Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 15:13:36 +0400
From: Michael Davies <miser17@epix.net>
To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
Subject: Re: Original GThomas: Redaction?

Davies:
> >... Doesn't it seem altogether more likely
> >that the "for" and "you" material cited above came into Thomas from
> >oral tradition already connected with the material it's connected to?
> >
Schacht:
> I'm not clear on why you think of the "For" category as an indication of
> oral tradition. Could you clarify that for me?

No. I'm surprised to see this stuff in Thomas. Never saw it before.
It's not unique to Thomas to connect traditional materials with
"for". 

Mk 4:2-22 1He said to them, "Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a 
bowl or a bed? Instead, don't you put it on its stand? For whatever is 
hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is 
meant to be brought out into the open. 
 
33)  Jesus said, "Preach from your housetops that which you will hear 
in your ear {(and) in the other ear}. For no one lights a lamp and puts it 
under a bushel, nor does he put it in a hidden place, but rather he sets 
it on a lampstand so that everyone who enters and leaves will see its 
light."

6b)  Jesus said, "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, as all 
things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not 
become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being 
uncovered."

Mt: 10:34-36 "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. 
I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn "`a man 
against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against
her mother-in-law-- a man's enemies will be the members of his own 
household.' 

16)  Jesus said, "Men think, perhaps, that it is peace which I have come 
to cast upon the world. They do not know that it is dissension which I have 
come to cast upon the earth: fire, sword, and war. For there will be five in a 
house: three will be against two, and two against three, the father against the
son, and the son against the father, and they will stand solitary." 

There are four possibilities.

1. These 'for" connections are original with Jesus. This might be the
case for the Matthew/16 saying.

2. Such connections are made in oral tradition. The similarity 
between Matthew and Thomas 16 could, alternatively, indicate this.
Depends on whether you like the two as one sustained idea or
as two separate items artificially joined.

3. Such connections are made by the person writing the stuff down.
Not at all unlikely in the case of Mark and, I'd say, Thomas. 

4. Such connections are made by somebody adding them into
already written texts. If #2 and #3 are attested in the evidence, #4, 
while not impossible, doesn't seem to be the best explanation, 
especially since we've basically got juxtapositions of traditional 
material used to comment on traditional material and NOT explanatory 
glosses extrinsic to the traditions. 

What do you think?

Steve