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Gospels In Conflict: John and Thomas - Part 4

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Dear All,

 

We concluded Part 3 with:

 

(p.37) " But don't the other gospels also say that Jesus is God? Don't Matthew

and Mark, for example, call Jesus " son of God, " and doesn't this mean that Jesus

is virtually--almost 'genetically'--the same as God? Like most people who grow

up familiar with Christian tradition, I assumed that all the gospels say the

same thing or, at most, offer variations on a single theme. Because Matthew,

Mark, and Luke share a similar perspective, scholars call these gospels synoptic

(literally, " seeing together " ). Only in graduate school, when I investigated

each gospel, so far as possible, in its historical context, did I see how

radical is John's claim that Jesus is God manifest in human form. "

 

Here now, is Part 4.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

Gospels In Conflict: John and Thomas - Part 4

 

(p.37) Although Mark and the other evangelists use titles that Christians today

often take as indicating Jesus' divinity, such as " son of God " and " messiah, " in

Mark's own time these titles designated 'human' roles. [20] (p.38) The

Christians who translated these titles into English fifteen centuries later

believed they showed that Jesus was uniquely related to God, and so they

capitalized them--a linguistic convention that does not occur in Greek. But

Mark's contemporaries would most likely have seen Jesus as a 'man'--although one

gifted, as Mark says, with the power of the holy spirit, and divinely appointed

to rule in the coming kingdom of God.

 

Yet as we shall see, after the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke were joined

with John's gospel and Paul's letters to become the " New Testament " --a process

that took place over some two hundred years (c. 160 to 360 C.E.)--most

Christians came to read these earlier gospels through John's lens, and thus to

find in all of them evidence of John's conviction that Jesus is " Lord and God. "

[21] The gospels discovered in 1945 in Upper Egypt, however, offer different

perspectives. For if Matthew, Mark, and Luke had been joined with the Gospel of

Thomas instead of with John, for example, or had 'both' John and Thomas been

included in the New Testament canon, Christians probably would have read the

first three gospels quite differently. The gospels of Thomas and John speak for

different groups of Jesus' followers engaged in discussion, even argument,

toward the end of the first century. What they debated is this: Who is Jesus,

and what is the " good news " (in Greek 'euangellion', " gospel " ) about him?

 

The Gospel of Thomas contains teaching venerated by " Thomas Christians, "

apparently an early group that, like those devoted to Luke, Matthew, and John,

thrived during the first century. What astonished scholars when they first read

Thomas, in the 1940's, was that, although it contains many sayings of Jesus

(p.39) that Luke and Matthew also include in their gospels, it contains 'other'

sayings that apparently derive from a tradition different from that of the

synoptic gospels. [22] Although we do not know where the Gospel of Thomas was

written, many scholars, noting names associated with Syria, think that it

originated there. The Acts of Thomas (c. 200 C.E.), probably written in Syriac,

claims that Thomas himself evangelized India, [23] and to this day there are

Thomas Christians in India who call Thomas the founder of their faith. Although

Mark, Matthew, and Luke mention him among " the twelve " apostles, Thomas is not a

proper name but means " twin " in Aramaic, the language that Jesus would have

spoken. As Professor Helmut Koester shows, although this disciple was called by

his Aramaic nickname, the gospel itself explains that his given name was Judas

(but, his admirers specify, " not Iscariot " ). Since this disciple was known by

the name of Thomas, both the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John also

translate Thomas into Greek, explaining to their Greek readers that this

disciple is " the one called 'Didymus,' " the Greek term for " twin. " [24]

 

As we shall see, John probably knew what the Gospel of Thomas taught--if not its

actual text. Many of the teachings in the Gospel of John that differ from those

in Matthew and Luke sound much like sayings in the Gospel of Thomas: in fact,

what first impressed scholars who compared these two gospels is how similar they

are. Both John and Thomas, for example, apparently assume that the reader

already knows the basic story Mark and the others tell, and each claims to go

beyond that story and reveal what Jesus taught his disciples in private. When,

for example, John tells what happened on the night that Judas betrayed Jesus, he

inserts into his account nearly 'five chapters' of teaching unique to his

gospel--the so-called farewell discourses of John 13 through 18, which consist

of intimate dialogue between the disciples and Jesus, as well as a great deal of

monologue. Similarly, the Gospel of Thomas, as we noted, claims to offer " secret

sayings, which the living Jesus spoke, " and adds that " Didymus Judas Thomas

wrote them down. " [25]

 

John and Thomas give similar accounts of what Jesus taught privately. Unlike

Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who say that Jesus warned of the coming " end of time, "

both John and Thomas say that he directed his disciples instead toward the

beginning of time--to the creation account of Genesis 1--and identify Jesus with

the divine light that came into being " in the beginning. " [26] Thomas and John

both say that this primordial light connects Jesus with the entire universe,

since, as John says, " all things were made through the word ['logos'; or, the

light]. " [27] Professor Koester has noted such similarities in detail, and

concludes that these two authors drew upon common sources. [28] While Mark,

Matthew, and Luke identify Jesus as God's human agent, John and Thomas

characterize him instead as God's own light in human form.

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas)

Chapter 2, p.37-40

Elaine Pagels

Vintage Books, New York, U.S.A

ISBN: 0-375-70316-0

 

Notes:

 

[20] For discussion of the titles " son of God " and " messiah, " see the

influential work of Bart Ehrman, 'The New Testament: A Historical Introduction

to the Early Christian Writings' (Oxford and New York, 2000), 60-84. For an

excellent discussion of various Christologies, see Pheme Perkins, " New Testament

Christologies in Gnostic Transformation, " in 'The Future of Early Christianity:

Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester' Birger A. Pearson, ed., (Minneapolis, 1991),

422-441.

 

[21] John 20:28.

 

[22] For a masterful discussion of the traditions preserved in Thomas and their

relation to the synoptic gospels and to John, see Helmut Koester, 'Ancient

Christian Gospels: Their History and Development' (London and Philadelphia,

1990), especially 75-127.

 

[23] For an overview of discussion of Thomas tradition, see Poirier, " The

Writings Ascribed to Thomas. "

 

[24] Koester, 'Ancient Christian Gospels', 78-80; see also the incisive

assessment of Philip Sellew, " The Gospel of Thomas: Prospects for Future

Research, " in Turner and McGuire, 'Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years',

327-346; also Jean-Marie Sevrin, " L'Interpretation de l' evangile selon Thomas,

entre tradition et redaction, " in the same volume, 347-360.

 

[25] Gospel of Thomas 1, in NHL 118.

 

[26] Genesis 1:3. For an excellent discussion, see Steven Davies, " Christology

and Protology in the Gospel of John, " 'Journal of Biblical Literature' 111

(1992), 663-683.

 

[27] John 1:3.

 

[28] Koester, 'Ancient Christian Gospels', 86-128; see also Patterson, 'Gospel

of Thomas and Jesus'.

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