Date: Thu, 02 Apr 1998 09:08:17 -0500 From: Michael Grondin To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Re: Original GThomas/"I'm your disciple" Stevan Davies writes: > 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. Steve - I'm more than happy to entertain the possibility of some other triad within the text being "the three words" (which, as you say, may be larger elements). What I'm not happy to entertain is the suggestion by others (not you) that the "three words" are external to the text. That doesn't make any sense to me. Although I considered a number of possibilities, I must admit that I didn't consider 14/14a, probably because I was concentrating more on its connection to 6a. But let me tell you what criteria I think should be used in judging between various candidates for the "three words", and get your response to that: C1: One or more of the three must be "blasphemous" in some sense. This is the most obvious criterion, but there is ambiguity here. The Coptic is not clear whether Thomas is saying "If I tell you ANY ONE of the three, you will stone me" or "One of the three is such that, if I tell you THAT ONE, you will stone me". So I leave it open whether all of the three or just one must be "blasphemous". (This is to say nothing of the question, "Blasphemous to whom? Jews or Christians or both?") What I like about my candidate with respect to this criterion is that it has a kind of three-in-one quality to it. Thomas couldn't tell the others one of those three words without telling them all three, thus resolving the ambiguity. Also, the "blasphemy" would be in the minds of Christians, hence the need to hide it. C2: The "three words" must be elsewhere in the text than in #13, since Jesus takes Thomas aside to tell them to him. (This criterion is pretty easily satisfied, but it needs to be stated anyway.) Here's the one you won't like: C3: The "three words" must be in some sense a follow-up to what Jesus has just said to Thomas, viz., "I'm not your master". Note that here, the Cartlidge translation has got it wrong. He conjoins the two elements to have Jesus saying "I am not your master because you drank...", which doesn't make any sense. Lambdin has got it right: "I am not your master. Because you drank..." The part about Thomas having become drunk from the words of Jesus connects up, of course, with #108, where Jesus is made to say, "He who drinks from my mouth will become as I am" (i.e., will become "the master"?), "and I will become as he is" (i.e., "the disciple"?) Take away those question marks and make it so. But what about that "measuring" business in #13? Aha, here's my absolute guaranteed slam-dunk argument that I'm right and you're wrong: #61 is exactly halfway between #13 and #108. Take that! Mike -- Macomb, Michigan USA (810-954-3562) The Codex II Student Resource Center http://www.Geocities.com/Athens/9068