John 5:39, it could be either: John mimicking Thomas or Thomas mimicking John

Can it be that Thomas developed in layers? Sure, but why would one think that such is the case?
Can it be that Mark developed in layers? Sure, but why would one think that such is the case?
Can it be that Luke developed in layers? Sure, but why would one think that such is the case?
Can it be that Matthew developed in layers? Sure, but why would one think that such is the case?
Can it be that John developed in layers? Sure, but why would one think that such is the case?

I will accept layered tradition if one can prove bidirectional dependency between two texts. Until then, I prefer to keep it simple

mlinssen wrote: ↑Wed Dec 09, 2020 3:24 am Mind you, John is heavily edited, and 2021 James David Audlin will finish his 50 years of working on its restoration...

Will he be publishing a revision of his 2014 restoration of the Gospel of John? Will it require the reader to understand Koine?

lsayre wrote: ↑Wed Dec 09, 2020 8:59 am

mlinssen wrote: ↑Wed Dec 09, 2020 3:24 am Mind you, John is heavily edited, and 2021 James David Audlin will finish his 50 years of working on its restoration...

Will he be publishing a revision of his 2014 restoration of the Gospel of John? Will it require the reader to understand Koine?

It will be that and much more, about 3,000 pages...
Require, no. But James being James he spits out an entirely new and different language every other hundred of pages