Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

ML, all points excepted
how about the final logion where Peter disgraces himself again (it's like a long running joke in an episode of Friends)
He feels the need to disparage women and picks on Mary. Bad move Peter. Don't you know she's Jesus's favourite?
If Jesus was vengeful he might have turned him to stone (badaboom) but deals out some universal female salvationary suffrage instead
Apart from how interesting it is to note all the times Peter blots his copybook with Jesus and Jesus coming to Mary's rescue in other texts ...
the one piece of historical clue might be there was a 'Peter' based movement as well. Although the saying 52/John connection' is there... the gospel of John is a gospel that emerged in orthodoxy which is kind of 'Peter based' itself...

davidmartin wrote: ↑Thu Dec 10, 2020 2:28 am ML, all points excepted
how about the final logion where Peter disgraces himself again (it's like a long running joke in an episode of Friends)
He feels the need to disparage women and picks on Mary. Bad move Peter. Don't you know she's Jesus's favourite?
If Jesus was vengeful he might have turned him to stone (badaboom) but deals out some universal female salvationary suffrage instead
Apart from how interesting it is to note all the times Peter blots his copybook with Jesus and Jesus coming to Mary's rescue in other texts ...
the one piece of historical clue might be there was a 'Peter' based movement as well. Although the saying 52/John connection' is there... the gospel of John is a gospel that emerged in orthodoxy which is kind of 'Peter based' itself...

Yes, there's Thomas berating dogma again, this time just pretending to play along nicely

He's severely ridiculing Peter again, having him say:


Again, the trick is that heart/mind can be a noun or a preposition, but again, it's a lousy preposition https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C6373 meaning forward, before - most certainly not 'among'

"Come outward" needs work, these are two normalised words whereas the combination means "come, go forth, be displayed". I haven't touched the logion yet, this is my first occasion - come outward is good enough to get the idea so far. So there are two translations:

Let ⲙⲁⲣ.ⲓ.ϩⲁⲙ go forth of our mind
Let ⲙⲁⲣ.ⲓ.ϩⲁⲙ go forth of (being) before us

The first is fun of course, stressing that men only lust after women and need to dominate them so they can live in peace.
The second is also fun, a jealous comment about women being prior to men in time and place, or even an alleged comment at an alleged IS about him favouring a bloody woman for crying out loud, over all those capable males

Let's go with the second, loosely translated as "get rid of da bitch!"


A frustrated toddler statement once again, supplied by a taker about one who gives. How can, FFS, a male say that women, those - and the only ones - who carry, create and give life, are not worth of it?
Flog him, rip him to pieces, for even daring to think something that dumb. But no, IS remains calm, and kewl. And retorts:


The verb ⲥⲱⲕ is draw, and used 4 times: the fisher (8) draws the net like IS draws her, and in logion 3 and 34 the leaders and the blind 'draw heart/mind': lead, guide, show the way, teach - or mislead, misguide, confuse, make believe.
Whatever that guy on stage is doing to you, in the end...
Other than that, nothing fancy here


Two Greek loanwords here, red alert!
ϣⲓⲛⲁ is So-that, it appears 14+1 times (variant) throughout, and I've merely glanced at it so far but it conveys hope or irony, a higher goal, while at the same time it denotes a "high stake". In logion 64 and 65 it is the reason given by the first actor, yet all three (63-65) fail of course, for good reasons of course, so that's inconclusive.
But the word does stress that whatever follows is of the highest importance.
https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C6420, ϩⲱⲱ, means "self, also, for one's part" yet also "but, on other hand" and I've translated it with 'likewise'

She will come to be her self, a spirit

Then the rest is reflecting off that, with ⲉⲓⲛⲉ (ⲛ-, ⲙⲙⲟ⸗) being the verb for resemble that is used a dozen times:

He lives, he resembles you (the) males

Now, when something resembles something in Thomas, the real thing comes before the verb and what it resembles comes after... so again, this is no compliment to machismo here, au contraire: she is real and they are allegories


The Layton litmus test - the only so-called scholar to correctly translate the plural form of heaven in Thomas, save for right here. Guillaumont, Quispel, Lambdin, and all others simply translate every occurrence with the singular version. Not Layton, he translates everything as it should be, except for here.
Why? Because this would show that Thomas also uses "the so typically Matthean form of" kingdom of heavens when it concerns a logion that is not in Matthew at all?
Dunno, but it makes my blood boil, and of course he doesn't have a note to it. Logion 20 and 54 likewise have kingdom of the heavens but Matthew has those as well.
There's only one conclusion: the entire work of professor Bentley Layton is to be distrusted, to be regarded as a distortion of truth with a heavy bias towards Christianity.
He's 80 now and will likely be dead soon and we'll never hear his motivations, similar to all the other usual suspects who abused Thomas to fit their own Christian agenda.
Hell, even the gnostic nutcase translates it with the plural!

But I digress. And apparently, sloppy translations and biased interpretations sold as translations are the norm in biblical texts, I hear

This last piece of 114 is straight forward, and look at logion 22: this is just one side of that coin there. Stop your silly duality, make the male female and the female male, and there you go...

Well, another logion down, I better save this somewhere. Minus the Layton scolding it's not too bad

So it looks like it's a double ass whomping Peter's getting
Not only getting the slap down over Mary and women, it's worse (for him)

Jesus's reply indicates the path to heaven is fulfilling saying 22, so he's basically saying you're not gonna get in yourself Peter cause you don't understand what i'm saying. It would be nice if he had added "and don't mess with Mary again or i'll cut your balls off"
Do you think the one other place Mary appears in Thomas is significant?
She asks a question that's kind of different 'what are your disciples like?'
That's a thoughtful question. She knew how to get him to say stuff and his reply is pretty long?
it's tempting to see it as a personal reply to her "As for you, then, be on guard against the world. Prepare yourselves with great strength, so the robbers can't find a way to get to you, for the trouble you expect will come". But the 'you' is plural. Maybe it wasn't plural. He was replying to Mary after all
And then saying 22 follows. Co-incidence?
Peter is a robber? Well, he did try and steal her place!

Holy shit David

You will have noticed I write Mariham in a funny way: ⲙⲁⲣ.ⲓ.ϩⲁⲙ

https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C9717
https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C6603

Perhaps I'm imagining things but "I bear witness" and "necessity" are too good to ignore.
None of the characters are real in my book, of course

There's a funny thing about Codex II, and Layton (yeah) has it in his introductory notes that NOY and NEY have swapped places: basically the second singular female now is third plural, and vice versa.
So whereas ⲛⲟⲩ- usually means your when addressing a single female, it now means their

And I'm afraid he's right, yet it doesn't want to leave the back of my head. And logion 21 would read differently and the field would be Mariham's and the presence as well but it is all very complicated and confusing and I just took a nap and woke up LOL

The Need is central in Thomas, Necessity. I've had a big fight with Grondin about the lacuna in 65 where everyone wants to read XRESTOS but it just doesn't fit at all and the pics that he had were horrible fakes by Sietze, and he tempered (inadvertently I believe) with 2 others himself, which he has since removed from his site.
But the man in 65 is in Need, just like the man in 63: XRHMA is what the lacuna says or something very close, as just putting that in there causes a slight grammatical issue

Need - that's what drives your Seeking; from the Separation arises a Need. So "I bear witness (to) necessity" - was a beautiful fata morgana once I saw it. It is one of many variables that doesn't play a major part and perhaps it will fall in place in between now and eternity

Logion 21, 35 and 57 belong together. Just like 8, 9 and 20. And just like 63, 64, 65. 3 triplets deal with 3 stages of your Quest, and then comes the Pearl, a lone one: abstain, ditch, distance yourself of your Consignment. Forget life as you knew it and embrace the single Pearl.
Then there are two more triplets: 96, 97, 98, and 103, 107, 109

https://www.academia.edu/40301171/The_p ... _of_Thomas

I'm rewriting every interpretation in my latest series, diving very, very deep. 3 down 13 to go, and I've taken a small sabbatical to speed things up. But I keep getting distracted LOL, which is alright

Yes, Peter is a robber - very good! The religious will research you, try to repossess you

And you see what no one else has ever commented on: it is a double smack in the face for thick Peter as he doesn't get the kingdom, but Mary does

And in the light of all that, it of course is very, very interesting what our female expert has to say on this logion: April DeConick!!!


Emphasis mine

Absolutely rubbish, nonsense, and a thorough demonstration of the lack of brain. Even you have said more sensible things about logion 114.
Then again you don't suffer from omphaloskepticism focused on layered traditions

interesting wish i had more time to explore Coptic again
would have be nice re: Mary and 'you' cause of her esteem in other places
it's kind of applicable though even so cause i long seen a Mary playing a role in this

Mark treats Peter a bit curiously when he denies knowing Jesus and he "warms himself by the fire"
is this a mundane detail or is it saying he wasn't close to the fire just got a little warm? "Whoever is near me is near the fire"
This might be evidence Mark or his sources were encoding things from necessity.

i had a good look at what April DeCornick said - is kind of ignoring how in 22 it goes the other way around putting all the
focus on the final logion
always thought saying 104 explained it
when the 'groom is in the bridal suite' means oneness has been obtained
it's just about oneness expressed in bridal symbology with both genders catered for
Peter hasn't 'found his bride' so he rejects Mary who has found her groom
That's why the dialog of the saviour has Jesus say "pray in the place there is no woman"
when in the bridal chamber the woman is there and prayer is unnecessary like being in some state of grace

That's fun hey, Pater and the fire in Mark. Whenever i read the canonicals I see "Thomas literalised": indeed what you say, it is a reference to Thomas's logion 82 (or vice versa, of - cough - course) - the real one, the only one in four occassions where he uses the female form of fire, CATE

Is it a hint by Mark that Peter distanced himself from Jesus yet not quite, only physically? Perhaps, motives are hard to guess. But it's a stupid detail of course, certainly not to be taken literally, even though it can get down to freezing in Jerusalem around March / April, but this is the only (AFAIK) reference to weather in the entire NT. Hell, Jesus even curses a fig tree for not wearing fruit outside of season, so let's not take any weather / seasonal references seriously

Yes, April ignores everything, just dealing us the old fashioned biblical interpretation method of "X said this and Y said that and I'm not going to comment on any of it let alone give you footnotes with detailed references so you can do that yourself in under 5 minutes"

Logion 104 is a twister, any which way you look at it. We have the solitary and elect in Thomas, and making the two one (of which I said that you'll do so by unmaking the two, thus becoming neither). The bridegroom: his goal is to "fuse" with the bride, and the bridal chamber is ... well, what is it, really?
Is it the chamber where they are prior to marriage, or is the chamber afterwards, when they have had the (alleged) first consumation?

In the latter case, your statement prevales. In the former, the bridegroom is still solitary and elect before he enters into a life with all kinds of compromises and concessions etc. Is it oneness to marry, or is it oneness to not marry? Do we smell signs of Genesis 1 (mistakingly con-fused with Genesis 2 by Mark, causing the entire problem of "making the two one" in the canonicals which Matthew fixes later by committing blasphemy)

I like the rest of your analysis, but it all depends on what a bridal chamber really is, and what arguments are there to sustain any claim underlying that.
I'm giving you a hard time, i know, but I just haven't come around this one other than pausing at this stage, unable to advance

75. say(s) IS there-be many stand-on-foot they at-door-of the door Rather the(PL) Solitary they-who will go-inward to the place of marriage

ⲙⲁ ⲛ- ϣⲉⲗⲉⲉⲧ there, whereas the bridal chamber is ⲡ ⲛⲩⲙⲫⲱⲛ, where ⲡ ⲛⲩⲙⲫⲓⲟⲥ enters: Greek loanwords again, red alert. The place of marriage is just Coptic

i'm not sure it's intentionally meant to be funny, but that Mark/fire one is just asking to be taken to mean something else! The classic is the end of John 'someone else will clothe you and lead you were you do not want to go'. They sure did. Is so poorly explained by the narrator of John it makes no sense at all. someone has got to be kidding

i think the bridal chamber is what would be called the soul in Greek thought
God comes to dwell in there like he was supposed to live in the temple
Maybe this should be quite orthodox and in no way controversial?

With things like these, I usually approach "blockwise"; I take one single text, all occurrences of x in it, then finalise a verdict based on only that, so that it is a marked entity, a finite conclusion, of what x means in that text

Then I do the same to another text, etc. And I then compare the blocks themselves, as finished products - and then perhaps travel backwards etc

Freely associating x with y and then jumping to z... makes me dizzy and impossible to accept or reject.
I really like Socrates a lot, he was my first philosopher. Best examples are his dozens of pages trying to make clear what he and his counterpart were talking about, going back and forth and up and down and every single time finally coming back at the point of departure, like a beautiful musical composition perhaps - in order to decide that they were talking about something entirely different...

...and then leave it at that LOL

i think the bridal chamber is what would be called the soul in Greek thought
God comes to dwell in there like he was supposed to live in the temple

• Bridal chamber
• Soul
• Greek thought
• God
• Comes to dwell
• Live in
  The temple

I reckon there has been written a multitude of papers or even books about each of those. If we are trying to define the bridal chamber in Thomas, going there won't help much...



That's it, that the totality of bridal stuff in Thomas


And that's the entirety of marriage, save for the one in logion 64 who declines the dinner for reasons of his buddy marrying etc

So... one giant block of 'dunno'

Thomas literally says comprehending leads to a state of being astounded and amazed
I don't think that any concept of the bridal chamber can be separated from that

davidmartin wrote: ↑Fri Dec 11, 2020 7:17 am Thomas literally says comprehending leads to a state of being astounded and amazed
I don't think that any concept of the bridal chamber can be separated from that

Ah, then you're stuck. Why ignore the remaining 6,500 words in Thomas and hang up everything on one little Greek loanword?

Better yet, why exactly do you not think that

any concept of the bridal chamber can be separated from that