From kjohnson@truesoft.com Mon Jun 1 01:03:35 1998 Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 16:44:31 -0400 From: Kevin Johnson To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Re: Thomas and the Synoptics At 05:13 PM 5/27/98 GMT, Mark Goodacre wrote: >How do we know that 'the "sayings collection" form preceded the >"narrative gospel" form'? Is it just because of the Q theory? Is >it specifically because of a Kloppenborg-type stratification theory? >Is the assumption of a simple development from sayings collection >> >narrative collection a bit too simplistic? If we are going entirely >on reconstructions isn't the premise a that sayings collections >preceded narrative gospels shaky? My own views on this topic stem from the pioneering work done by James Robinson (James M. Robinson and Helmut Koester, _Trajectories through Early Christianty_ ; Fortress Press, Philadelphia 1971; ISBN 0-8006-0058-4). In his article titled, _LOGOI SOPHON: On the Gattung of Q_ (pp. 71-113), Robinson delineates the development of the sayings collection genre within early Christianity. Tracing the idea back to Bultmann, Robinson makes the case that the earliest sayings collections were associated with the term "logoi" and proceeds to analyze the occurrences of "logos" and "logoi" in various early Christian documents within the light of references to sayings collections. He starts with a quote from the Didache: "Now these sayings' teaching is as follows" and then moves to Matthew, who uses the term "logoi" several times in relation to his sayings material, such as in the Matthean formula: "And it came to pass when Jesus completed all these logia..." Further, Robinson writes: >>>"Indicative of Matthew's interest in logoi is also 10:14 where the term logoi has been introduced redactionally into Mark 6:11, '...nor hear you,' to produce 'nor hear your sayings.' To be sure Matthew reveals traces of a trend to designate such sayings collections as 'gospel,' the same conflation of terminology characteristic of the title of the Gospel of Thomas."<<< Robinson then moves on to Luke and points out that >>>"Luke 24:44 not only uses a quotation formula like the incipit of the Gospel of Thomas, suggesting that he was aware of collections of the resurrected Lord's sayings; for by means of its careful formulation Luke 24:44 makes it clear that these are not new sayings but reminiscences of sayings from the public ministry: 'These are my logoi that I spoke to you while I was still with you.'"<<< He then discusses the concept that Mark 4 derives from a sayings collection, reviews the sayings introductory formula of several other early Christian documents, and concludes the section with the following observations: >>>"Thus we seem to be able to trace the beginnings of a designation for the gattung of collections of sayings back into the earliest such collections of the primitive church. Somewhat as in the case of the Gospel of Thomas, the term (logoi) would seem to be initially imbedded in the sayings themselves, and to move towards a title first by means of the significant placement of such sayings, from which it is taken into redactional subscription."<<< >From Robinson's work, it seems clear that the Jesus sayings collections material was consciously incorporated into Jesus narrative material. >> - Thomas lacks anything like the developed Christology that we see >> in the synoptics and John. Moreover, the followers of Jesus are >> merely his "disciples" and have not yet become "the Twelve." > >To what extent does low Christology (or even non-existent >Christology) necesssarily imply a late date? And Paul is already >referring to "the Twelve" in the 50s in material that he says he has >received (1 Cor. 11). Is that therefore probative? Probative? No. Indicative? Yes, especially when taken in combination with other indicators. And the indicators of an early date in the Gospel of Thomas are all over the place. For example, take saying 12 in the GThomas: 12) The disciples said to Jesus, "We know that You will depart from us. Who is to be our leader?" Jesus said to them, "Wherever you are, you are to go to James the righteous, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being." As it stands, one of the basic statements Jesus makes in this saying, as I understand it, is "when I'm not here, go to James." I interpret this as an indication that this saying was composed during the lifetime of James since it makes no sense to compose a saying that says "when Jesus is gone, go to James" if James is already dead. But I'm sure that if someone wanted to, they could create a seemingly ostensible reason why some early Christian group may have fabricated this saying *after* the death of James. However, the most natural explanation is that this saying was composed prior to the death of James the Righteous in the year 62. >> - When compared to the synoptics, the sayings in GThomas do not show >> the redactions that the synoptics frequently contain > >Tuckett and others have argued the contrary though I have to admit >that I am not entirely convinced. I would like something more >blatant to convince me, and I would like to see more agreement in >order. Along what lines does Tuckett argue? >> - the intrusion >> of details derived from Old Testament "proof texts," allegorical >> parable interpretations presented by Jesus, the emphatic "Hypocrite" >> and "Fool" of Q, and so on. For example, in the mid-1930's, C. H. >> Dodd examined the canonical versions of the parable of the Wicked >> Husbandmen and hypothesized that there was an original parable that >> was different from all three synoptic versions and that it consisted >> of the owner of the vineyard sending two servants and then his son. >> His hypothesis was confirmed when the Gospel of Thomas, found a >> decade or so after Dodd's book was written, contained just such a >> version of this parable. > >The difficulty with this, and with Dodd's apparent coup, is that it >assumes a straightforward development: low allegory = early; high >allegory = late, a theory that Dodd (along with Jeremias) did much to >promote. Yes, I respect the work of both of them. >Why assume this? Allegory (such as the Shepherd of Hermas, for example) is the product of reflective thought over time, as is a developed Christology for that matter. And an explicitly allegorical version of a parable suggests the existence of an earlier version which is not explicitly allegorical, unless you mean to imply that the parables were originally allegorical. >Luke in his redaction of Mark's parables >consistently makes them less allegorical, yet he is later than Mark. >I think the idea of a a steady, easily traced development from >low allegory to high is a bit too simple. Life is more complicated >than that. As I have been suggesting to you of late, the evidence GThomas brings suggests that Luke incorporated Mark with an eye on sayings collection material outside Mark. If Luke did not reproduce allegorical features in Mark, it's because he knew better (i.e., he had access to parallel versions which were not as allegorical as Mark) and not because his method of redacting Mark involved ripping out the parts he deemed to be allegorical. Are the parables you mention also in GThomas? >Is not, though, Thomas anti-apocalyptic rather than non-apocalyptic? >In which case, this cannot function as an argument for earliness. >Do not some Thomas experts take this line? Although I'm not familiar with this view, I can see how someone could make this claim based on GThomas 113 and 3. However, 3 basically states that the reign of God cannot be located spatially while 113 says it can't be specified temporally. Neither makes explicit apocalyptic or anti-apocalyptic claims. Apocalyptic imagery does occur in GThomas (#23 - "I shall choose you one out of a thousand and two out of ten thousand;" #111 - "heavens rolled up"). Moreover, we know that some of the same sayings we find in GThomas were interpreted to support an apocalyptic view because we find parallels to at least two GThomas sayings in Mark's "Little Apocalypse" (GThomas 71 // Mark 13:2 and GThomas 79 // Mark 13:17). Consequently, I hardly think the label "anti-apocalyptic" is warranted here. >>Kevin also wrote: > >> If he has taken from >> them, he has taken from all four and in such a way that implies his >> use of the scissors-and-paste method within each saying - sometimes >> drawing from this evangelist, sometimes drawing from that one. This >> possibility was rejected by scholars because it was not plausible. >> Quite aside from the amount of labor this work would entail (and >> ignoring the anachronistic reading of a modern methodology into an >> ancient document), was the fact that such a methodology would not >> tend to produce sayings which were form-critically older than their >> canonical cousins. > >Thomas may of course have known the synoptics and still 'used' oral >traditions independent of them in which case the discussion of >'scissors and paste' would not be so relevant. My own gut feeling >would be that Thomas interacted with oral traditions, some of which >had themselves had interacted with the synoptics. I tend to put Thomas before the synoptics so I would change this to read "the synoptics interacted with oral traditions, some of which had themselves interacted with Thomas." But you seem to be granting here that Thomas is not dependent on the synoptics at the written level. Is this your position? >This >plausible picture would make sense of the data produced by both sides >in the argument, dependence and independence, wouldn't it? A original relationship/divergence at the level of oral tradition, rather than a relationship involving written texts, might explain why there is an overlapping of sayings but a general lack of signs indicating literary dependency, such as a common order or common secondary features. - Kevin (kjohnson@truesoft.com)