Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 21:14:19 +0000
From: Stevan Davies <miser17@epix.net>
To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
Subject: Re: Original GThomas

Bill wrote:

> Problem is, I'm e-mailing from home, and my text of Thomas
> is in the office. Until I get internet hook-up in my
> office, this kinda vagueness is going to be the rule, rather
> than the exception. Sorry.

Hmm. No internet access? There's this Thomas website I know of
that even gives the damn thing to you in Danish and Portugese.
www.epix.net/~miser17/Thomas.html
 
> I think, anyway, you'll find my argument here maddening -- I'm
> using Gnosticism as an example of the speculative Jewish
> sapiential tradition! So I get to say, "this is paralleled
> in gnosticism, and hence coherent," without having to say,
> "this is Gnostic" and thereby irritate my friend and senior
> colleague Stevan Davies. But I suspect this kind of argument
> will irritate him even more! How about this, then? Can we
> say that the several mythological and/or speculative motifs
> that occurs in intertestamental apocalyptic literature as
> well as in, say, Paul's letters, John, Colossians and
> Ephesians, etc., are typical of a distinctive cultural
> current? I think they are, and that is the current which I
> think lends coherence to what I've identified as Thomas
> redaction. Look, the incoherence of this material in Thomas
> is no greater than the apparent incoherence of, say, Acts of
> John, or Gospel of John, or 1 Cor, etc.

Oh bother. It's much less coherent. See, now, I'll let you get away
with characterizing it as you do, don't know how I can stop you 
short of the use of firearms, but I can't let you say it's coherent
within Thomas. In other words, if we want to say that Thomas has
a variety of odd stuff that we can call gnostic, it does not follow,
and isn't the case, that this odd stuff adds up to a coherent 
statement in Thomas. So you're left with a redactor who adds
incoherent random stuff... for what purpose I cannot imagine. 

> 	This (above) actually responds to Steve's "contra
> Arnal" post as well, so, without thinking that I've
> actually settled things here, I'll consider this my
> rejoinder his other letter as well.

Doesn't respond one whit. I'm accusing you of one basic thing, 
really, and that is that you take a category invented by NT scholars
to characterize Jesus' sayings, or at least a good hunk of them,
and using that NT scholarly category drawn from the canon to
categorize Thomas' sayings into a Stratum1. This isn't much of an 
accusation, really, except that you claim that you are doing 
something different than putting the synoptic style sayings into one pile
and the other sayings into another pile. But when you use the 
NT scholarly category "wisdom saying" to do this, this is what you 
do! I really don't think you want to do this... but you do. 

Then, taking the leftovers, you find as broad a category as possible
and lable them that. OK again, if that's what you want, go ahead...
I do have a shotgun, but I don't have any shells and the shotgun is
about fifty years old and would probably explode if I tried to use it on you.

Then, continuing on, you claim that these sayings make some sort of
coherent case or point or make sense together or some damn thing 
other than "they're all odd aren't they?... period." 

This all does amount to a stratification, but you've not responded to 
the principal point that you have put the synoptic style stuff 
(called "wisdom sayings" from Robinson or Koester or whatever) in
one pile and everything else in the other pile, thus in effect doing 
just what Patterson did (if memory serves). Reason it's the same 
thing is that "wisdom sayings" turns out to be roughly the same as
unredactional synoptic sayings and NOT some kind of independent 
category drawn from extra-Christian Judaism. If you admit you're
doing that, then we can all just relax and get ready for the NBA 
playoffs. 

> > See, if you take Stratum2 sayings, they just don't cohere EXCEPT 
> > in that they are odd. It doesn't help, I don't think, to use 
> > "speculative" for "odd." 
> 
> They are "odd" because they are mythological. They are
> mythological in certain predictable ways.

No they aren't. But I guess there's no use in giving examples.
 
> > Seek and find what? Ahh, there's the rub. I'd say, without fear
> > of contradiction,  seek and find the Kingdom. So far so good.
> > Then somebody comes along during the epoch when people were
> > putting apostles' names on things as guarantors of their legitimacy
> > and, added the incipit, CHANGING the orientation of the text
> > from seeking and finding the kingdom to seeking and finding the
> > meaning of the sayings. 
> 
> Very interesting. I like this. Of course, in making this
> claim (however tentatively), you're proposing a
> stratification of Thomas too, just one that embraces less
> material than mine. Interestingly, the redactional
> perspective of YOUR Thomas redaction is in at least a
> couple respects, very similar to mine.

I don't see how. I chop out Incipit/1 and 114 (added separately).
That's it for my stratification.
 
>  I claim that the author
> makes the sayings deliberately obscure by the repetition of
> words in different contexts with different meanings,

As I wrote before, when this is done the differences are explained 
and not just left to sit there. 

> the
> separation of sayings with SIMILAR meanings,

Oh come now. I never heard of such a thing. You mean a careful 
ordering pattern in Thomas to avoid order? Along with your own 
claim that the odd stuff tends to be conjoined? 

> and references
> to mythological entities whose identity is not specified.

The only one I can think of is "mother." "Images?" You're being
deliberately obscure, Bill. 

Steve