Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 19:00:19 +0000 From: Stevan Davies To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Re: Original GThomas/"I'm your disciple" Bill wrote: > Two things on GThom, in response to Mike Grondin: > > 1. Unbelievably, I'd never noticed that #14 is a response > to #6a! How humbling. I'm gonna need to look at the > connection between these two sayings all over again. For the > record, I DID indentify the latter part of #6 as redactional > in R of M, but redacted from the perspective of the first > stratum. Most of the sayings that intervene between 6 and 14 > I attribute to the second stratum, but if I'm right in my > assignments, then this separation was made by the initial > redaction, and not teh later one. So now I have to ask > myself, "Why?" Food for thought. Jeesh. What a thing to miss! Allow me to make matters all that much more dense and obscure by pointing out that Matthew 6:1-18 is a version of Thomas 6, much expanded by the addition of specific examples and characteristic-of-Matthean-redaction whining about hypocrites and gentiles. Yet even the "hypocrite" business is foreshadowed by Thomas "do not lie." Means to me that Thomas 6 is original, Matthew expands upon it in his own way, and Thomas too expands upon it with Thomas 14. In both cases "what shall we eat" is dealt with oddly, Thomas by supplying relevant traditional sentences, Matthew by leaving it out altogether... but how could he work that into his "do it secretly" scenario... he couldn't possibly. > 2. I LIKE the idea that the "three words" in #13 are "I am > your disciple" which we see in #61. I'll be interested in Mike's response. IMO the secret sayings (and, of course, the secret "words" could just as well be secret "sayings" or even "teachings") are either Thomas #14a or #14 depending on how you want to count things. Probably the former. To Bob Schact's suggestion, which I don't think I received by email first time through, it's a fine suggestion. Proverbs is the better analogy. Like Bill I don't have the expertise to do anything with it. What we should get on Crosstalk is a grad student aide who could do this sort of thing for us. Bill's jokebook analogy is a good one... and such a book will probably have topical connections here and there along with catchwords. Steve