Loading...The Gospel of Thomas is almost certainly the most important Gospel from outside the New Testament. Here I talk about what it’s overarching message is, and how it relates to the Gospels that did make it into the Christian Scripture. Again, this is taken from my textbook on the NT.
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The Overarching Message of the Book. The meanings of many of Thomas’s sayings are in no way obvious. If they were, they would not be called secret! Even though the book contains nothing like the Sethian or Valentian myths, some of the sayings do seem to reflect roughly analogous understandings of the world and the human’s place in it (see earlier posts on Gnosticism). Within the hearer is an element of the divine—a soul—that had a heavenly origin (it originated “in the place where the light came into being”). This world we live in is inferior at best, and is more appropriately thought of as a cesspool of suffering, “a corpse.” A person’s inner being (the “light” within) has tragically fallen into this material world, where it has become entrapped in a body (sunk into “poverty”), and in that condition it has become forgetful of its origin (or “drunk”). It needs to be reawakened by learning the truth about this material world and the impoverished material body that it inhabits. Jesus is the one who conveys this truth; once the soul learns the meaning of his words, it will be able to strip off this body of death, symbolized sometimes as garments of clothing, and escape this material world. It will then have salvation, life eternal; it will rejoin the divine realm and rule over all. There may be no need to call this Gospel “Gnostic,” but one can certainly see why many of its teachings would resonate with a Gnostic.
There is not a word in the Gospel of Thomas about Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Indeed, for this author none of Jesus’ earthly activities appear to matter; there is also no word here of ….
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This is so interesting.
“Finally, if Thomas did use the Synoptics, it would be especially hard to explain why he left out of his account most of their sayings of Jesus, many of them relevant to his agenda. It is probably better, therefore, to assume that the author who calls himself Thomas knew a number of the sayings of Jesus and understood these sayings in a particular way, based on his own distinctive understanding of the world and the human’s place in it.”
So presumably, if Thomas dates to the second century and its author didn’t know the Synoptics, we can conclude that a saying which appears both in Thomas and in the Synoptics is independently attested by multiple sources? And is therefore more likely to be historical, or at least to date to very early tradition?
Yes, that’s my view.
Hi Bart, Elaine Pagels gas put forth a very interesting theory about the Gospel of Thomas.
She argues that The Gospel of John was composed as a rebuttal of Thomas.Her main argument is the “ doubting Thomas “ section.
This must mean that Thomas existed before John’s Gospel or around the same time?
What are your thoughts on this?
I disagree with it heartily, but it’s an interesting thesis (she’s picking it up from Gregory Riley). Even if there are groups within Christaintiy who are championing Thomas over John or John over Thomas, that doesn’t mean that these particular two texts (John and Thomas) can be *dated* in relation to each other because of those disagreements. There are good reasons for dating John some decades earleir than Thomas, so i don’t see how it can be a response to it.
Do we have early Church Fathers commenting on this gospel (pro or con), or was it off their radars?
We have a couple of possible references, but no extended discussions, comments, or refutations.
It’s hard to imagine a Christianity not focused on the death and Resurrection of Jesus. Thanks for your summary of material that would have been quite difficult for most of us to put together.
I now have your book “The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings”. Great book/text! Something I haven’t figured out is how do scholars know when the original Gospels (not copies) were written since apparently none survived? For example, the Gospel of John is dated 125 C.E., “thirty to thirty-five years after John was original written.” (Ehrman, 23) Since the original authors were anonymous couldn’t P52 be the original manuscript written by an educated Greek living around 125 C.E who wrote the narrative as he heard it by oral tradition?
Perhaps it’s a form of literary analysis I’m not familiar with that you’ve mentioned here regarding whether or not the author of Thomas used a source?
I”ve posted on this before — maybe I should do it again! I’ll add it to the list of things to do on the blog.
Apologies for the repetition, I recently became interested in this field of history and was unfamiliar with your work. I found some of the answer in one of your debates on YouTube (someone asked about it in the Q&A). Most of my questions you have probably covered in your writings anyway.
It’s at https://ehrmanblog.org/dates-of-the-gospels/ .
Is there anything we can infer from the omission of the resurrection?
Probably not, since there aren’t narratives of *any* kind….
Loving this thread!! Do you have a sense of whether Thomas used Q as a source, or was there another source or verbal traditions?
See today’s post!
Dr. Ehrman,
If the point was to create a Gospel that contains “secret ” teachings, would there not need to be common knowledge that is widely shared or understood first? What would the author of Thomas considered to be the “common teachings”, other than earlier Gospels such as the ones found in the NT?
Thanks
Interesting question — but I’m not sure there is any way to know. Nothing in Thomas, that I can think of, suggests that the author is presupposing knowledge of other Gospels, just a basic knowledge of who Jesus was, as assumed for anyone in a Christian community.
Most interesting. These teachings/sayings call to mind the nondualistic teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism. I am wondering if Jesus really did say these words and, perhaps because the Jews to whom he was speaking completely missed the point, they were disregarded. Unfortunately, I guess we will never know.
Your blog appeal (in red) brought about the first chuckle of the day.
It occurs to me that this view of the world (or universe) is just as reasonable as the one put forwards in the Synoptics. It just sounds odd because it’s not as familiar.
So I suppose the next question, Professor, is whether the authors of the Synoptic Gospels knew Thomas and, if so, where and how they used it?
I think Thomas must be later than the Synoptics — the sayings that strike us as unusual are like other sayings of jesus found only in second century sources, and are far removed from what a first-century Palestinian Jew woudl have been likely to say.
Dr. Ehrman, thank you for devoting so much attention to the Gospel of Thomas. This is my first exposure to it and I find it as fascinating as I do confusing. After reading Thomas, I came away with more questions than answers. I’m finding many scholars have the same experience . I wonder why the author lists 144 sayings of Christ , do you know if that number is significant or just coincidence.
Could you recommend any additional books or articles, especially for the lay person approaching this material for the first time ?
Oops, I think you spoke about the Gospel of Thomas in your book Forged . That might be a good start .
thank you
Ah, it would be (12×12)! But, alas, it is 114 sayings. And the manuscript itself does not give the enumeration: that is simply how modern editors break down the Gospel (like verse numbers added by translators of the NT today)
Oh no ! I can’t believe I said 144 sayings, after reading all your blog entries and reading the Gospel of Thomas. I doubt I’ll ever forget that it is 114 sayings again. 🙂
…. have a nice Labor Day Weekend .
“It does not appear that the Gospel of Thomasactually used the Synoptic Gospels to formulate its own sayings of Jesus. As we have seen, the burden of proof in such matters is on the one who claims that an author used another document as a source. The surest indicators of reliance upon a source are detailed and extensive verbal parallels, but this is precisely what we do not find with the Gospel of Thomas and the Synoptics. There are many similar sayings but few extensive verbal correspondences.”
Such would be an acceptable burden of proof only for someone who might like to claim that Thomas’ wording of the similar statements of Jesus is slavishly dependent upon any of the synoptic gospels in a word-for-word manner. The lack thereof certainly does not and cannot logically rule out the possibility or likelihood that the author of the gospel of Thomas or prior tradents were not at least indirectly dependent upon post-synoptic tradition or that the final composer did not freely adopt and adapt such traditions creatively. Slavish dependence and complete and utter independence are opposite extremes on a continuum and not binary black and white options. Thus if a Jesus-Quester wants to appeal to the independence of the gospels of Thomas or John from the post-synoptic tradition as independent attestation for her or his historical reconstruction, surely they should not shirk responsibility for assuming this burden of proof. Surely this burdenless judgment of independent attestation is the weakest point in the argumentation of many Jesus Questors.
See today’s post!
Sorry if you’re going to get to this later in your thread but just how useful a descriptor has “Gnosticism” become? Aren’t these groups just examples of the pagan tendency to syncretism? There were obviously at least some Christian groups who absorbed pagan ideas and some pagan groups who absorbed Christian ideas. And of course converts didn’t immediately abandon all their previous beliefs back then any more than they do now. So, in the end, was “Gnosticism” really a thing?
Thanks!
That’s what I was trying to get at in my posts on Sethianism, Valentinianism, etc. Gnosticism is a broad umbrella category, not a prescise description.
How valuable/expensive were iron and bronze in ancient Rome?
I don’t know how to answer your question I’m afraid.
“How valuable/expensive were iron and bronze in ancient Rome?”
This might give you can idea. The smallest unit of currency in the Greek world was the obol, which was usually a coin (but sometimes a stick) consisting of about three-fourths of a gram of copper. One obol could purchase about a half gallon to a gallon of wine. Six obols made up one drachma, which was the average days pay for a day laborer. In other words, the average days wages for a worker in the ancient world was roughly equivalent to 4.5 grams of copper. By way of comparison, the US penny weighs 2.5 grams (though the modern penny is mostly zinc now), so the average ancient daily wage could be thought of as about one and a half pennies. To give you a sense of how valuable that one drachma of copper was, consider that a bronze sword in the ancient world could contain as much as 700 grams of copper, which was the equivalent of 155 days of labor. The cost of iron was comparable.
There seem to be three very different “takes” on the significance of Jesus: 1) Jesus the giver of secret messages with little to say about his death or life; 2) Jesus the example, a view that focuses on the synoptic gospels and is emphasized in progressive churches; 3) Jesus the savior, a view of Paul, evangelical and other conservative Christians. Is there any other important historical figure for whom such widely divergent “takes” on him exist(ed)?
I suppose, for example, that the Roman emperor would be understood in multiple ways by different people. ANd probably other religious figures at the time, even though we don’t have good documentation for them, as we do for Jesus. John the Baptist maybe, for example?
Modern political leaders hold a similarly divergent place in the minds of the citizenry: from officiant to divine representative.
just need to say: Enjoying the red ink. Love the variation-within-the-sameness! 😉
I’m interested in the relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and the Acts of Thomas. Which came first? The Acts is less overtly Gnostic than the Gospel, but it includes the tradition that Thomas was Jesus’ twin and best disciple, as well as the doctrine that many Gnostics adhered to regarding importance of sexual abstinence. It reads in some ways like a romance where, instead of the lovers getting married at the end, they opt for abstinence and thereby live happily ever after. Was it written as a gateway to attract a wide audience into the Gnostic mysteries?
Gospel of Thomas is usually dated first, early second century; Acts of Thomas later in the century.
So what I know about Thomas is that there is 114 sayings, some of which that are already found in the New Testament. But I had heard that some of the sayings in Thomas appear to be older than the ones that are in the New Testament. Which ones are they? Did the author of Thomas have an older written account of the sayings then the Gospels?
Scholars think so are thinking of the sayings that sound like the ones in the Synoptics but are even more pithy and to the point, such as Thomas’s version of the blind leading the blind.
Oh Bart! I beg to differ with your assertion that Thomas is the most important, but I do rate it as second equal, volume relative, to Egerton 2, in terms of Christian literature. Instead I rate the Protogospel as the most important document. I bought a copy of your Lost Scriptures… many years ago, to find out what was really going on with the JC game, and it helped me a lot. Yet your readings of Thomas, and those of most other scholars miss the mark on many levels. For example, April DeConick, through J. Fitzmyer and T. Akagi, has soundly addressed T30 (April D. DeConick, Vigiliae Christianae, 60, no. 2, Corrections to the Critical Reading of the “Gospel of Thomas”, May 2006, pp.201-208), which, I hate to say, I should have figured for myself. I’ve made much progress with it as a whole, before and since. Conversely you did a great job bringing out the extended version of the Protogospel. Thomas is very, very important, but having completed a detailed analysis on the Protogospel with respect to the Qur’an just yesterday I have to say that these two provide the most important Gospel works outside the NT. Of course a concluding statement from Thomas in conjunction with one of the prophets does appear in the Qur’an, but only once.
It’s like our students. We aren’t supposed to have favorites, but we do.
Two questions.
1.) What and where is the best English translation of Thomas on the web?
2.) Who came up with this numbering system?
Some sayings seem to contain what are at best unrelated concepts, if not outright non sequiturs — disjunctions underscored by the apparent correspondence of the constituents with pericopes in other sources that are equally and entirely unconnected.
Take, for example, saying 6 in which Jesus is asked about fasting and prayer in an exchange that sounds very similar to Mk 2:18//Mt 9:14//Lk 5:33.
His answer consists of three, disjointed statements. The first is reminiscent of the “Follow the Commandments” (or at least one of them) reply he gave to the question of how one can inherit eternal life at Mk 10:19//Mt 19:17/Lk 18:20. This is followed by something akin to the “Golden Rule” pericope at Mt 7:12//Lk 6:31. Then, without a hint of transition, he makes a completely unrelated observation about “Nothing hidden that won’t be revealed” also preserved in Mk 4:22//Mt 10:26//Lk 12:2.
The only thing the three parts of this answer have in common with one another is that they are ALL equally non responsive to the question!
Okay, just one more.
3.) Has this post hoc numbering system ever been challenged?
1. I don’t know. I”m not sure I’ve ever looked! 2. I believe it was the editors who published the first edition, Guillaumont, Puech, Quispel, Till and Masih (in 1959); but I don’t know which one of them 3. A number of scholars have suggested that some of the sayings should be combined into one or divided into two or more, but off hand I don’t know of anyone publishing a translation with a different numbering system. Most everyone realizes that it’s just a relatively arbitrary designation system that makes referencing easier.
Though working independently, Matthew and Luke employed the same literary approach.
Serving more as editors than authors, both used — and largely incorporated — Mark as their narrative timeline, adding pericopes from a source to which both had access (Q) and from one uniquely available to each (M and L.)
Having not conferred/collaborated, they, of course, made different editorial decisions on how to best incorporate non-Markan material.
Their efforts as original authors were limited to:
1.) Creating miraculous, “nativity story” prologues and post-Resurrection epilogues (that are, likewise and unsurprisingly, contradictory) in an effort to cast Jesus as the “Messiah” prophesied in Jewish scripture
2.) Transitions where needed, and
3.) Occasional, editorial comments (the latter being more a compulsion for Matthew than Luke.)
If I have erred in any of this, please correct my misunderstanding. If not, isn’t it all the more likely that Thomas — who makes no attempt at a narrative framework — took an even more casual approach in assembling the individual pericopes he got from his sources (T?) via oral tradition and/or as individual writings?
Aside from his saying 1 introduction, Thomas makes NO contributions as author — and, ironically enough, appears to have made even less of an effort as compiler/editor!
I’d say that it’s clear they made transitions and edits; I don’t think it’s clear they created the nativity stories themselves, any more than the other stories they have uniquely to themselves (there are lots). I also don’t think that the approach taken by two authors/editors is evidence for how other authors/editors did it. The question is what Thomas’s sources actually were, and I don’t think we can answer that by first suggesting how he must have treated them (see what I mean). We also don’t know which of the sayings Thomas may have created himself, other than the ones that are attested elsewhere inthe tradition before him.
The nativity tales are so fanciful and suspiciously suited to each author’s agenda that I made the (perhaps, unwarranted) inference that it was his own creation. Is there any independent attestation for ANY of the particulars in either of them?
Prudence would certainly dictate their having had some basis for their (contradictory) genealogies. But otherwise, which scenario is more likely — that Luke unthinkingly transmitted the Herod-Quirinius timeframe blunder? Or that he made it himself? That Matthew, who so single-mindedly portrayed Jesus as the new Moses proclaiming a New Covenant from another Mount, was similarly incautious in repeating tales of Herod’s homage to Yahweh’s “Slaughter of the Innocents” and the Holy Family’s evading Flight into Egypt? Or that he concocted these stories himself?
There’s no hope of ever actually learning the genesis of either Nativity legend. As my favorite scholar tirelessly observes, we can only attempt to establish what is most probable.🙂
So, let’s speculate. Is it more probable that tales of Jesus before he and John the Baptist parted ways were in circulation and simply recorded by Matthew and Luke in their preceding chapters? Or that these emerged like Athena from Zeus — fully formed in the heads of the authors?
It think one of the big problems iwth the nativity stories is that their themes are never mentioned again later in the Gospels — e.g., Virgin birth, birth in Bethlehem, and so on. Matthew has clearly edited whatever he’s received to get the fulfillment citations in , but if they themselves wrote the accounts it’s weird they never revert to them.
Good point. But with Matthew it fits. Deconstructing the work of the author of Luke/Acts seems far more problematic — for reasons you have detailed in any number of your very illuminating lectures.
It may be well, widely and long known among NT scholars, but for me the deduction that the first two chapters of Luke’s gospel were likely a post hoc addition by the author came as a startling and insightful observation. Not only does his third chapter both begin with what very much sounds like a historical prologue AND an otherwise inexplicably misplaced genealogy, but the existence of an earlier edition — sans chapters 1 and 2 — would eliminate the need to presuppose a conspiracy theory by Marcion to explain his “heretical” Christology.
I don’t know whether or not Luke is considered the most difficult author to grok in your loftier, scholarly circles, but you have led this amateur to regard him as the most inscrutable in the entire canon. Even John seems more accessible by comparison.
In fact, though I incidentally noted this previously, IMHO your three-part Shaffer Lectures series on the Gospel of Luke ought to be considered “Must-See TV” by anyone interested in NT scholarship.
Whether the (contradictory) prologues and epilogues to Jesus’ ministry according to Matthew and Luke were extant legends they recounted or fictional bookends of their own manufacture is not IMHO of any particular moment. The far more important question is the authenticity of those “other stories they have uniquely to themselves” to which you allude.
Until I discovered your books and lectures I had only the vaguest awareness of the entire discipline of textual criticism. (That glimmering, I should add, must be credited to my RCC upbringing which, at least, allowed for critical examination of scripture.)
I eventually came to the realization that what had kept alive the flicker of possibility that the man, Jesus of Nazareth, had in fact also been a divine emissary, the “Incarnate Word” from a higher, spiritual plane of existence, was above all else, the soul-stirring truths conveyed via his signature teaching device — incredibly powerful, vividly illustrative parables.
One thing I had long appreciated is that too many of these (e.g., “The Prodigal Son” or “The Sheep and the Goats”) survive in one or the other of two, solitary sources that I now know — thanks to your enlightening — scholars refer to as “M” and “L.”
Since you have made discerning the authenticity of the surviving words and deeds of Jesus your life’s work, I am more keenly interested in your assessment of those “other stories” that the M and L sources “have uniquely to themselves,” i.e., the reliability of words they attribute to Jesus, himself.
In fact I’d give give odds that if you were to make “An Analysis of the Parables of Jesus” your next book, it would become another best seller. Having long searched for books — popular or scholarly — that provide an objective (rather than apologetic) consideration of this subject, I know such a work would fill a conspicuous void. I’m sure I am not the only one eager to read such an analysis by a highly-respected, UNBIASED scholar on the authenticity and best contextual interpretation of the parables of Jesus. You would probably set a new record for pre-orders from participants on this blog, alone!
In the meantime… What is your assessment of the only parable I have come across that both sounds authentic (to these amateur ears) and is NOT in the canon, but found in the very subject of this thread: “The Parable of the Empty Jar” (Th. 97)?
I *love* it. But I don’t think it’s historical. It can, of coruse, be interpreted in a variety of ways. I like to think of it as the person who loses his soul without realizing it. Happens a lot….
Me, too. Maybe for the same reason — the startling conclusion.
What makes the parables of Jesus so compelling is that they not only take an unexpected turn, but one that leads to an intensely personal place by exposing presuppositions that are as long-held as they are unexamined.
His morality tales shatter unquestioned truisms and shake one’s ethical foundations. Worse, the verdict is not decreed by some authority from on high. Judgment is, instead, rendered entirely by your own conscience!
Anyone with ears to hear is left humbled, embarrassed and (as your erstwhile, fundamentalist compatriots like to put it): “convicted.”
How many of us could honestly say we wouldn’t have been just as resentful as the Prodigal Son’s big brother? Or just as likely to complain about being short-changed as the laborers who worked the entire day and got no bonus?
Why bother debating the metaphorical fires of some afterlife Gehenna when you just got burned in the here and now? By a father who — rightly — sees only a reason to celebrate your younger brother’s escape from self-destruction. Or by a vineyard owner who unmasks your attempts to dress up envy as a demand for justice… when you were never cheated!
Though less elaborate than the parables of the “Prodigal Son” or the “Laborers in the Vineyard,” the “Empty Jar” takes a similarly startling turn — back on anyone who doesn’t bother to examine the structural soundness of any doctrinal container of received wisdom.
It seems to me that this parable illustrates the “sin of omission.” Unintentional does not absolve unthinking. Slowly losing one’s soul as a result of failing to notice that your vessel of Moral Uprightness was flawed from the outset, nevertheless results in your arriving home empty-handed.
The consequences of this dereliction of responsibility will eventually, but inevitably, fall with the finality of the proverbial Sword of Damocles. Pleas of ignorance and expressions of regret will not somehow make the Nuremberg Defense viable.
If there is some other way to interpret the Empty Jar, it escapes me.
There is, I must add, no small irony in this parable having been (at least one of an unknowable number ruled heretical and) excluded by the very orthodox apologists most desperately in need of reflecting upon it.
Further, for yours truly the Empty Jar doesn’t just have the ring, but the pealing resound, of authenticity. How did you come to doubt its historicity?
Every saying of Jesus has to be evaluated according to how widely it is attested and whether it coincides closely with the views ofthe people telling it. In this case I don’t think the story passes the tests.
If not for the renegade, 4th-century monk(s) who hid “heretical” texts in the Egyptian desert to be stumbled upon — a millennium and a half later — by some 20th-century peasant-farmers, we wouldn’t even HAVE this parable. Ironically, the Empty Jar was miraculously resurrected from a jar that wasn’t empty.
Might it also have been in the Gospel of the Hebrews, or the Ebionites, or the Nazarenes? Could it have appeared somewhere in the chapters that preceded the passion narrative in the “Gospel of Peter” (the surviving fragment owing to yet another renegade monk)? We’ll probably never know.
But whether all these other texts were lost to book pyres stoked by the aborning RCC (as I suspect) or to mere neglect (as you seem to more charitably incline), hopes of finding ANY independent attestation seem — not to put too fine a point on it — remote.
Though this is the only record of the Empty Jar in the only surviving copy of the only text that includes it — the “heretical” Gospel of Thomas — is this parable any more or less dissimilar to the agenda of ANY of the canonical gospels or the succession of orthodox Christologies supposedly derived from them?
could it have been in thosee texts? Sure. Anything’s possible. (I saw a cartoon once with a scholar at his desk in front of a manuscript of the Dead Sea Scrolls declaring that he had just discovered a recipe for brownies in it…)
Is it possible a copy of one of the many texts poisoned by Epiphanius’ medicine chest will rise from the ash heaps (or dust bins) and just might possibly include the “Empty Jar” to validate the parable thus far found only in the resurrected Gospel of Thomas? As you say, anything’s possible. But experience suggests that even the first half of that miracle only happens once in fifteen hundred years, requiring a bit more patience than i can muster.
Although such Independent Attestation would be the most dispositive kind of evidence, I’m afraid that criterion is pretty much off the table.
Next best, Dissimilarity, already a subjective inference, becomes doubly problematic WRT a parable rather than an event (such as Jesus having been baptized “for the forgiveness of sin” or his promising Judas Iscariot an earldom in the coming Kingdom.)
That leaves only Contextual Credibility — the least compelling, perhaps, but last one standing of authenticity criteria.
Uses customarily fall within one of two, broad categories: literary/linguistic (e.g., the conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus in John), and historical/cultural/geographic (e.g., Caesar’s worldwide tax in Luke.) Both are, likewise, inapplicable for ascertaining the authenticity of a parable.
However, it occurs to me that…
There is a THIRD category of context. One I have not seen explicitly cited, but upon which you actually based an entire book. Call it: “Consonance.”
We can ask about ANY of the putative words or deeds of Jesus — including the parables — whether or not it comports or conflicts with the rest of the record.
That is precisely the premise of your insightful “Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium.” As you rightly observe, all that Jesus said during his ministry, as well as his deliberately bringing it to such a horrific end in a seemingly foolhardy confrontation with the religious and secular establishment, must be considered in the context of his self-regard as an apocalyptic prophet.
I am merely suggesting that the authenticity of the Parable of the Empty Jar be similarly assessed, i.e., by considering it within the larger context of all the other parables. Although I specifically referenced only one each from Luke and Matthew, with a total corpus of more than FIFTY parables we should rise to the Muppets challenge: “One of these parables is not like the others. One of these parables is NOT the same!”
Would the “Empty Jar” be the discordant one?
Yes, traditionally that was called the Criterion of Coherence, and it certainly has to be considered. But of course the fact that a saying/parable of Jesus coheres with others that are established as authentic on other grounds (that, btw, is the criterion: it’s not just that it coheres with other things he’s recorded as saying but with ones that have other strong claims to authenticity) is not probative so much as suggestive.
Thanks for your patient sufferance, professor. We greatly benefit from your good work as both a scholar and an educator — rather than having devoted yourself (as most academics do) primarily to one over the other — as you are uncommonly adept at both. (“Coherence” is probably the better label BTW.)
You frequently — and correctly — challenge your debate adversaries: “Where is the evidence?” For the Parable of the Empty Jar there IS an answer: the Gospel of Thomas!
Although we have (unfortunately and for whatever reason) only a single, surviving copy of this text, AFAIK it IS accepted among your scholarly colleagues as traceable to within a roughly half-century span that puts it alongside the composition of all the gospels that ARE widely accepted as providing authentic information (though as you note, not necessarily all of the pericopes they contain.)
Doesn’t the single-source objection, likewise, impugn the authenticity of both the Prodigal Son and the Laborers in the Vineyard? Do you regard either or both of those as similarly suspect? Or is there something more than the criterion of Coherence (and, of course, canonization by the Holy See) that particularly supports the bona fides of those parables?
Yes, every saying of Jesus ever recorded or spoken has evidence. The evidence of the person who says it! But then the next step has to be taken: what evidence outside of the fact that it is recorded or spoken speaks in its favor? Every single-source saying has exactly the same issue, those who think a saying is authentic have to give compelling reasons for thinking so. That’s how historical investigation works.
The only source for this parable — on the dangers of blissful ignorance — is a clearly gnostic gospel, making it not at all dissimilar to the theological agenda of the author/editor. But as you have noted about this criterion, it can merely provide support for authenticity in the opposite circumstance. The fact that the Empty Jar coheres with the theology of Thomas does not diminish its potential authenticity.
If “compelling reasons” are circumscribed by the first two criteria, doesn’t making a case for the historicity of ANY sole-source pericope become… academic? 😉
That’s why I began this thread by arguing for the consonance (which I appreciate your correcting to “coherence” BTW) of the Empty Jar with other parables — at least in terms of style and structure — specifically citing one each from Luke and Matthew.
That brings me back to the consequences of applying these same standards of rigor to the Prodigal Son and the Laborers in the Vineyard — neither of which is independently attested nor dissimilar to the theological agenda of THOSE author/editors!
If good scholarship gooses Thomas, what happens when we take a gander at Matthew and Luke?
(“Don’t be saucy with me, Béarnaise!” 😎)
Most scholars these days don’t consider Thomas “gnostic,” and if it is, it’s a different kind of Gnosticism. (I happen to think it is some Thomasine form). The “style” of parables, of course, was widely known and used.
Until the serendipitous recovery of Thomas — the gospel that once was lost, but now is found 😉 — didn’t authenticity for ALL the parables (including the one that inspired that memorable line) rest entirely on single sources?
Is “The Prodigal Son” attested anywhere other than in Luke? Or “The Laborers in the Vineyard” anywhere other than in Matthew? Or “The Sower” anywhere other than in Mark (before the Nag Hammadi affirmation, and aside from his canonical successors who obviously thought it worth plagiarizing)?
If ALL the parables in the canon derive from single sources, how can we know that ANY of them trace back to the historical Jesus?
That problem notwithstanding, the very raison d’être of any morality tale is — axiomatically — to illustrate the moral views of the teller. How can we know that a secondhand report has fairly conveyed the raconteur’s intent? Absent independent attestation, that would seem to be a prereq to any assessment of dis/similarity with the recounter’s own theological agenda.
If the historicity of any parable doesn’t depend entirely on coherence (and, of course, canonization by the RCC), how can we broom “The Empty Jar” without simultaneously sweeping Prodigal Son & Co. into the same authenticity dustbin?
That continues to be true on one level. What you look for when it comes to multiple attestation is independent attestation of the same KINDS of parables or of different VERSIONS of the saem parable. (So, e.g.. if you have multiple surces indicating that Jesus told parables about seends to illustrate his teahiings about hte the kingdom of God then it’s more likely he did tell that kind of parable)
My ignorance of Coptic or Greek could fill volumes. But evidence in translation of Thomas’ editorial ineptitude abounds!
Consider, for example, how the opening lines of saying 6 (“His disciples questioned him: ‘Do you want us to fast? And how should we pray and give alms?’”) are precisely and appositely answered — a mere eight sayings later — in the opening lines of saying 14 (“Jesus said to them: ‘If you fast, you will bring forth sin for yourselves. And if you pray, you will be condemned. And if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits.’”)
Unrelated pericopes have been confoundingly interposed between very specific questions and very succinct answers — in manifestly EXACT correspondence!
Further, how could even the most careless editor, having transcribed the perfectly coherent and complete saying 5, fail to notice that it is immediately repeated as a part (one of three!) of an utterly non-responsive, non sequitur answer to the questions that elicit the VERY NEXT saying?
Is there no scholarship that starts with the supposition that Thomas did NOT inerrantly preserve his source(s) and — taking account of parallels in other sources — hypothesizes a reorganization that would bring some coherence to the sayings?
YOu might want to read the commentaries on the Gospel of Thomas, where they address these issues in some depth.
The criterion of independent attestation doesn’t support the authenticity of The Prodigal Son (unique to Luke) or The Laborers in the Vineyard (unique to Matthew) or The Sower (unique to Mark) — or, for that matter, any other parable in the canon.
By expanding admissibility to include extra-canonical sources The Sower enjoys attestation in Thomas — as do The Growing Seed (also in Mark), both The Wheat and the Tares and The Hidden Treasure (in Matthew), as well as a number of others.
Since neither Thomas nor (AFAIK) any other source independently attests The Prodigal Son or The Laborers in the Vineyard, that criterion gives them no better claim to authenticity than The Empty Jar.
Indeed, all three parables not only trace to a single source, but lack even the second-hand validation of, at least, having been plagiarized by another author, e.g., Mark’s The Sower, that both Matthew and Luke considered sufficiently credible to incorporate into their own gospels.
So is the fact that The Empty Jar is unique to Thomas sufficient cause to reject its authenticity, or do we throw the much-beloved Prodigal Son and Laborers in the Vineyard (and even Good Samaritan 😨) babies out with the independent attestation bathwater?
That’s right. YOu apply the same criterion to every part of every Gospel. And not just one criterion — but all of them. Some single-sourced materials have grounds for acceptance better than others, based, e.g., on their coherence or contradiction with materials previously established as likely authentic.
So WRT the authenticity of ~50 parables in the synoptics (the conspicuous absence of which in John BTW&IMHO seriously impugns the credibility of this source — before even getting to the grandiose pronouncements that author uniquely attributes to Jesus), doesn’t accepted deconstruction eliminate the criterion of Independent Attestation from consideration?
If Mark provided the timeline/foundation for both Matthew (Mark + Q + M) and Luke (Mark + Q + L), is there ANY parable in the canon that DOESN’T ultimately trace to a single, unattested source?
Additionally, isn’t the criterion of Dissimilarity inherently problematic for assessing the authenticity of a (by definition, fictional) morality tale — making it, too, effectively inapplicable?
If both, this one-two punch would seem to leave the criterion of Coherence the ‘last man standing,’ so-to-speak.
Assuming a particular parable (for instance, the non-canonical “Empty Jar”) doesn’t include some anachronistic or historically discordant detail (it doesn’t), isn’t the only context available for assessing credibility the ~50 other parables that comprise the larger corpus?
Though admittedly and unfortunately subjective, what basis remains for assessing the authenticity of the “Empty Jar” — or even any canonical parable — other than how well it aligns in form, style, lesson, etc. with all the others?
There aree some things we just can’t know. If we have a tradition attested by only one source that is not dissimilar – how are you going to show that it *probably* goes back to Jesus? If it coheres closely with his teachings it’s at least plausible.
It’s ironic that the most difficult words to authenticate should be those that constitute Jesus’ signature teaching style. 😑
IMHO observing that the Empty Jar “coheres closely with his teachings” is the apotheosis of understatement.
This parable not only perfectly coheres with the ≅50 parables in the canon, but with all of his explicit (non-metaphorical) aphorisms and injunctions throughout his entire ministry!
Didn’t he incessantly warn that the greatest dangers of straying from the path that leads to eternal life are all the distractions of the temporal world it passes through — together with our own, boundless capacity for rationalizing and self-deception? Couldn’t most of Jesus’ teachings have begun with the words: “Don’t think that…”?
The essential message of his entire ministry (ultimately perverted by Paul and John who, as you so insightfully put it, remade the religion OF Jesus into a religion ABOUT Jesus 😠) is eternal vigilance against the possibility of arriving home oblivious… and empty-handed!
Of course, neither Paul nor John was there to hear whether or not Jesus told the Parable of the Empty Jar.
What still eludes me, however, is how you came to say “I *love* it” and then immediately add, “But I don’t think it’s historical.” 🤔
Why?
I”m absolutely fine if you want to think it’s something he said. I’d be happy if he did. I just don’t see the force of your argument. The parable is completely unlike any that we have from him, even if you are able to interpret in a way that coheres with his other teachings. (And of course there are lots of other ways to interpret it. It is easily open to various gnostic construals, e.g.). But I suppose we’ve kicked this one around enough. How ’bout we moved to something else?
I appreciate your having continued this thread for as long as you did, professor. I’m fixated on Thomas because the God I believe in does not intervene in this world or what we do with it. He sends us “Word” of “the Way” to spiritual progress/perfection, but otherwise leaves it up to us how we receive and what we do with it.
Divine laissez faire IMHO precludes the possibility of magical books, making me especially eager (okay, obsessive) about ANYTHING that survives of the authentic words of the Word.
If you could indulge just two more simple, straightforward questions:
1. Absent another fortuitous discovery to corroborate Thomas, coherence would seem to be the ONLY criterion available for assessing the historicity of the Empty Jar. Is the consensus among your professional colleagues that this is inherently insufficient, or do some argue for its authenticity?
2. Do you also regard Thomas’ other unattested parables — about the Children in the Field (Th 21) and Testing the Sword (Th 98) — as inauthentic? [Note: All you need to say is simply “Yes” or “No”; anything beyond this may invigorate my evil OCD. 😉]
Moving on now (with much appreciation for your patient forbearance.)
1. My sense is that we need *reasons* to think a saying is authentic to a person if, for example, it occurs in only one source, about a century later, even if it doesn’t run counter to other things the person has said. Coherence can show that it may weel be one of the person’s sayings, barring other considerations. But when it is in a document that is chock full of sayings that are widely considered not to be authentic, that somewhat compromises the claim, Ishoulg think. 1. Yes.
If you don’t mind continuing a bit farther on this parabolic trajectory…
1. Aside from the few, previously unknown parables in Thomas (sayings 21, 97 and 98), are there any others in either the surviving fragments of unapproved texts (that otherwise turned to dust or ashes a millennium or more ago) or were, at least, referenced — even if only by title and to repudiate them — by any patristic authors?
2. Do I deduce correctly that ALL parables were single-source before the recovery of Thomas provided independent attestation for several in Mark, several in Q (some possibly in both, but with no way to tell), several in M, and one in L (Lk 12:16-21)?
3. Parables might founder on the criterion of contextual credibility (though AFAIK none do) or dissimilarity, if there is a way it can be applied (that escapes me.) So does that leave only the inherently subjective criterion of coherence for assessing the authenticity of the parables — including such venerables as the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan 😯 — that aren’t attested in Thomas?
1. Are you asking if church fathers quote Gospels that we no longer have? Yes indeed. That’s how we know anything, for exaple, about the Gsopel of the Hebrews, the Gospel of the Nazoreans, the Gospel of the Ebionites, and others. 2. Specific parables are almost always single sources, but KINDS of parables are multiply attested (seeds etc.) 3. Criteria by their nature are inherently subjective. That’s why we make evaluations, unlike, say, when we’re solving a quadratic equation.
In as much as I just promised to move on to something else, I will merely respond to your request for clarification. My question was specifically WRT the survival of additional *parables* — either in any of those gospel fragments in the patristic writings or in any other sources beyond the synoptics and the (1500 years MIA) Gospel of Thomas.
I do feel compelled to mention in passing that you are, at the very least, far more charitably disposed than me to the role the imperially-empowered church played in the gaping void that was left us.
Your inference that unapproved texts simply weren’t copied is, I suppose, plausible. It’s amazingly fortuitous for the Vatican that the ONLY surviving records of dissenting views are the straw-man excerpts cited by their own apologists. But perhaps you are right that all the neglected originals merely turned to dust. it’s possible.
So call me suspicious, or cynical, or maybe just excessively cognizant of the depredations of the aborning RCC. But it seems more likely to me that all the unapproved (i.e., “heretical”) texts were turned to ash in Holy (Don’t) See bonfires. Probably along with the Christians who read them. 😨
Are either or both Th 17 and 1 Cor 2:9 alluding to Isaiah 55:8–9? Paul did include a “But as it is written…” intro, but doesn’t say where.
First, are both authors in fact referring to the same passage in Isaiah?
If so, then second, is this merely a (not especially unlikely) coincidence, or do you think that both Thomas and Paul knew, or at least believed, that at some point Jesus actually made this Isaiah reference (the former actually putting it on Jesus’ lips, the latter on the assumption that the occurrence would be known to and recognized by his Corinthian readers), notwithstanding the fact that it happens not to have been memorialized by any of the canonical gospel authors?
That possibility would, likewise, not require an especially large leap as there obviously must have been a good deal of what Jesus said that didn’t make it into any record.
I realize that there is no text to cite here. But with that disclaimer in mind, how would you speculate?
I wish we knew. My sense is taht it was (understandablly) a popular passage among various early Christians. That wouldn’t necessarily mean it was for Jesus, but it doesn’t preclude the possibility either.
Hi, Bart. You said in your interview with Mark Goodacre that you had some ideas about the Thomas saying about the lion, but that you haven’t come up with an explanation for it despite many years of thinking.
Could the easiest solution be that this saying was originally alliterative Hebrew or Aramaic poetry around Alef?
Something like the following, though maybe better-written:
אשרי אריה
שהוא אדם
לאחר שאכלו איש;
וארור אדם שאריה אוכל,
האיש הזה הוא אז אריה.
Most anytyhing seems to be possible with this one! I don’t see the saying arising among Aramaic-speaking Christians though.
But I was exaggerating a bit. I think if one asssumes some kind of gnostic or “proto-gnostic” idea behind it, and the lion represents the material being and the human a “divine spark”then it makes some sense.
Interesting! Yeah, that sounds the most plausible in the historical context available to us.
Otherwise, it sounded very non-spiritualistic to me, maybe moreso than even ancient Israelite religeon would have been, where Soul = Body + Spirit.
In the Lion saying, it’s as if the Soul is made of the Body only… like as though you would be eaten by a Lion and be cursed to an afterlife in which you’re a mere part of the lion’s body.
…On the other hand, the Lion would maybe be born again as your latest epidermal cells, were you to eat one! Or maybe it would be distributed throughout your body.
I suppose this kind of existential speculation about consumption of life with regards to its continued existence (like saying that a tree that grows where you buried a relative is somehow related to the relative) is not impossible for the time. But relating the animal to the ‘material’ and man to the ‘spiritual’ makes more sense within the context of early Christian ideologies… if I can even be aware of all that may have been included in that plethora (which I don’t know if I can).
In any case, I remain proud of my ability to come up with a half-assed alliterative Hebrew translation of the verse. Back to Hebrew musicology, now, where I belong! Think you’ll attend any SBL’s in the near future? I’m presenting, this year, in the Masoretic Studies section.
I’m hoping to go this year! Don’t think I’ll be sticking my head in among the Masoretes!
Cool! There aren’t as many sessions this year, as in 2022, closely related to my topics of study (Biblical Hebrew song, poetry, recitation, and reading traditions), so I may have more of a chance to go to sessions that I just find plain fun. So perhaps we’ll cross paths.
My biggest finds are
-measured (usually not metered) rhythm in all Biblical Hebrew poetry when applying Tiberian Hebrew syllabification rules along with Yemenite rules for interpreting accent-punctuation
-3 dimensions of power in Hebrew accent-punctuation, which could explain why we have about 27 of them: 3 x 3 x3. One for every combination of
Boundary prolongation: Full stop, Pause, none
Tonal height: High, Medium, Low
Qualitative stress: Melismatic, Steep-directional, Shallow
e.g. Tebir is a melismatic full stop, making it a disjunctive te ‘am; but it also has a tonal height that connects it tonally with the start of Atnaht and Silluq phrases, so it serves to connect as well.
“You are what you eat” as spiritual metaphor long predates Christian Gnosticism, and continues to this day.
In the movie “Phenomenon” the terminally ill, John Travolta character comforts two children with whom has grown close about his imminent death by sharing an apple with them. “If we take a bite of it,” he reassures, “it will become a part of us — forever,” adding that “Everything is on its way to somewhere. Everything.”
The purpose of transmigration is ascending to greater sentience and, thereby, spiritual awareness. For those who squander the opportunity of this life, however, that will NOT be the outcome.
“Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man” because the beast attains a higher incarnation. But “cursed is the man whom the lion consumes” because he descends to beast.
By embracing this transcendent, existential perspective it becomes possible to “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you.”
Watching a person who has persevered through countless lives (and deaths! 😵) to reach a human level of awareness, only to throw it all away, can transform anger at an undeserved face-slapping into sorrow and compassion for the slapper.