A couple of days ago, in my post on my talks at the Smithsonian, I indicated that my first lecture included a discussion of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and that in that kind of setting I have to choose carefully what I talk about. What I said in the post was:
There are all sorts of things about this book that scholars are interested in that I won’t be going into, principally because they are things that non-scholars, frankly, are *not* all that interested in, and it’s impossible, in my view, to *make* them interested in them because, well, the issues are detailed and scholarly and not at all sexy….
A couple of readers indicated that they’d like to know what sorts of things those might be. So the following is what I say about this Gospel in my Introduction to the text in the scholarly version, Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations that I wrote, edited, and translated with my colleague Zlatko Plese. Some of you will be interested in this kind of detail; very few of the people at my lecture would have been!
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This is very instructive and interesting for me. I have a question: Why there is so much disparity and so much difference in manuscripts in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas but not on the canonical gospels found in the NT? Could future undiscovered and very antique manuscripts (e.g., I or II A.D.) of the NT gospels could should this same disparity in the early beginning of Christianity and textual transmission?
Great question! I think it’s because Infancy Thomas was seen as a collection of interesting stories about Jesus’ youth — so the more the better. copying it was not a matter of preserving a sacred text. I’d be *amazed* if any NT Gospel ms were to turn up withthis much variation.
I seem to have gotten into the blog today. Don’t know what I did differently. I really enjoy the blog and learn so much from you that I use in my Spiritualist ministry. Am looking forward to your book on HOW JESUS BECAME GOD and THE BIBLE!! Keep up the great work. Also enjoyed watching your lecture in L.A.!
I find this fascinating and hardly too detailed to the extent I was wanting to read more, not because I was going to retain everything you said, but it demonstrates how complex this field is.
This to me is more valuable than the stories, except for brief summaries of them.
You referred to Georgian texts. Is this Georgia in the Caucuses? I had not seen references to texts in this language before.
Yup, that’s the one! There are Christian mss (including of the Bible) from there.
I was struck by how many details in this infancy account show up in medieval and early Renaissance paintings, such as the detail of Joseph being an elderly man (or much older than Mary) and the birth taking place in a cave–so it’s interesting to read here about how popular these stories were and how late they were in curculation.
Yes, that would be from the Proto-Gospel of James, rather than Infancy Thomas — but it’s impact is quite astounding.
It is very surprising that there are manuscripts that are not made available for scholars… Really?
The comments are indeed an enriching complement of the lectures!
Yeah, go figure.
How can this be? Have the owners/stewards of these manuscripts simply deemed them unsuitable for public or academic consumption? Who are these people? What are their motives?
I’m not sure where these mss are or who owns them. Them are probably simply sitting in libraries somewhere (or possibly monasteries?) and no one has gone to the trouble to edit them. I’ll look into it though.
I had thought it was fairly clear that Irenaeus knew about the infancy gospel, but in a previous post you expressed some doubts. What’s up with that?
It might also be interesting to know how close the infancy gospel came to being accepted as canonical. Do ANY of the ante-Nicene fathers have much to say about it?
Irenaeus knows about the episode of the boy Jesus confronting a teacher about the meaning of the alpha — but it’s not clear that Ireneaeus read this in a Gospel text. No one, in any of our records, considers the book part of the canon — but our records are very limited!
If you have a student named ‘Jesus’ show up in one of your classes, Professor Ehrman, you might be careful what you say.
Is it common for scholars to encounter other early Christian texts with the same set of problems (various forms and written languages, a late Greek version, and no verified original) that infancy Thomas has?
Yes, same problems with other texts as well!
Bart: “Of the fourteen Greek manuscripts that attest the Gospel, fully eight have never been published or made available to scholarly scrutiny.”
Can you talk about why this is? Is the set of people who would be interested so minuscule that it’s not worth the effort? If you as a scholar traveled to where ever it is these manuscripts are, would you be given access to view them? Thanks.
My hunch is that it is because no scholar has gone to the trouble of making them available to the rest of us; there are not a lot of Infancy Gospel of Thomas scholars out there. And yes, wherever they are, I’m sure scholars could be given access to them.
Why have 8 of the Greek manuscripts never ben published or subjected to scholarly study?
Scholars haven’t gone to the trouble of producing editions of them.
Hmmm reading this makes me think of the Islamic version of Jesus childhood in Surah 3:49 which states, “And will make him(Jesus) a messenger unto the Children of Israel, (saying): Lo! I come unto you with a sign from your Lord. Lo! I fashion for you out of clay the likeness of a bird, and I breathe into it and it is a bird, by Allah’s leave. I heal him who was born blind, and the leper, and I raise the dead, by Allah’s leave. And I announce unto you what ye eat and what ye store up in your houses. Lo! herein verily is a portent for you, if ye are to be believers.”
The clay bird legend has so many similarities to this Infancy Gospel of Thomas where Jesus makes 12 clay birds, and speaking it into life. I guess my question is: Do you think this Gospel’s stories were circulating in the middle east during the 6th and 7th centuries (in this case the 12 clay sparrows being turned into live birds)?
My sense is that the *story* was more widely known than was the Infancy Gospel of Thomas that contains it.
I often wonder what the Christians telling these stories and the original author(s) who wrote them down were thinking. How would this text ever have been seen positively by anyone? It makes me wonder if it truly originated from Christians. Were pagans ever sophisticated or interested enough to perhaps compose a text that appeared to originate from Christians but in fact contained the ulterior motive to slander the founder of the Christian movement?
I’m not sure *exactly* what angle you’re asking about, but starting at the end of the second century CE there were indeed philosophically trained pagan intellectuals who read the Christain texts and attacked them in writing, to slander both Jesus and his followers. (Celsus; Porphyry; etc)
Could this be a text composed by pagans meant to disparage the “sinless messiah”?
No, I don’t think there’s anyway it was composed by a non-Christian
Thank you for the insight. You say the story of the clay birds must have been picked up by the Quran somehow. I had a few questions.
1) Do we know of any connections between the Christians of Egypt ( where the Gospel was later discovered ) and the Arabian peninsula of that time ?
2) Was there ever an Arabic version of this Gospel reported?
3) There were very few Christians reported in the Arabian peninsula at that time, what are your thoughts on their predominant version of Christianity and scripture?
4) I find it interesting that this story was referenced by the Quran as the Muslims where heading for asylum in Ethiopia. It is my understanding that there was connection between the Church in Egypt and the Church in Ethiopia at that time. Would you say that it is probable that the Christian king of Ethiopia at that time had knowledge of that story ?
5) The same problems with this Gospel (various languages, late Greek version, and no verified original etc. ) exist with many of the canonized ones . What makes this fabricated?