Date: Sat, 04 Apr 1998 14:47:00 -0600
From: Paul Miller <pmiller@ixlmemphis.com>
To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
Subject: Re: Original GThomas

Kevin writes:
> I'm trying not to shout here, but I would just like to underscore one
> point: Catchword association is a sign of oral tradition, not written
> redaction! The doublets in GTh, most of which occur after saying #100, are
> sometimes taken as evidence of a written literary history of the text of
> Gth, that is, as a sign of *written* redaction. But catchword associations
> have long been known by Biblical scholars to be a sign of *oral* tradition.
> The idea that catchword association could somehow be a part of scribal
> redaction is a heresy that was introduced only recently by Mike ("Marcion")
> Grondin!

 I think everyone understands that catchword association is a sign of
oral tradition, but the point here is these oral sayings became written
text containing the catchwords. A redactor aware of catchwords within
the text could simply add an appropriate catchword to his inserted
logion. Thus I say again:
> If scribal
> layering was done with knowledge of the catchwords then Patterson's
> catchword argument doesn't speak to the stratification question.

 Two catchwords linking 114 and 113 doesn't prove this at all, check out
the first word in the above quoted sentence (If). I don't hold a
position for or against stratification of GThomas, and I certainly don't
have proof that scribes knew that there were catchwords in the text. I
also don't see any good reason to rule out this possibility when
considering the question of stratification.

                                                Paul Miller