Gospels In Conflict: John and Thomas - Part 15

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded Part 14 with the following:

 

(p.65) " John warns those who doubt him that Jesus, acting as divine judge, will

condemn those who reject this " good news, " even if they constitute the main body

of the Jewish people, rather than the handful of the faithful who alone see the

truth and proclaim it to a hostile and unbelieving world. According to John,

" the Jews " regard Jesus himself (and thus his followers) as insane or

demon-possessed. John warns that, just as they wanted to kill Jesus for " making

himself God, " they will hate and want to kill his followers for believing such

blasphemy: " Whoever kills you will think he is doing service to God. " [119] But

John assures Jesus' followers that God judges very differently: " Whoever

believes in him [Jesus] is not condemned; but whoever does not believe is

condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten

Son of God. " [120] For John, Jesus has become more than the messenger of the

kingdom--and even more than its future king: Jesus 'himself' has become the

message. "

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas), Chapter 2, p.65.

 

Notes:

 

[119] John 19:2.

 

[120] John 3:18.

 

Here now, is Part 15.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

Gospels In Conflict: John and Thomas - Part 15

 

(p.65) How could anyone who heard John's message--or that of Mark, Thomas, or

any of the others, for that matter--decide what to believe? Various Christian

groups validated their teaching by declaring allegiance to a specific apostle or

disciple and claiming him (and sometimes her, for some claim Mary as a disciple)

as their spiritual founder. (p.66) As early as 50 to 60 C.E., Paul had

complained that members of different groups would say, for example, " I am from

Paul, " or " I am from Apollos, " [121] for those who wrote stories about various

apostles--including John, as well as Peter, Matthew, Thomas, and Mary

Magdalene--would often promote their groups' teachings by claiming that Jesus

favored their patron apostle, so that, while John acknowledges Peter as a

leader, he insists that " the believed disciple " surpassed Peter in spiritual

understanding. He is aware that other groups make similar claims for other

disciples. He seems to know, for example, of Thomas Christians, who claim that

'their' patron apostle, Thomas, understood more than Peter. Though John's gospel

begins by seeming to agree with Thomas about God's presence in Jesus, by the end

John tells three anecdotes about Thomas to show how wrong these Thomas

Christians are.

 

John's gospel begins by recalling, as Thomas does, the opening of the first

chapter of Genesis--saying that, since the beginning of time, divine light, " the

light of all people, " has shone forth:

 

'In the beginning' [Gen.1:1] was the word, and the word was with God, and the

word was God...what came into being in him was life, and 'the life was the light

of all people'. " [122]

 

But John's next lines suggest that he intends not to complement but to 'reject'

Thomas's claim that we have direct access to God through the divine image within

us, for John immediately adds--three times!--that the divine light did not

penetrate the deep darkness into which the world has plunged. (p.67) Though he

agrees that, since the beginning of time, the divine light " shines into the

darkness, " he also declares that " 'the darkness has not grasped it'. " [123] (Here

the Greek verb 'katalambanein', which means " to seize, " has a double meaning, as

does the English verb " to grasp " ). Moreover, he says that, although the divine

light had come into the world, " and the world was made through it, 'the world

did not recognize it'. " [124] John then adds that even when that light " came

unto its own, 'its own'--God's people, Israel--'did not receive it'. " [125]

Thus, because that divine light was not available to those " in the world, "

finally " the word became flesh and dwelt among us " [126] in the form of Jesus of

Nazareth, so that some people now may declare triumphantly, as John does, " we

saw his glory [the Greek term translates the Hebrew 'kabod', which means

" shining, " or " radiance " ], the glory as of the only begotten son of the Father. "

[127] Thus the invisible God became visible and tangible in a unique moment of

revelation. A letter later attributed to John declares that " we have seen [him]

with our eyes, and we have touched [him] with our hands! " [128]

 

But to anyone who claims, as Thomas does, that we are (or may become) like

Jesus, John emphatically says 'no': Jesus is unique or, as John loves to call

him, 'monogenes'-- " only begotten " or " one of a kind " [129]--for he insists that

God has only 'one' son, and he is different from you and me. Though John goes

further than the other three New Testament evangelists in saying that Jesus is

not only a man raised to exalted status ( " messiah, " " son of God, " or " son of

man " ) but God himself in human form, and though he presumably agrees that human

beings 'are' made in God's image, as Genesis 1:26 teaches, he argues that

humankind has no innate capacity to know God. What John's gospel does--and has

succeeded ever after in persuading the majority of Christians to do--is claim

that only by believing in Jesus can we find divine truth.

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas)

Chapter 2, p. 65-67

Elaine Pagels

Vintage Books, New York, U.S.A

ISBN: 0-375-70316-0

 

Notes:

 

[121] Galatians 3:4.

 

[122] John 1:1-4.

 

[123] John 1:5.

 

[124] John 1:10.

 

[125] John 1:11.

 

[126] John 1:14.

 

[127] Ibid.

 

[128] 1 John 1:1.

 

[129] I am grateful to my colleague Alexander Nehamas for pointing out that this

Greek term strongly connotes singularity, a usage that goes back as far as

Parmenides' description of what he called being (to on).