Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 08:27:48 +0000 From: Mark Goodacre To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Re: Original GThomas -- Methodology Steve Davies wrote: > This is a really good point. It fits in with my recent observations > that we recognize Thomas' supposed redactions (some of them anyhow) > because they are absent in the synoptic material which we take, > consciously or unconsciously, to be normative. Your point also > relates to canonical bias because, due to the work of the > evangelists, we consciously or unconsciously think that virtually > all of Jesus' sayings makes some kind of sense (in reference to > whatever kind of sense the evangelists made them mean). I wonder if it relates too to a trend that is becoming important in synoptic criticism, that of looking at each (synoptic) Gospel in its own right without historical-critical obsession with its parallels? For example Joel Green's recent commentary on the Gospel of Luke is, I think, one of the best commentaries on Luke I have read -- and Green always looks at Luke without consulting synoptic parallels. So Luke's Travel Narrative is expounded in narrative-critical vein without any reference to supposed sources in Q and L, which, as with Thomas parallels to the synoptics, always tend to be in one's mind. It is a tough discipline not to do what we have been trained to do but it can be a most useful discipline because of the interesting things that come out of it. All the best Mark ------------------------------------------- Dr Mark Goodacre M.S.Goodacre@bham.ac.uk Dept. of Theology, University of Birmingham Homepage: http://www.bham.ac.uk/theology/goodacre.htm