NT Gateway Weblog

Previous posts in this series:

• Nicholas Perrin, Thomas: The Other Gospel: Reflections

• Nick Perrin Responds

In my review, I drew attention to some critical reviews of Nick Perrin's previous book, Thomas and Tatian, with which Perrin had not engaged in the current book. Perrin's response answered directly one of the reviews I had quoted from, by Peter Williams. I am grateful now to Peter Williams for the following response.

[Technical note: the response uses SPAtlantis (transliteration font) for the Syriac in Pete's comments, and the SP fonts for quotations from Nick's post (SPEdessa and SPAchmim). For some reason, SPAtlantis does not show up when I am viewing this post in Firefox but it does when I am viewing it in IE; but Firefox does show the other fonts. If you prefer, you can download this response as a PDF. Another good illustration of unicode being preferable, though I admit to ignorance about unicode Syriac fonts.]
----------------------

Response to Nick Perrin

I am grateful that Nick has chosen to engage with my little review of his work in EJT.

I do indeed chide Perrin for arbitrariness in reconstruction and GT9-10 is a good example of this. We have two different Coptic words (pkah and pkosmos, normally rendered ‘earth’ and ‘world’ respectively), which most naturally are derived from two different Greek or Aramaic words. My point is that (lm) would be a more natural word to reconstruct behind Greek /Coptic kosmos in GT10. Even if the likelihood of )r() vs. (lm) were 50/50 (which it is not), Perrin would be choosing between possibilities in order to get a word play. He cites OS Luke 12:49a as proving his point and says ‘It seems to me rather hubristic – not to mention methodologically suspect – to try to improve on the word choice of the OS composer himself’. I am certainly not doing that. Rather, the OS supports my point: Greek ‘earth’ is rendered by Syriac ‘earth’, not by the word ‘world’. It is consistent with my position not his that speakers of Coptic, Greek and Syriac, and consequently translators between these languages, generally distinguished between the words ‘earth’ and ‘world’. However, I am open to the possibility that these words were sometimes interchanged if someone can adduce examples.

Before I leave off with Williams, we note that he is unhappy with my translating ptwma (body/flesh/corpse) with rSB (flesh): ‘similarly tendentious renderings from Coptic back to Syriac are 'corpse' rendered by 'flesh' (p. 106).’ The Coptic term has a wide range so there are other ways to go with the Syriac. But are there any Syriac options necessarily better than rSB (flesh)? Not in my mind.

I would reply that Coptic ptwma would most naturally represent Syriac sheladda (s6ld); cf. OS Matthew 14:12); or failing that pagra (pgr); cf. OS Matthew 24:28). ‘Corpse’ and ‘flesh’ are not the same thing.

NP: ‘A number of scholars, for example, feel that there is a Hebrew or Aramaic wordplay going on behind Matt. 7:6. Perhaps you feel – because there is no way of eliminating experimental bias in discerning semitic puns there – that such arguments are a priori unsustainable? I am not so prepared to send the likes of Dalman and Black packing.’

One of the problems for those who reconstruct Aramaic behind Greek (and other) texts is that they have relatively few ways of demonstrating Aramaic. Alleged word play and mistranslation are two of the most common. Thus, of necessity, they reconstruct a punning Jesus, and mistranslating evangelists. Even while we acknowledge success in their arguments, we also acknowledge that, given their mission, it would have been hard for them to have reached any other conclusion.

NP: ‘Finally, while there are errors in the book (I am painfully aware), and while I am not the Aramaicist that Williams is, and confess to my error of adding a y to )Ns (p. 105). One example does not constitute ‘scores of errors.’ Even if Jesus felt that one yod was of crucial importance (Matt. 5:18), Williams is going to need more than a misplaced yod to overturn my argument. (For the record, I had two Syriacists diligently serving on my dissertation committee – one being a leading Aramaicist / Syriacist – and they both expressed general satisfaction with the technical aspects of my argument, at least as far as the Syriac went.)’

I cannot comment on the committee’s competence in Aramaic, nor have I seen the thesis that they saw. I have only seen the published version. If you want an example of errors we could just focus on three pages from pp. 65 to 67, which deal with GT9-12.

p. 65.

1) )rmywn – delete n
2) b(wr) – I presume that b)r() was meant
3) fn. 37: beth lacks ligature with alaph

p. 66

4) )rmt wrongly written for )rmyt
5) b)r() used when b(lm) would be more natural
6) fn. 38 nuhra and nura described as ‘homophonous’

p. 67

7) First three Syriac words lack ligatures
8) zdyq should be in the emphatic state
9) fn. 40: ‘It is of added interest that in Syriac the phrase “from us” (… man) would hardly be distinguishable from the following vocable “who?” (… man). Thus the Syriac text would exhibit anadiplosis (the rhetorical device of beginning a sentence with the same sound that completed the previous sentence).’ Unfortunately ‘from us’ in Syriac is menan not man, which rather spoils things.

Points 5) and 9) are the only ones that significantly affect the argument. Now I am prepared to admit that it may be that my snobbery prevents me from seeing some of the better arguments in Perrin’s work since I am put off by the fact that most pages of his section on catchwords contain technical errors. However, Perrin does need to clean the presentation up, remove a number of spurious arguments and then present us with what remains. If he does not like my choice of pp. 65-67 and feels that I have not done him justice, perhaps he could suggest some other pages which he believes contain fewer errors.

P.J. Williams
------------------

Labels: Gospel of Thomas, Nicholas Perrin

---

I recently composed some reflections on Nicholas Perrin, Thomas, the Other Gospel (see Nicholas Perrin, Thomas, the Other Gospel: Reflections) and I am grateful to Nick for his full response to that post in what follows, which I am delighted to post here:

[Technical Note: Nick's post below uses the Scholars Press Legacy fonts SPAchmim (Coptic), SPEdessa (Syriac) and SPIonic (Greek), which you can download from the SBL site. I have not converted to unicode because it would take too long, but if you can't read this and don't want to download the fonts, I have also uploaded it as a PDF with the fonts embedded.]
--------------------

Response to Mark Goodacre

Dear Mark,

I am honored that you have taken the time and the effort to patiently work through my book, and then respond to it at length on your blog. I am gratified by your positive comments and thank you for them – I am particularly gratified to hear your intention to use the book with Duke undergrads. But I am also thankful for your criticisms. These challenge me to think through my position anew; they also give me the opportunity to restate and defend my position, hopefully in fresh and clarifying ways.

As for the level /audience /pitch of the book – this was one of the most difficult aspects in writing it. While straddling on the monkey bars of popular and scholarly genres, it is inevitable that I shift my weight now onto the one foot (at the risk of frustrating some) and now onto the other (at the risk of shooting over the heads of others). Hopefully, there will be something for everybody, “as much as they were able to hear,” as it were.

My second frustration with writing the book was in not being able to engage the spectrum of positions – and you’re right about not giving due space to Tuckett and Snodgrass in the bibliography. An oversight, indeed. I also wish I could have given more space to Risto Uro, especially as his point regarding secondary orality is very salutary. However, unlike my three interlocutors, Uro has never drawn up a comprehensive and cohesive scenario.

Though you have made a number of other sage remarks I would like to pass over them in order to go straight to your first two points of criticism: (1) catchwords and (2) the Diatessaron and John. I think that will be enough to bite off in one blog.

Catchwords

First, let’s talk about catchwords. Here you rely heavily on the reviews of Williams and Joosten. The former I have read; the latter I confess I have never heard of until now. I remember Williams contacting me shortly after the book was released as he was quite keen to review it. After reading his review for myself, however, I found it rather disappointing. Let me explain why by going to the portion you quoted:

Though this conclusion may seem impressively supported, in fact recurring problems in his reconstructions considerably reduce its support.

Now follow some examples:

Firstly, the reconstructions are not straightforward. Thus from the Coptic word 'earth' (saying 9) and the Coptic word 'world' (saying 10) he reconstructs the Syriac word 'earth', despite the fact that Syriac has a perfectly good word for 'world' (pp. 65-66).

Williams takes up my handling of GT 9 (‘did not take root in the soil’ [epesht ka6 = e)n th= gh=|| ? = )(r)B ?]). and GT 10 (‘I have cast fire upon the world’ [|||e`\n pkosmos eis6hhte = e)pi\ to\n ko&smon ? = )(r)B ?]) and chides me for using )(r)B in GT 10. I suppose he wanted me to use a different word, perhaps )ML(. My only reason for using )(r)B, he implies, is because I want to make a connection between GT 9 and 10 in the Syriac. But if he has a problem with this, he should take it up with the author of the OS Luke 12:49a, where Jesus says, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth ()(r)B),’ and the OS version of the Parable of the Sower in the triple tradition where )(r)B also occurs just at this point (see, e.g. OS Matt 13:8 par.) . (It seems to me rather hubristic – not to mention methodologically suspect – to try to improve on the word choice of the OS composer himself.) Thus there is every reason to believe that the Diatessaron used the exact same constructions in his rendering of Luke 12:49a and the Parable of the Sower, and if Thomas used the Diatessaron and wrote in Syriac, then these two words would have likely occurred in precisely this juxtaposition. So then, rather than being evidence for my being arbitrary, Williams’s illustration splendidly underscores the fact that for a large portion of this experiment my hands are tied; my word choice is controlled by the extant Syriac witness.

Willliams continues with his charge of tendentiousness:

When it suits Perrin to render Coptic 'world' by Syriac 'earth' it is so rendered (p. 78), but on other occasions the Coptic word 'world' is rendered by Syriac 'world' (p. 83). The author is thus selecting the words used in his retroversion in order to create catchwords.

The first sentence I confess is true, for I try my best to use the appropriate Syriac given the context. But what about the second statement: am I really selecting words in order to create catchwords? Perhaps I am ‘creating catchwords’ in a sense. But in each of these instances, if I am tendentiously creating catchwords in the Syriac, what Williams does not tell the readers of his review is that I am showing the very same ‘favoritism’ to the Greek and Coptic! Because I have assigned the same catchword status to the Greek and Coptic versions on the basis of a semantic repetition, the precise Syriac reconstruction of the words in this case is moot. Williams’s criticism is equally non a propos when he says I’m tendentious in my linking ‘evening’ and ‘night’ (p. 115) and ‘belongings/estate’ and ‘house’ (p. 124), for again, all three languages earn ‘catchword points’ – again, on the basis of semantic overlap. The reader may be suspicious of such connections, but actually I am being generous to my devil’s advocate. If you think about a law of ratios, each and every three-way draw certainly doesn’t help my overall argument, but works against it. If these instances are among Williams’s best examples of my tendentiousness (cases in which my allegedly ‘creating catchwords’ actually blunts my argument), his charge does not even come close to being sustained.

Before I leave off with Williams, we note that he is unhappy with my translating ptwma (body/flesh/corpse) with rSB (flesh): ‘similarly tendentious renderings from Coptic back to Syriac are 'corpse' rendered by 'flesh' (p. 106).’ The Coptic term has a wide range so there are other ways to go with the Syriac. But are there any Syriac options necessarily better than rSB (flesh)? Not in my mind. But forgive me for thinking that – whatever the precise Syriac words – something is going on when GT 55 contains the word ‘hate’ (which can be expressed in Syriac as rSB) and then GT 56 contains the word ‘body/flesh/corpse’ (which can be expressed in Syriac as rSB). Coincidence? Perhaps. But then precisely the same coincidence reoccurs when a term denoting ‘body/flesh/corpse’ (GT 80) is again juxtaposed with a term denoting hatred (GT 81). (This by the way is as good as explanation as any for the doublets in Thomas.) There are similar such instances of word pairings, which I mention in Thomas, The Other Gospel; the statistical probability of such collocations being random is nil. I do think this pretty powerful evidence. And I don’t think, as Joosten apparently wants to say (and as Mick Jagger wants to sing), that this is ‘Just my imagination running away with me.’

Finally, while there are errors in the book (I am painfully aware), and while I am not the Aramaicist that Williams is, and confess to my error of adding a y to )Ns (p. 105). One example does not constitute ‘scores of errors.’ Even if Jesus felt that one yod was of crucial importance (Matt. 5:18), Williams is going to need more than a misplaced yod to overturn my argument. (For the record, I had two Syriacists diligently serving on my dissertation committee – one being a leading Aramaicist/Syriacist – and they both expressed general satisfaction with the technical aspects of my argument, at least as far as the Syriac went.) I’m glad you note, Mark, there are reviews of Thomas and Tatian out there that are (far) more sanguine than the viewpoints of Williams and Joosten.

But let’s get back to the question of ‘fudging’ the catchword analysis, especially your concerns:

Perrin's answer to the perceived problem of "fudging" is to assert the statistical improbability of certain patterns of words occurring in the text by accident (pp. 87-8), but this avoids engaging with the most important question, which is not about "a blend of speculation and luck" (p. 87), but is rather about experimental bias, the selection of specific retroversions that make catchword links where other retroversions would not have done. Given the extent to which Perrin's case relies on the retroversion + catchword argument, criticisms of the earlier book need to be taken seriously. It may be that a good counter-argument can be made, but if so, it needs to be made rather than ignored.

I make no claims to pure objectivity, but I do try to be honest. The case I have set forth is cumulative as virtually any argument which seeks to discern an original language of composition beneath a translation must be. Undoubtedly, choices, even guesses, have to be made – hopefully they are good and reasonable cases, and attain to some level of certainty. This is something that has to be argued out on a case-by-case basis, which I try to do as concisely as possible in my footnotes. If this doesn’t satisfy your issue of experimental bias, may I ask you, how would it be possible to make any argument for a document having been originally written or rehearsed in a language other than the one represented in the extant text? A number of scholars, for example, feel that there is a Hebrew or Aramaic wordplay going on behind Matt. 7:6. Perhaps you feel – because there is no way of eliminating experimental bias in discerning semitic puns there – that such arguments are a priori unsustainable? I am not so prepared to send the likes of Dalman and Black packing.

Of course if you’re looking for a kind of objective, positivistic evidence that can be verified or falsified, you will be disappointed. Linguistic retroversion is based on educated guesswork. I have done my best in this regard – but the OS has provided a helping hand at a number of points too. Neither can I verify or falsify catchwords (be they semantic or phonological), any more than any one can prove the existence of a single pun in the Shakespeare corpus. But our inability to prove a pun, either in Thomas or in Shakespeare, doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. It is a rather narrow epistemological framework (and I have a sneaking suspicion this is what Joosten is laboring under) that regards the unverifiable as inadmissible. (By the way, while it may be within the linguist’s remit to determine whether I have matched the right Syriac word-sound with the right Coptic word, you don’t have to be a Syriac or Coptic scholar to judge whether word plays are going on. At those places where my matches are deemed reasonable, I would far more trust the judgment of a student of poetry than an unimaginative linguist or text critic.) If historiography is the act of asking readers to reconsider a limited set of facts by giving them a new way of looking at those facts, then I am simply doing history of a linguistic sort. Nor should it be said that the thesis of Thomas and Tatian doesn’t amount to much because it is merely reconstruction. All history is reconstruction.

My chapter four has other arguments in addition to the catchwords argument. What about my argument that seven points of divergence between the Oxy. Fragments and the Coptic can be explained by a parent Syriac text? What about my argument regarding the Thomasine Syriac redaction? What about my argument that Tatian and Thomas Christianity eerily share many of the same distinctive practices, and that it would have been nigh impossible for Tatian to have inherited these practices from Thomas Christians, although the reverse is entirely possible (Other Gospel, 99-106)? Admittedly, catchwords are an important piece of the pie of Thomas, The Other Gospel, but it is only one piece of larger argument.

Diatessaron and John

So as not to wear out the patience of your blog readers, let me say just a few things about the Diatessaron and John. I do remember reading Parker’s review and the question he raises there. I suppose I am not as personally bothered as you or David. I don’t, at any rate, consider the relative absence of Johannine material a “problem.” Perhaps I should, but let me tell you why I don’t.

First, it is very hard for me to think of any Johannine speech material of any length that would make any sense in a document like Thomas. Generally, when Jesus speaks in John, he is either speaking in the midst of narrative (which Thomas eschews given the nature of what he trying to do), dealing with topics Thomas doesn’t care about (pneumatology, unity) or he is speaking self-referentially (e.g., the I AMs) – while Thomas buys into Johannine protology, he would have been less happy with the claims Jesus makes for himself in the gospels as a whole.

Second, while people often make a big deal out of Q and Thomas (you and I know better!), what is more significant is Thomas’s penchant for the parable material within the double tradition. Judging by Irenaeus’ words (Adv. Haer. 2.27.1) – and he could not have been completely wacked on this – a number of sects were adapting the parables to ‘ambiguous expressions.’ In reading the parables, each such individual would ‘discover for himself as inclination leads him.’ And ‘in accordance with the number of persons who explain the parables will be found the various systems of truth.’ Apparently, at the end of the second century, parables held a certain fascination for a vast number of sects. Could Irenaeus be talking about Thomas Christians? It is entirely possible. If so, we might expect Thomas Christians to have something of a fixation with parabolic material, including Jesus’ enigmatic statements like, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar…’. As you know the parables are found only in the synoptic material, not the Johannine material.

I know you have raised more issues than I have covered, but for now I must stop – especially if I have any hope of your readers following me to the end. More later on the Diatessaron and the Greek fragments.

Again, Mark, my many thanks. I have appreciated the interaction.

All best wishes,

Nick
-----------------

Labels: Gospel of Thomas, Nicholas Perrin

---

Nicholas Perrin, Thomas, the Other Gospel has recently appeared in the UK and is due to be released in the US in October. I would like to blog some of my reflections on the book here. The book comes with some overwhelming endorsements, e.g. Scot McKnight, "a stunning achievement that can set the standard for the next generation of scholarship", and to an extent these will affect the reading experience. They set up very high expectations, and it may be that those who remain unpersuaded by Perrin's case will react more strongly than they might otherwise be inclined to. As will become clear from my remarks below, I am not persuaded by its central thesis, and I will spend most of this blog post explaining why that is so.

At the outset, I should underline that the book has some very good features. In particular, I am going to find the book useful in teaching because there has been a lack of books on the Gospel of Thomas from the non-independence perspective that are at the same time accessible to undergraduates. Perrin's book uses translations of the texts and explains terms when he first uses them, synoptic problem, soteriology, ecclesiology etc. There is footnoting but it is about halfway between monograph level and introductory book level, so it's relatively unobtrusive for the beginner but present for the more advanced student. There is a fairly full bibliography too, but it's select and not comprehensive. Naturally I would throw some others into the bibliography that Perrin keeps out, e.g. Snodgrass and Tuckett would always find a place for me, as classics for the so called "dependence" argument with which Perrin is sympathetic.

On the whole I like the way that the book is pitched. It does not patronise or condescend to the reader, and it is clearly aimed at scholars as well as students. Nevertheless, there are moments where some undergraduate students may get lost, where the argument becomes quite detailed and nitty-gritty without the patient step-by-step that marks it out elsewhere, and there are moments where several scholars will be frustrated because Perrin does not engage in the kind of detailed analysis that they will wish to see. Such comments may be a little unfair given that Perrin is trying to write for a broad audience, and this is a tough balancing act to achieve, but I think the format allows him sometimes to plough a path through the space in between the introductory and the scholarly and to meet neither. I stress there the word "sometimes". Often, Perrin achieves this difficult balancing act quite well.

The book is divided into two halves, "What they are saying about the Gospel of Thomas" and "What they should be saying about the Gospel of Thomas". The first part takes a chapter each to discuss Stephen Patterson, Elaine Pagels and April deConick. The second part is an exposition of Perrin's view of Thomas, in which chapter 4 (The Syriac Gospel of Thomas) expounds his 2002 published dissertation, Thomas and Tatian, chapter 5 (Challenging the Apostolic Line) looks at the place of Thomas in the Christianity of the late second century and chapter 6 (The Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas) looks at the depiction of Jesus in Thomas, with special reference to Hermeticism, and there is a conclusion reflecting on the (non)value of Thomas in Christianity today.

I don't have a lot to say about the first half of the book. On the Forbidden Gospels blog, April DeConick has laid out a series of notes in which she comments on Perrin's representation of her work (Cautionary Note 1: Nick Perrin, Thomas, The Other Gospel, Cautionary Note 2: DeConick on Orality and Literacy, Cautionary Note 3: DeConick on the Historical Jesus, Cautionary Note 4: DeConick on Accretions, Cautionary Note 5: DeConick on Methodology). Nick Perrin is now responding to those posts over on Euangelion, Nick Perrin Responds to April DeConick. I look forward to spending more time with DeConick's posts and Perrin's response in due course. The dialogue between them should help to clarify some of the issues here.

The way that Part 1 of the book functions is to set up what Perrin thinks is wrong about current Thomasine scholarship, so it is not a survey of the full scene, unlike, say, the What are they saying about . . . series of books. This has some value, especially in terms of structure and readability -- we know exactly where we are in the book and how we should be reacting in each half. There is a downside, though, in that this kind of approach does not allow one to appreciate the broader sweep of current Thomas scholarship. In particular, I'd want to include Risto Uro, Ismo Dunderberg and Antti Marjanen in any major discussion of "what they are saying about" Thomas. Perrin does refer to these figures occasionally in his footnotes, but there is no discussion of any of them. This difficulty is particularly focused in two areas. First, Perrin discusses the relationship between John and Thomas a good deal, discussing the issue in the context of dealing with both Pagels and DeConick, but Ismo Dunderberg has written extensively (and perceptively) on this topic, and I'd have liked to have heard his insights brought in here. And second, Risto Uro has written two superb pieces on the relationship between Thomas and the Gospels, applying and developing the term secondary orality which Snodgrass had first used in relation to Thomas, but neither the articles nor the term get a mention here, as far as I could see, and this is a shame given the extensive discussion of the question of Thomas's relationship to the Gospels in the book. I suppose that what concerns me here is that the newcomer to Thomas studies could get something of a "Perrin vs. the world" feeling in reading this book, not realizing that there is a much broader range of positions in Thomas scholarship than one might pick up from the rhetorical strategy of the two-part "What they are saying . . ." and "What should be said . . ."

Let us turn, then, to the second part of the book, where Perrin forwards his own ideas on Thomas. The centre of gravity here is Chapter 4, "The Syriac Gospel of Thomas", which functions largely as a lucid summary of his Thomas and Tatian of 2002, which argued that Thomas was composed in Syriac, that this is demonstrated by the preponderance of catchwords found in a reconstructed Syriac text over against Coptic or Greek, and that Thomas's primary source was Tatian's Diatessaron. I have read that book and was unpersuaded by its thesis, so I was interested to see whether I might be persuaded second time round, all the more so given the stunning endorsements for the current book, and the passage of time since the publication of Thomas and Tatian. That passage of time has brought a good number of reviews, some highly critical of the book, but Perrin does not engage with any of them. He mentions Luomanen (p. 93) but does not mention any of the reviews of his book. I would regard those by Parker, Poirier, Shedinger, Williams and Jan Joosten (see also Quispel, Morrice and McL Wilson) as making some key criticisms of the thesis that need to be seriously addressed if it is to stand up. Perrin's inclination simply to summarise the thesis without engaging with his critics inevitably detracts from the persuasiveness of the restatement. Let me try to isolate some of the features that caused concern about Thomas and Tatian and which are not addressed in any detail here.

Catchwords

Perrin argues that Thomas was originally composed in Syriac because the number of catchwords in his retroversion (502) is far greater than the number in the extant Coptic text (269) or in retroverted (+ P.Oxy) Greek (263). The obvious danger here, and one of which Perrin is aware, is what he calls rather amusingly calls "fudging" (p. 87), but which I would want to call the problem of experimental bias, i.e. the one conducting the experiment is the one reconstructing the text. There is no control. So we are not really comparing like with like -- the experimenter's own retroversion is compared with an extant text. One of the best treatments of this issue is in Peter Williams review of Thomas and Tatian (EJT 13:2 (2004) 139-40), from which I quote:

Though this conclusion may seem impressively supported, in fact recurring problems in his reconstructions considerably reduce its support. Firstly, the reconstructions are not straightforward. Thus from the Coptic word 'earth' (saying 9) and the Coptic word 'world' (saying 10) he reconstructs the Syriac word 'earth', despite the fact that Syriac has a perfectly good word for 'world' (pp. 65-66). When it suits Perrin to render Coptic 'world' by Syriac 'earth' it is so rendered (p. 78), but on other occasions the Coptic word 'world' is rendered by Syriac 'world' (p. 83). The author is thus selecting the words used in his retroversion in order to create catchwords. Similarly tendentious renderings from Coptic back to Syriac are 'corpse' rendered by 'flesh' (p. 106), 'evening' rendered by 'night' (p. 115), and 'belongings' rendered by 'house' (p. 124). A significant proportion of the catchwords discovered can be accounted for in a similar way. (139-40).

In the same review, Williams speaks of "scores of technical errors" (140) that cause the thesis to fail, but on which I am unable to comment given my deficiency in Syriac, but Jan Joosten's review of Thomas and Tatian (Aramaic Studies 2.1 (Jan 2004) 126-130) makes the same points with several examples and concludes:

In the end, the compilation appears to be almost entirely useless. Nothing proves that the network of Syriac catchwords ever existed outside of Perrin’s imagination. (128)

Perrin's answer to the perceived problem of "fudging" is to assert the statistical improbability of certain patterns of words occurring in the text by accident (pp. 87-8), but this avoids engaging with the most important question, which is not about "a blend of speculation and luck" (p. 87), but is rather about experimental bias, the selection of specific retroversions that make catchword links where other retroversions would not have done. Given the extent to which Perrin's case relies on the retroversion + catchword argument, criticisms of the earlier book need to be taken seriously. It may be that a good counter-argument can be made, but if so, it needs to be made rather than ignored.

The Diatessaron and Johannine Material

In his review of Perrin's Thomas and Tatian (TC 8, 2003, http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol08/Perrin2003rev.html), David Parker wrote:

It strikes me as very strange that, if the author was working from a harmony, he produced a text with no discernible Johannine source material. Since, if this was the form of Gospel narrative known to him, he would have had no criteria for discerning Johannine material, this result would have to be an incredible coincidence.

I had hoped that Perrin might deal with this problem in the book, but it is not mentioned, so I flag it up again here. While the Gospel of Thomas features extensive parallels with the Synoptic Gospels, it has no major parallels with the Gospel of John (only arguably a phrase here, a thought there -- nothing clear cut or extended). If Thomas's major source is the Diatessaron, this is surprising. It won't do to say that Thomas simply removed the Johannine material, because then we would be back to Thomas's familiarity with the four canonical Gospels, and the apparent economy of the Thomas and Tatian theory would be negated. Perrin's thesis is that Thomas's knowledge of the Gospels is mediated via the Diatessaron, and if his knowledge of the Gospels is mediated via the Diatessaron, why does he not feature Johannine material?

The Order of Diatessaronic Material

One of Perrin's arguments in favour of Thomas's dependence on the Diatessaron is based on the order of the Synoptic material that appears in Thomas. The argument is stressed in both Thomas and Tatian and in Thomas, the Other Gospel. There is a problem with the argument here. In all but one of the examples of Thomas following the Diatessaron's order, he is in fact also following the Synoptic order. In other words, the Diatessaron is almost always unnecessary to explain Thomas's order (I'll return to the exception below). In both books, Perrin speaks as if parallels with the Synoptic order are good enough to establish the point, but they are not. Where Thomas's order parallels the Synoptic order, it is unnecessary for it to be mediated through the Diatessaron. This difficulty was addressed in Parker's review of Thomas and Tatian (6):

His own suggestions are limited to comments on places where Thomas has the same ordering of material as Tatian. This is rather confusingly introduced with the statement that "at some points Thomas does indeed follow the order of the canonical and Diatessaronic tradition" (p. 185). But there is a problem: where examples he adduces--such as Matt 5.14b and Matt 5.15--consist of contiguous material within a given Gospel, it is hard to see why anybody should want to claim that this is evidence for having followed a harmony.

The point is not dealt with in the new book; rather, the new book simply works with the same underlying assumption, that parallels in order with the Synoptics are evidence for Thomas's use of the Diatessaron. Take, for example, the following statement:

At points the Gospel of Thomas does follow the order of both the synoptics and the Diatessaron: Gos. Thom. 8-9, 32-33, 42/43-44, 47, 65-66, 68-69, 92-93 and 93-94. (95)

My point is that the "both . . . and" is true but irrelevant. The relevant piece of data is that Thomas here follows the order of the Synoptics.

However, Perrin provides one additional example where Thomas agrees with the Diatessaron against the Synoptics. The example is:

Thomas 44 // Matt. 12.32 // Luke 12.10
Thomas 45.1 // Matt. 7.16 // Luke 6.44
Thomas 45.2-4 // Matt. 12.35, 34b // Luke 6.45

Perrin helpfully sets out the example in a clear table (96). It is difficult to quantify such things, but I would tend to feel that we would need a lot more than one example to make a strong case for Thomas's dependence on the Diatessaron. Nevertheless, if it were a very strong example, it would at least give us some important evidence, so it is worth looking in a little more detail. This is how Perrin states the case:

If Thomas were imitating the sequence of Matthew 12 this would explain Gos. Thom. 44 and 45.2-4, but would not explain the insertion of 45.1 (= Matt. 7.16). Luke as a source would explain the wording of Gos. Thom. 45, but would not explain the collocation of Gos. Thom. 45, as Matthew 12 does. The case for Thomas's dependence on Matthew or on Luke has its merits as well as its problems. The best explanation is that the hand behind Gos. Thom. 44-45 drew on a harmonization of Matthew and Luke as reflected in the Diatessaron, where, judging by the eastern witness of Ephraem and the western witness of the Middle Dutch harmony, the words of Matthew 12.32-35 seem to have attached themselves precisely at this point of the Sermon on the Mount. (95).

There are two problems with the case here. First, Thomas's familiarity with Matthew and Luke is adequate on its own to explain the order; there is no need to appeal to the Diatessaron. As Perrin's chart makes clear, there is a simple map of parallels here. Matt. 12.32-35 is in mind throughout; Luke 6.45 is parallel to the last two verses in that passage, and Luke 6.44 is parallel to Matt. 7.16. The harmonist proceeds naturally from Matt. 12.32-35 to Luke 6.44-45 to Matt. 7.16. There is nothing out of place or surprising here. The fact that these passages appear together in Aland's Synopsis and Huck-Greeven's Synopsis is not because they are dependent on the Diatessaron, or Thomas, but because there is a clear and natural pattern of parallels.

Second, Perrin's comments here assume that these parallels are undoubtedly found together in the Diatessaron, but this is by no means clear. The reference to "the eastern witness of Ephraem" is an error; as David Parker points out in his review of Perrin's earlier book (9), the passage does not even appear in Ephraem's commentary, and as he goes on to note:

The Persian Harmony contains only the material found in Matthew 12.33ff. The Arabic follows the order Luke 6.44 - Matthew 7.17f - Luke 6.45. We thus already find a dearth of Eastern witnesses to fulfil the Petersen criterion, accepted by Perrin.

In other words, it is not clear, in this one case where Perrin attempts to demonstrate an agreement between Thomas and the Diatessaron against the Synoptics, that the ordering is Diatesseronic.

The Importance of Oxyrhynchus

If I have been critical of Perrin for not always having engaged with his critics, there is one area where he does respond to some criticism of his earlier book. In a section headed "Objections considered" (97-99), he notes that some have objected that his thesis provides only a small window for the writing of Thomas. It has to be between the writing of the Diatessaron, dated to 173, and the dating of the first extant text of Thomas, P.Oxy.1, which Grenfell and Hunt dated to roughly 200. This gives a tight period for all the following to have taken place: (a) Thomas becomes familiar with the Diatessaron; (b) Thomas writes his Gospel in Syriac in Edessa; (c) Thomas is translated into Greek; (d) A Greek manuscript copy finds its way to Egypt. These things all take place within about 25 years. Perrin mounts a good defence of his thesis here, and notes that this is adequate time for Thomas to be disseminated, and he encourages readers not to be too dogmatic about the year 200. I think that that is right; palaeography is not a precise science and we can certainly allow a generation either side of that 200 date, say 175-225. There is still a lot to squeeze into one generation or so, but it is not impossible. P.Oxy. 1 could be as late as 225, but it could also be as early as 175.

I remain concerned, however, about an issue here which Perrin does not address, and which adds a difficulty for the Syriac Thomas hypothesis, the issue of verbatim agreement between the P.Oxy. fragments of Thomas and the Synoptics. There are good several examples of verbatim agreement in Greek, and one is very strong, and it is a fact widely ignored in Thomas studies. Thomas 26 in P. Oxy. 1.1-4 features a thirteen word verbatim agreement with Luke 6.42 (position of ἐκβαλεῖν agreeing with Matt. 7.5b), a fact all the more striking in that it is a very literary Greek construction, ὁ + phrase + noun, and that the piece in question is only fragmentary. This evidence needs accounting for on the Syriac Thomas hypothesis.

Overall, there remain too many question marks over the thesis of Thomas and Tatian, in spite of a helpful restatement in Thomas, the Other Gospel. What would help would be some critical engagement with the reactions to the first book.

Most of my reflections have focused on Chapter 4, which is the heart of the book, since it is the restatement of the case for the Syriac Thomas dependent on the Diatessaron. But the remaining two chapters of the book deserve mention, especially Chapter 5, "Challenging the apostolic line", in which Perrin has some interesting and helpful reflections in Logion 13. He follows others (e.g. Francis Watson) who see Simon Peter and Matthew here as cyphers for the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, and Thomas commenting negatively on them. Perrin situates Thomas in the late second century, contemporary with Irenaeus, and in tension with the combination of Mark's and Matthew's Gospels. "It is the first two Gospels together that stand opposed to Thomas" (p. 115, emphasis original). There is a lot of material of interest and insight in this chapter, but again, Perrin's late dating actually sits a bit less comfortably with his thoughts here than an earlier dating, in the 140s, for example, would do. In the 170s, we have Irenaeus's stress on the fourfold Gospel (which Perrin cites) and we have Tatian writing a harmony of the four Gospels. And then Perrin's Thomas stresses only two of the Gospels, Mark and Matthew, and has extensive parallels to only three of them, the Synoptics. A Thomas that first emerges in the 140s makes better sense; all three Synoptics are known to him; Mark and Matthew have some status, as in Papias, but Luke is a relative newcomer. John is newer still, and is not mentioned by name in Logion 13, nor is it the subject of extensive parallels. Nevertheless, this chapter is a very helpful contribution to the debate on Thomas and it is one I look forward to engaging with further in my own research.

The book is relatively free of typographical errors, but I spotted a few:

p. 95: the only sense I can make of the flow of argument on this page is to assume that paragraphs two and three have become switched around by mistake.

p. 61, n. 30: the publication date for Wrede is 1901, not 1910.

p. 133: "as late the sixth century" should be "as late as the sixth century"

Labels: Gospel of Thomas, Nicholas Perrin

---

After a hiatus of some months, Peter Kirby has resurrected his Gospel of Thomas Collected Commentary (announced on the also recently resurrected Christian Origins Blog). It is not at either of the older locations, GospelofThomas.com or GospelThomas.com, which have been lost, but is now at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas/, so we all need to update our links. I have done that on my Gospel of Thomas page.

Labels: Gospel of Thomas

---

My copy of Nicholas Perrin, Thomas, the Other Gospel (London: SPCK, 2007) arrived today and I am looking forward to reading it. Although Nick is based in the US, at Wheaton College, the book has been released in the UK ahead of its US release. It's already been noted by Michael Bird on Euangelion. I am going to try to read it this weekend and I hope to comment.

Update (Saturday, 16.52): April deConick registers a major protest about Nick Perrin's misrepresentation of her position on the Forbidden Gospels blog. I've not yet got to that part of the book yet, but hope to post my thoughts about the book in general in due course.

Labels: Gospel of Thomas, Nicholas Perrin

---

On her ever stimulating Forbidden Gospels blog, April DeConick reflects briefly on a key element in her research on the Gospel of Thomas, asking What is the Kernel Thomas?. It is a post that reminds me of some interesting discussion we had on DeConick's work in our graduate course on the Gospel of Thomas here at Duke this semester. Here is the summary from the current post:

The Kernel Thomas is a name that I use to indicate the earliest material in the Gospel of Thomas. I suggest that this early material was an early collection of sayings in a speech format and that it was used by the Thomasine Christians as a storage cite [sic] for Jesus' sayings. Preachers and teachers used it as a platform for their orations.

One of the questions that this raises for me is: In what way is "Kernel Thomas" appropriately labelled Kernel Thomas? In other words, what is it about this hypothetical collection of sayings that makes it Thomasine? The character Thomas appears in the Incipit and Logion 13, but both of these are among DeConick's accretions. Looking at the character of the accretions, it is also clear that Kernel Thomas is a different kind of entity from the Gospel of Thomas, which focuses the question further. How do we know that the author or community producing the Gospel of Thomas was directly continuous with the author or community who used Kernel Thomas as their storage site for Jesus' sayings? Could it be that the Gospel of Thomas author or community had no direct relationship with the author or community behind Kernel Thomas? Is Kernel Thomas the core of the Gospel of Thomas in the same way that the Gospel of Mark is the core of the Gospel of Matthew? Or to put it another way, would we be content with thinking of the Gospel of Mark as "Kernel Matthew"? (These are intended as open, exploratory questions and not as rhetorical questions).

Labels: Forbidden Gospels, Gospel of Thomas

---

Since Stephen Carlson initiated a thread on the GThomas e-list the other day on Why Was Thomas Written?, I have been thinking a lot about this enigmatic text, stimulated further by the advent of April DeConick's postings on Thomas on The Forbidden Gospels Blog, and still further by the graduate course I am taking on Thomas here at Duke at the moment. One thing that seems clear to me about the purpose of Thomas is that we will only be able to make good sense of it if we take seriously what Bruce Lincoln calls "a seeming paradox" in its nature. He writes:

On the one hand, it proclaims itself to be secret, or to contain secrets, as in the Prologue . . . . But on the other hand, the text was widely circulated, and states that this is as it should be . . . . . This contradiction, however, can be accounted for by recognizing that Thomas, like Ptolemaeus' Letter to Flora and numerous other religious documents, is a text that is addressed at the same time to initiates and non-initiates alike. Thus, the fact that the Thomas-community possessed secret knowledge was proclaimed loudly to outsiders, but the nature of that knowledge and its true meaning were disclosed only within the community itself in a program of detailed instruction which must have lasted over a period of several years." (Bruce Lincoln, "Thomas-Gospel and Thomas-Community: A New Approach to a Familiar Text", Novum Testamentum 19 (1977): 65-76 [68-9])

Thomas points beyond itself. It is a text that demands explication, that encourages the hearer who has ears to hear to seek out what is hidden so that it will come to light.

Labels: Gospel of Thomas, Novum Testamentum

---

On The Forbidden Gospels Blog, April DeConick offers her thoughts on How was the Gospel of Thomas Written?, partly in response to recent discussion on the Gospel of Thomas E-List (see the thread beginning Why Was Thomas Written?, a thread to which I have contributed myself). Although the Thomas list thread has focused on issues focused more generally around the issue of the purpose of the Gospel of Thomas, DeConick's post focuses specially on the vexed question of literary dependence or independence, and I would like to make some of my own comments on her post here. Let me begin by saying that DeConick is a giant in Thomas studies, with several major publications, including the two recent key monographs published back to back. I have a huge respect for her scholarship, and studies of Thomas are all the richer for her contributions. By contrast, I am a mere beginner, having come to Thomas in the first place because of my interest in Q (e.g. see chapters seven and nine in The Case Against Q). Any comments I make on DeConick's current post, therefore, do not come from the same degree of rich research and expertise.

DeConick asks first "Why does the literary dependence appeal NOT work?" and lists several reasons for rejecting appeals to literary dependence. I am partly in agreement here in that I am pretty wary of the term "literary dependence" in relation to Thomas and the Synoptics. The phrase can be taken to suggest that Thomas is a fundamentally derivative Gospel, and that the most important thing about it is its relation to the Synoptic Gospels. Given that only about half of Thomas has parallels with the Synoptics, we need to hold open the possibility that the most important thing about Thomas is not the Synoptic parallel material but the non-Synoptic material. Perhaps it is in that 50% that we will learn most about Thomas. My preference, therefore, is to move the terminology away from "dependence" or "independence" and instead to talk about "familiarity" or otherwise. The term "familiarity" allows us to ask the question whether Thomas knows the Synoptic Gospels without prejudging the extent of their influence on his thinking.

Now, in relation to those parallels, of course the existence of those parallels in themselves demonstrates nothing about familiarity or otherwise (DeConick's first subheading). The key question is whether or not the parallels in question show evidence of Synoptic redaction (DeConick's second subheading). Here, DeConick comments on the proposition "Thomas contains parallels that have Synoptic 'redactional traces'" with the following:

This assumes that our sources (Quelle, Matthew, Luke, Mark) were fixed texts, and that they are the same copies that we have reconstructed as our eclectic Greek manuscript (NTG) from our late physical witnesses, none of which agree. This position does not allow for source variation and a lengthy complicated process of development of our sources, and scribing of our sources. Are we sure that the "redactional trace" is from Matthew or Luke? Or is it from a source(s) relied upon by Matthew or Luke? Or is it from an orator who reperformed the saying in light of his memory of a Synoptic version? Or is it from the hand of a later scribe harmonizing an older version of the saying to his memory of the Synoptic version?

Of course all these possibilities need to be taken into consideration for Thomas / Synoptic relationships, but I don't think the situation is substantially different here than it is with the intra-Synoptic relationships, where we always bear such possibilities in mind, but do not appeal to them for every decision. Further, one of the values of a redaction-critical approach to the Synoptics is that it can often help us to see where a given evangelist is himself shaping the entirety of a particular passage, where there are clusters of characteristic themes, imagery, language and style. Where passages are like that, ones that are effectively generated by a given evangelist, and which then appear in Thomas, we have a good case for Thomasine familiarity. I have given one example recently, Luke 11.27-28 // Thomas 79.1-2, where the Lucan language, imagery, style and content is so strongly marked that that Thomas must be familiar with it from Luke. In other words, I am keen that we do not focus solely on so-called "redactional traces" (emphasis added) and move the discussion instead to pervasive presence of clusters of redactional features.

DeConick's third point is that:

The entire compositional process of a Thomasine author sitting down one day with canonical texts and cutting and pasting a word here and a word there into his own gospel of sayings does NOT fit what we know about ancient compositional practices.

(and see her further comments). This point is well taken; we can do without weak appeals to cut-and-paste models of the way that Thomas, or, for that matter, any of the evangelists worked. I have criticized Synoptic Problem scholarship, and especially Q scholarship, on this very point. On the other hand, I think we have to be careful about excessive appeals to "orality as social location" (Robbins), or to "an essentially oral state of mind" (Kelber). I am not persuaded that Thomas exhibits "orality as social location" so much as Sayings Gospel as generic preference. A sayings book, as a generic necessity, has "an essentially oral state of mind," both in the ancient world and today. This claim will take a little teasing out and I will develop it in due course.

DeConick's fourth point is:

The literary dependence appeal has never been able to account for the differences in the versions of Thomas' sayings and the Synoptics.

This is also important. As with the study of intra-Synoptic relationships, accounting for similarities and differences is the name of the game. In developing the point, DeConick asks,

I mean this seriously. We have spent so much time looking for "same" words, have we really looked at the differences and tried to account for them? Has anyone noticed (other than me) that the exact verbal agreement, lengthy sequences of words, and secondary features shared between the Triple Tradition and the Quelle versions FAR exceeds anything we find paralleled between the Gospel of Thomas and the Synoptics?

I would say "Yes" but I may be misunderstanding the point. There is consensus that the Synoptic Problem is a problem of literary inter-relationships among the Synoptics, that there is such substantial verbatim agreement that there has to be some kind of literary relationship there. The reason that there is no consensus on this with respect to Thomas and the Synoptics is that the degree of agreement here is nothing like as strong as it is between the Synoptics.

DeConick goes on to give a shorter section on the difficulties with the "independence" model and I agree with most of this, though I would add more examples of "redactional activity traceable to Synoptic hands", including good Matthean examples as well as Lucan ones. I also dispute the premise of the second point:

2. The Thomas parables are not allegorized like their Synoptic counterparts.

There is at least one parable that is allegorized and several more interpreted. There is plenty of secondary material in the Gospel of Thomas, old sayings rewritten in new interpretative contexts.

This works on the form-critical premise of the secondary nature of allegory, a premise with which I disagree in the light of the work of Michael Goulder and John Drury in particular, and on which I will have more to say in due course.

In the final section of the post, DeConick asks "Where does this leave us?" and answers:

I hope it dislodges us from continuing to argue for direct literary dependence OR complete independence. If we keep slogging away at these same appeals, we will keep answering them with the same objections, and we will stay in the box.

I have some sympathy with this answer, and would for that reason push for the use of the term "familiarity with" rather than "direct literary dependence on" the Synoptics. I think the reference to "secondary orality" here is helpful and I regard it as possible that that is the manner of Thomas's familiarity with the Synoptics.

More fundamentally, though, I think we need to think much more seriously about the half of Thomas that does not have parallels with the Synoptics, and I think it is high time we started paying serious attention to the way that the Gospel of Thomas conceives of itself, viz. as "the secret sayings of the living Jesus, which Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down" (Incipit). The obsessive focus in so much Thomas scholarship with Synoptic parallel material, whether among "dependence" or "independence" people, tends to focus attention on reconstructions of the Gospel's evolution and development, sometimes at the expense of working on the text as we have it, and building from there.

Labels: Forbidden Gospels, Gospel of Thomas

---

There is a curious feature about several of the parallels between the Gospel of Thomas and the Synoptics. On at least four occasions where Thomas has lengthy parallels with the Synoptics, he lacks a parallel to the middle part of the story. It is a phenomenon I label the missing middle. It is easy to see when we lay out Thomas in parallel with the Synoptics. Here is the first example:

Log and Speck

Matt. 7.3-5 3. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4. Or how can you say to your brother, `Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5. You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Luke 6.41-2 41. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 42. Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.

Thomas 26 Jesus said, You see the speck in your brother’s eye, but you do not see the log in your own eye. When you take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.

Look at that wedge of white space on the right. It is unmissable. The middle of the story as it is found in Matthew and Luke is missing, but Thomas has clear parallels to the beginning and the end of the story. The same phenomenon happens again in the following example:

Wheat and Tares

Matt. 13.24-30 24. Another parable he put before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the servants of the householder came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then has it weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

Thomas 57 Jesus says, “The Kingdom of the Father is like a man who had [good] seed. His enemy came by night and sowed weeds among the good seed. The man did not allow them to pull up the weeds; he said to them, ‘I am afraid that you will go intending to pull up the weeds and pull up the wheat along with them.’ For on the day of the harvest the weeds will be plainly visible, and they will be pulled up and burned.”

Again, the middle of the story is missing, and this time to the detriment of the story's flow and logic in Thomas. The missing middle features the introduction of the servants who begin a conversation with their master. In Thomas, we just hear about "them" without introduction. The antecedent for "them" is missing, in a way similar to Synoptic examples of editorial fatigue.

There are further examples of the same phenomenon. In the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12.15-21 // Thomas 63), Thomas lacks the middle part of Luke's story, 12.18b-19, in which the Rich Fool is reflecting on his apparent great fortune, "And I’ll say to myself, 'You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.'" Thomas's fool is thinking things in his heart, but the full content of Luke's version provides a much better antecedent than the blander, truncated soliloquy of Thomas's version.

Similarly, in the Tribute to Caesar story (Matt. 22.15-22 // Mark 12.13-17 // Luke 20.20-26 // Thomas 100), Thomas lacks the middle part of the Synoptic story in which it is revealed that the coin has Caesar's image on it, the exchange that results in the aphorism shared with Thomas, "Render to Caesar . . ." (with Thomas's remarkable addition, ". . . . and to me what is mine").

It is interesting to see this repeated feature in Thomas's parallels to the Synoptics. My thesis is that it shows just how familiar Thomas is with the Synoptic stories he is retelling. In the rush to retell the familiar story, he does notice that key parts have been left out. It reminds me of people who can't tell jokes, and who rush ahead too quickly, after having introduced it, to the punchline. Thomas sets the scene, gets the ball rolling, and then fast forwards to the story's conclusion. It may be that this is a casualty of writing a Sayings Gospel rather than a narrative Gospel. The Synoptic writers are all, to varying degrees, used to writing mini-narratives in their Gospels, and on the whole they make a good job of it. But Thomas is focused on shorter, self-contained sayings, with minimal narrative settings. When it comes to writing a fuller narrative, he is not as well practised as the Synoptic evangelists.

Labels: Gospel of Thomas

---

Over on Scripta de Divinis, Tim Brookins has an introductory post on Ben Sira, including some NT parallels. One of the most remarkable parallels between Ben Sira and the NT is, I think, the Rich Fool parable in Luke:

Sirach 11.18-19 (RSV): [18] There is a man who is rich through his diligence and self-denial,
and this is the reward allotted to him:
[19] when he says, "I have found rest,
and now I shall enjoy my goods!"
he does not know how much time will pass
until he leaves them to others and dies.

Luke 12.15-21 (NASB): 12:15 Then He said to them, "Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions." 16 And He told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man was very productive. 17 "And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ''What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?'' 18 "Then he said, ''This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 ''And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry."' 20 "But God said to him, ''You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?'' 21 "So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

The fact that this parable also appears in Thomas 63 raises some interesting questions about the relationship between Thomas, Luke and Ben Sira, but I don't have time to blog on them just now.

Labels: Ben Sira, Gospel of Thomas, Luke, Parables

---

I came across some useful on-line papers today at the Religious Studies Department at Loyola University. They have a lecture series there called the H. James Yamauchi, S.J. Lectures in Religion and several of these are available on-line, including some of interest to New Testament scholars and students:

Jesus, Mark and the Modern Reader
Earl Richard (Loyola University Yamauchi Lecture, October 22 2000)

The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas: A Lost, Secret Vision of Jesus
Earl Richard (Loyola University Yamauchi Lecture, October 17 1993)

The Rich Young Ruler or the Generous Centurion: Early Christianity and Worldly Possessions
Earl Richard (Loyola University Yamauchi Lecture, March 5 1989)

Labels: Earl Richard, Gospel of Thomas, Mark's Gospel, Possessions, Rich Young Ruler, Secret Mark, Yamauchi Lecture

---

Yesterday I posted a draft of my paper Luke 11.27-28 // Thom. 79a: A Case of Thomasine Dependence and April DeConick responds on her blog in Is the Gospel of Thomas Dependent on the Synoptics? The response is a general one, reacting more to arguments about dependence in general (Schrage, Schürmann) than to the specific case I make. Since I make observations here that have not been made before, I am not sure that the general appeal to earlier literature on Thomas, which I mention in the article, really addresses the specific argument made here, which focuses on pervasive and distinctive Lucan features that point to the saying's genesis in Luke's mind. In fact I agree with Prof. DeConick's dissatisfaction with some of the traditional arguments for dependence, which tend to focus on a word here and a word there. As she notes, "The arguments [for dependence] in all cases are based on the presence of words that some scholars regard as traditionally redactional, that is words that are thought to be from the Lukan hand." What I am keen to do in this specific example is to point not just to the odd, isolated word but to the presence of markedly Lucan language, theme, setting and imagery. By attempting to the move the argument away from solely focusing on isolated words, I am hoping to show that the case for Thomas's familiarity with Luke is stronger than it is usually perceived to be.

On this particular pericope, let me attempt to put my argument in a nutshell lest it is thought that I am arguing along the same lines as those like Schrage. I am arguing that this saying, as we have it, comes from Luke's mind and that there is nothing un-Lucan about it. Its presence in Thomas, where it is anomalous, is therefore an indication of Thomas's familiarity with Luke's Gospel.

This, of course, raises some fresh questions, for example: (1) Are there other examples like this? (2) If Thomas is familiar with the Synoptics, how does he hear them and appropriate them? My answer to question (1) is Yes, and perhaps I'll blog those too in due course, if there is sufficient interest. My answer to (2) is that the issues raised by Prof. DeConick briefly in her recent post and at length in her recent books are important ones that need addressing. I think that too much time has been spent in the past on discussing whether Thomas knew the Synoptics and not enough time has been spent in discussing how Thomas used them. More anon on that too.

Labels: Forbidden Gospels, Gospel of Thomas

---

I recently posted a temporary draft of an article I have written on the Gospel of Thomas's dependence on Luke 11.27-28. If you are interested in looking at the piece, I would be grateful for any feedback. It is at:

Luke 11.27-28 // Thom. 79a: A Case of Thomasine Dependence

Note: this is only going to be available on-line temporarily (latest update today at lunchtime). I am currently revising it in the light of feedback I am receiving ahead of sending it off for publication. I mentioned this on the Gospel of Thomas e-list just the other day and Mike Grondin asked April DeConick for her opinion. She kindly posts her response on her blog in a post entitled Is the Gospel of Thomas Dependent on the Synoptics. I will respond later.

Labels: dependence, Forbidden Gospels, Gospel of Thomas, Luke, Luke 11.27-28, Thomas 79

---

Well, I am being a little cheeky in making that the headline of this post since it refers to only one sentence, but it's nice to see the Gospel of Thomas and the Acts of Thomas getting a mention in Pope Benedict XVI's address today. Here are the last two paragraphs of the address, courtesy of Zenit, with the mention of the Gospel and Acts of Thomas at the end of the first paragraph below:

The fourth Gospel has preserved for us a last note on Thomas, on presenting him as witness of the Risen One in the moment after the miraculous catch on the Lake of Tiberias (cf. John 21:2). On that occasion, he is mentioned also immediately after Simon Peter: an evident sign of the notable importance that he enjoyed in the ambit of the first Christian communities. In fact, in his name, were later written the "Acts" and the "Gospel of Thomas," both apocryphal, but in any case important for the study of Christian origins.

Let us recall, finally, that according to an ancient tradition, Thomas evangelized in the first instance Syria and Persia (so says Origen, as referred by Eusebius of Caesarea, "Hist. eccl." 3,1) and later went as far as western India (cf. "Acts of Thomas" 1-2: 17 and following), from where Christianity also later reached the south of India. We end our reflection with this missionary perspective, hoping that Thomas' example will increasingly confirm our faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God.

Labels: Gospel of Thomas

---

I've been meaning to mention the great news that Google Books has made available hundreds of classic public domain books for downloading (e.g. see The Guardian, Stoa, rogueclassicism and BBC News):

Download the classics

Starting today, you can go to Google Book Search and download full copies of out-of-copyright books to read at your own pace. You're free to choose from a diverse collection of public domain titles -- from well-known classics to obscure gems . . . .

Now, allow me to share with you one of the glories of this new development. One of the things that I love about old books is the look of them, their character, the fonts, the quaintness, the sketchy referencing, but best of all the hand annotations made by users. I never write in books, but many people do, even in library copies, and one of the nice things about some of these new downloadable Google books is that they retain the character of the individual book that was scanned. Take Aesop's Fables, for example. The edition is "chosen and phrased by Horace E. Scudder" and just above the "E.", the librarian (I assume) has pencilled in "Elisha", a librarian who has long since departed this world since the book dates from 1885.

As well as retaining the character of the original books scanned, these new downloadable texts have several advantages not yet mentioned anywhere I have seen: (1) the Table of Contents is usually hyperlinked, making it very easy to navigate your way around the book; (2) Likewise the Index (these examples also from Aesop's Fables).

I've been looking around to see what's available in our area, and there are riches to be found. I'll mention those I've found and am finding in the days to come (and I look forward to hearing from others what they have found too). Here's a particular treat:

Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt (eds.), LOGIA IHSOU: Sayings of Our Lord from An Early Greek Papyrus (London: Henry Frowde, 1897).

As with Aesop's Fables above, the librarian (at Harvard) has written in "Pyne" above the "P." and "Surridge" above the "S.". The only bad news here is that the plate is not available. (Wonder why?).

More anon.

Labels: Gospel of Thomas

---

Just out from Oxford University Press is this interesting looking piece:

The Beloved Disciple in Conflict?
Revisiting the Gospels of John and Thomas
Ismo Dunderberg

* Examines critically various early Christian texts and makes them fruitful for the study of the New Testament

* Assesses current theories about these texts, and also makes new suggestions

27 April 2006 | £45.00 | Hardback | 272 pages
For more details, visit: www.oup.com/uk/isbn/0-19-928496-2

OUP have generously made available a really lengthy sample (PDF):

Sample Chapter: The Beloved Disciple in Context and Conclusion

Update (7 June): I received a note this morning that this title is now available on Oxford Scholarship On-line. Those with subscriptions to this (including many universities) will now be able to read the whole thing on-line. I, for one, am looking forward to it.

Labels: Gospel of Thomas

---

0n Hypotyposeis, Stephen Carlson comments on Bart Ehrman on the Da Vinci Code:

I think that the Gospel of Thomas was written about 20 years after John; my opinion on this is the majority opinion; almost everybody who studies Thomas thinks of it as later than John with a few notable exceptions, including Elaine Pagels. She's the main one, but most people think Thomas was written in the early second century.

Ehrman's take on the majority opinion is somewhat different from the impression I have garnered from reading the scholarship of the most vocal (generally North American) investigators of Thomas, but, if Ehrman is right (and he has a better sense of the field than I do), it is a helpful reminder that the majority of scholars are not necessarily the loudest voices.

I think that Ehrman is right about where the majority opinion lies, and Stephen's comment that this is a useful reminder is apposite. I was interested by the same paragraph in the Ehrman interview, not least because I find myself in the minority group on this one (nothing new for me there!). The notion that John may post-date Thomas or something very like Thomas seems to me more likely than the reverse given John's too-perfect characterisation of Thomas as coming to belief in the way of the cross and ultimately the resurrection of Jesus' flesh, with the latter the very occasion for the confession of belief in Jesus as Lord and God. This is a powerful and effective counter to the kind of Jesus movement (if you can even call it that) witnessed by the Gospel of Thomas. The full case takes longer to make, and it is in my forthcoming book on Thomas, if I ever get it finished.

Labels: Elaine Pagels, Gospel of Thomas

---

From today's Guardian news of the death of Hugh Montefiore, whom many will know for his NT scholarship, but also as a very important figure in the Church. I first heard of him from his book on Thomas, and was then excited to find out that the Bishop of Birmingham was in fact the same person:

The Rt Rev Hugh Montefiore
Progressive Anglican theologian and cleric who spoke up for literary freedom, women priests and the environment
Michael de-la-Noy

. . . . After war service with a commission in the Royal Artillery, he was ordained deacon in 1949, at the age of 29, and was priested a year later. After serving a brief curacy in Newcastle, he was appointed, in 1951, as chaplain and tutor at the Cambridge theological college, Westcott House.

Two years later, Montefiore's gifts as a New Testament scholar ensured that he was appointed vice principal of the college, a post from which he inexplicably resigned without having another job to go to - a "lunatic thing to do", as he later admitted. Nevertheless, in 1954 he began a distinguished, nine-year stint as fellow and dean of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, during the last four years of which he combined the post with that of university lecturer in New Testament studies . . . .

. . . . .Just as remarkable as his appointment as bishop of Kingston was his preferment in 1978 as bishop of Birmingham. His was the first appointment recommended by the newly constituted Crown Appointments Commission, and it is reasonable to assume that, under the previous system of choosing bishops on the old-boy network, he would never have become a diocesan . . . .

. . . . Both Aberdeen and Birmingham universities conferred honorary doctorates on Montefiore, due recognition of his scholarship and learning; between 1954 and 2002, he wrote, edited or contributed to some 40 books, publishing in 1995 a breezy autobiography with the snappy title, Oh God, What Next? For many years, he wrote a weekly article for the Church Times . . . .

Update (21.28):

Telegraph obituary

Times obituary

Bishop and eco-warrier (85) dies (BBC Birmingham)

Labels: Gospel of Thomas, obituaries

---

I went up to Manchester on Thursday to take part in a recording for a Beyond Belief on Radio 4. The topic was Gnosticism and the other two taking part in the discussion were Timothy Freke and Michael Green, with an interview with Elaine Pagels on tape to be broadcast at the half-way point. Ernie Rea was in the chair as usual. I'd met both Timothy Freke and Michael Green before, though in very different contexts. Tim I met in 2001 on the Channel 4 programme Right to Reply. I was on with Michael Wakelin to defend the BBC1 series Son of God against Tim's critique, a short film and then an in-studio discussion. This time it was good to get to know Tim a little better. On that occasion they kept us apart until we met on set. On this occasion, we shared lunch together first and, as it happened, a train journey afterwards. We disagreed profoundly, and I especially disagreed with Tim's Jesus-myth approach, on top of what I would call a kind of popular philosophical approach rather than an historical approach to Gnosticism, but Tim's company I enjoyed very much -- and we had a few laughs.

Michael Green I had met before in Oxford when I was a fresher. He was rector of St Aldate's Church at the time and used to invite the freshers to tea in the rectory on a rolling college by college basis each Sunday tea-time. Goodness only knows how they managed to keep up with this across the weeks and years, but we appreciated it. I remember their asking us if we would like to pray together after we had had our tea and cakes, and I remember getting a special prayer because I would be studying Theology, so would need additional strength! I also recall the dog sniffing around us while we were praying.

That was almost twenty years ago. This time Michael Green was in a studio in Oxford and the other three of us were in Manchester. I've done Beyond Belief several times and just once in a lonely studio in Birmingham down the line -- I don't recommend it. It is much easier to do when you can see Ernie and your fellow guests. And on this occasion we lost Michael Green for a good ten minutes or so during the recording.

The discussion was quite enjoyable. I felt like I spoke less than the other two, both of whom got pretty passionate, the one for how wonderful Gnostic texts were and how much they can lead to inner enlightenment today, the other for how far they were in thought from orthodox Christian texts in the canon. Happily, I was not asked to define Gnosticism, something that I would not find easy after having read Michael Allen Williams and Karen King. Also happily, we tended to focus most often on the Gospel of Thomas which I know better than any of the other Nag Hammadi texts, though it was a shame that we did not get into some of the really interesting funkier bits of the Apocryphon of John and the like. Ernie asked me to tell the story of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts too. But as usual on such occasions, I cannot now remember a great deal of the rest of what I said, so I hope that none of it was daft. (I do remember sharing my first impression of reading the Gospel of Thomas, that I wondered whether the author of it was on drugs).

The programme goes out on Monday 7 March at 4.30 pm on Radio 4.

Labels: Elaine Pagels, Gospel of Thomas

---

The sixth and final intalment of the Scholarly Smackdown on beliefnet between Elaine Pagels and Ben Witherington III, "Did Paul Distort Christianity", has now been published:

Scholarly Smackdown Round 3: Elaine Pagels

Pagels's post is (at the very least) a useful summary of her thinking on The Gospel of Thomas, on which she clearly thinks that Ben Witherington III's thinking is out of date since she refers repeatedly and disparagingly to what they learned in graduate school, e.g. here:

A further indication that Thomas is not "Gnostic," by your own definition, is that it does use the Old Testament in a very positive way—just as the Gospel of John does. Both frame their views of the gospel with midrashic interpretations of Genesis 1. Recognizing this has led scholars far beyond what you learned as a graduate student from Bruce Metzger, and what I learned in graduate school. That's why those of us working in this field—including Birger Pearson—have come to recognize these texts not as "Gnostic"—whatever that fuzzy term meant—but as early Christian, and immersed, like all the early Christian sources we know, in the Hebrew Bible.

Final reflection on the two Beliefnet Scholarly Smackdowns: so far they are a useful but flawed experiment. What they have been good at has been giving the reader a flavour of each of the author's views. They are useful mini-articles. What they have been less good at has been the (unfortunately titled) "smackdown" of the title, which I am told is a wrestling analogy. There is precious little wrestling here! Because the scholars concerned (Crossan, Pagels and Witherington) have been encouraged to write relatively lengthy, self-contained emails, the actual critical engagement has been too limited. There has been too much talking past one another. If you want a good quality of interaction, I still think you have to go a long way to beat Xtalk at its best. It's not always at its best, of course, but when it is it's the most stimulating around.

Labels: