Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Thomas logion 39. Greek loanwords are capitalised (and the translation can be found at the usual place, https://www.academia.edu/42110001)


All these are in the NT - but only Matthew has the last part, in bold. The question is: how on earth did Thomas manage to scrape these pieces together into this logion?

WEB, unfortunately, which translates Matthew's "kingdom of the heavens" with the singular, as all other, dogmatic, bible translations do


Mark doesn't have any of this - that, on a side note.
And here's the part that only Matthew has:


Marcion has the first part as well (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1765&start=10#p39317):


1. A word on order: it is clear that Luke and Marcion are in verbatim agreement against Thomas with their singular "key" in the key of knowledge.
It is also clear that Matthew couldn't possibly have preceded any of these three here, with his shut up the Kingdom of Heaven. The word in Marcion as well as Luke is τὴν κλεῖδα τῆς γνώσεως, the key of Gnosis: not a particularly 'xtian' word, and it is evident why Matthew ditched it. Not so evident is why he came up with this lame alternative, but likely he was tired at the end of his gospel and ran out of creative juice.
Thomas has ⲛ̄ ϣⲁϣⲧ` ⲛ̄ ⲧ ⲅⲛⲱⲥⲓⲥ as well, that's verbatim agreement although naturally ⲛ̄ ϣⲁϣⲧ is plural; 'the keys'

2. Just as in viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7705&p=119091#p119091 a Thomas logion gets split: taking into consideration all the text of the entire NT, Thomas would have had to combine Luke 11:39-41 with Matthew 10:16

Any takers for this crazy and wild theory? Or do people just think that the dove / serpent part was a common saying?
A bit of Greek and Coptic for comparison's sake:




Phronimos is verbatim, and the Coptic ϩⲟϥ ('hof'), https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C7010, indeed is derived from the Greek ὄφις - that's another verbatim agreement. But that's not where it ends; ἀκέραιοι equals ⲁⲕⲉⲣⲁÏⲟⲥ


So. Thomas took Luke, changed 'lawyers' to 'Pharisees and scribes' and ignored all other verbatimness there, and then combined that with Matthew 10:16, while exhausting himself to agree verbatim in every aspect there, isn't it? Oh wait, he took the first part from Matthew as well, of course:


and reversed the order there? Note the fairly verbatim agreement between Luke and Matthew for entering / hindering in this last bold italic part.
And note the lightgreen highlight, and it is evident how it all unfolded, with Matthew being inspired via Luke's "key".
And Luke agrees verbatim with Marcion


and Marcion got inspired by Thomas.
So, what do you think is happening here?

In the past when I've studied Matthew's and Thomas's versions, I thought of both reflecting wisdom of the wondering charismatics who were sent out by Jesus two by two with nothing but the clothes on their backs. This meant spending time in the paths between towns, and in nature with the doves and the snakes, and entering towns like the doves and the snakes.

I thought 1) Jesus said it. 2) the disciples remembered it and shared it in spoken word and text. Thus it appears in multiple texts and contexts.

As to what it meant: It is open, and polyvalent, and not overly constrained by tradition. The "kingdom of the heavens" is for poets without "keys" in their purses (were there house keys back then?). I had not imagined what literal keys might have looked like in those days until now: https://www.historicallocks.com/en/site ... y-of-keys/

gryan wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 1:20 pm In the past when I've studied Matthew's and Thomas's versions, I thought of both reflecting wisdom of the wondering charismatics who were sent out by Jesus two by two with nothing but the clothes on their backs. This meant spending time in the paths between towns, and in nature with the doves and the snakes, and entering towns like the doves and the snakes.

I thought 1) Jesus said it. 2) the disciples remembered it and shared it in spoken word and text. Thus it appears in multiple texts and contexts.

As to what it meant: It is open, and polyvalent, and not overly constrained by tradition. The "kingdom of the heavens" is for poets without "keys" in their purses (were there house keys back then?). I had not imagined what literal keys might have looked like in those days until now: https://www.historicallocks.com/en/site ... y-of-keys/

Only when you place Thomas in the context of the Jesus of the canonicals can you do that.
Thomas doesn't send out anyone, let alone in two's, neither to nature nor to towns.
In Thomas the disciples don't repeat or say anything that his IS has said, they only ask dumb questions

"not overly constrained by tradition." - you got to be kidding. There is not a shred of anything canonical in Thomas, absolutely nothing. Tanakh, yes, and of course he has a few names, being the creator of them, but this is the wildest euphemism that I've ever heard regarding Thomas

And Thomas is not polyvalent at all, everything in him points to non duality, it is a refutation of all that goes straight back to Socrates, while it greatly promotes Tao-like symbiosis, the becoming One again. Yes, it plays in a very strongly anti-Judean and anti-Judaic background, in a typical Teacher-Disciple setting, but that about sums up what it shares with the NT.
The sayings are just that, none of them get explained, exploited. Perhaps that is what you mean with "open and polyvalent"?