Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 11:05:19 -0400 (EDT) From: William E. Arnal To: Kevin Johnson Cc: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Re: Original GThomas/"I'm your disciple" On Thu, 2 Apr 1998, Kevin Johnson wrote: > And since we're on the topic of saying #61 here, I just have to ask... what > is the deal with the Coptic word for "bed" here? Is the word unambiguously > the type of bed you sleep upon or can it also mean "couch?" Haven't a clue. The word is klok (with the "k" representing that weird demotic letter that looks like a "6"), which I guess just means "bed", but could have easily enough translated Greek klinH, which can mean bed, proper, OR the couch one lies on to eat. > "Three words in Greek" if you want to argue that the mysterious three words > are (1.) within the text and (2.) that the text was originally written in > Greek. That Coptic GTh is a translation from the Greek is a point that B. > Metzger made to me and he was quite adamant about it (though he did concede > that the original could have been in Aramaic). I happen to find it utterly implausible that Aramaic was GThom's original language. Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that the Coptic is a translation of the Greek, so unless we're dealing here with material that was added by some kind of Coptic redactor (which I very much doubt, at least in the case of #13), then, yes, if the words are in the text, and refer to three LITERAL words (rather than, say, three sayings), they will be three words in GREEK, not necessarily in Coptic translation. Bill ________________________________________ William E. Arnal 19 University Place, #503 Religious Studies/Classics New York, NY 10003 New York University (212) 998-8990 (o) william.arnal@nyu.edu (212) 995-5036 (h)