From: "Michael Davies" To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 23:16:34 +0000 Subject: Re: Proverbs Reply-to: miser17@epix.net Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail/Windows (v1.22) Sender: owner-crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Precedence: bulk Philip B. Lewis wrote: > On Sun.Jan.12 Stevan Davies wrote: > > The proverb you quote above is a version of the more complete version > found (as usual) in the Gospel of Thomas > > 93) " Do not give what is holy to dogs, lest they throw them on the dung-heap. Do not throw the pearls to swine, lest they grind it [to bits]." > > Stevan was replying to my inquiry about Historical Method in which as an > example I had called attention to Mt.7.6 which in RSV reads: > > " Do not give dogs what is holy , and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you." > > IMHO GTh 93 is NOT a "more complete version of Mt.7.6. To the contrary, it contains a number of anomalies: > 1. The "consequence" of ill-advised conduct is attached to "giving what > is holy to dogs." This is exactly what I meant by "more complete version." The parallel structure is carried out in both sections. > 2. There is no comparable consequence attached to throwing pearls before > swine; in particular, Mt.7.6 depicts "swine" as "turning to rend you." 93 > anticipates no such danger. That's for sure. However, the parallel structure does not admit a second clause in this part. And the clause "turning to rend you" has nothing to do with remainder. It does makes sense as Matthew's redaction in light of your exegesis below. > 3. Unless Copts always were careless about grammer, "pearls" is plural > while "it" is singular. (Perhaps it is the translator's, Thomas Lambdin's, > error.) Lambdin never errs in grammar. I guess at least one Copt was careless about grammar and I suspect other places in Thomas have improper grammar as well. > 4. Gth93 should be weighed in the context afforded by 92 and 94. Both > embody material also found in Mt.7.7-8, sequent to the proverb in question, > but in Matthew starting a new theme. OK. Mt and Thomas are using the sayings differently. > 5. The numerical designations have been supplied for convenient > reference; they were not in the text. And if the "correction of a scribal > omission (<>) and the bracketed material to fill a lacuna [ ] were ignored, > 92,93 and 94 read well as a unit! No they don't! 92 says that people did not get the stuff Jesus wants to say and now they aren't asking. 93 then implies that people do have the holy things and the pearls. Both 92 and 94 urge seeking and finding although 92 specifies that "you are not seeking"... That doesn't add up to a unit to me. I find it incoherent. [It's sometimes comfortable to be a Thomas guy and be able to just admit your text is incoherent, Matthew (etc.) folks have to labor mightily to show the coherence of the wholes.] > It is significant, I believe, that GTh 93 nestles in the arms of sayings // > to Mt.7.7-8 but include (92) "Yet what you asked Me about in former times > and which I did not tell you then," (the pre-crucifixion Jesus?) now I do > desire to tell, but you do not inquire after it." (the Revealer?) Mt.7.6, > on the other hand, follows sayings on Judging others, specks and logs. > Asking/receiving and Knocking/opening begin a new thrust in Matthew, so that > the proverb is relevant to Judging - probably within the church. What shall > we make of these distinctions? Granting, for the moment, your understanding of them, all we can make is that they are different. > Lacking any better historical methodology, I propose: > 1. Again, that the original proverb arose during the pogroms initiated by > Antiochus, the madman, who ordered his Syrian troops to destroy Torah > scrolls and murder circumcized children,crucifying their mothers. The > Asmonean uprising occurred when Jews were forced to sacrifice swine. > Hence the dogs and swine of the proverb. I can't prove you're wrong. But it seems like arguing that the cliche "three strikes and you're out" must come from Yogi Berra because he was a baseball guy who originated proverbs. In any event, if we do know where a proverb originated and its original context, that doesn't help any in understanding how it is used in common parlance later on. > 2. Of course the proverb may have been applied to different historical > situations, but the question is to what situations do Mt.7.6 and Th.93 apply? Good questions. > 3. Matthew/s proverb, sequent to sayings on Judging, suggests that there > were those who resented the spread of "the gospel" to Gentiles, specifically > to Syrians and Samaritans. There is evidence of such resentment in other > Gospels - Mark's story of the Syrophoenecian woman, a "Greek", Luke's > reaction to Jesus' preaching in Nazareth, John's woman at Sychar's well, and > James' resistance to Paul's and Peter's protests at the so-called Jerusalem > Conference of Acts. I don't want to argue about what Matthew means by it and I'll concede that it is very likely that Matthew means something by it and that it isn't where it is in the gospel just by random chance. > 4. GThomas, on the other hand, with its links to Seeking/finding, > Knocking/entrance applies its version of the proverb to the "dogs," or > "swine" who challenge the Thomasine followers. You don't know that. It's just a proverb sitting there. You're applying a circumstance for it out of your own ideas. Still, today people generally use the proverb "don't cast your pearls before swine" to mean that people shouldn't give their special ideas to ignoramuses. So maybe that's the Thomasine idea; one might just as well say that maybe that was Jesus' own idea -- it is attributed to him, after all. > It reflects the distinction > Marcus Borg would love, between the pre-crucifixion Jesus and the departed > Revealer, Thomas 92 might be doing this, but doesn't have to be. If 92 are the words of Jesus himself one can just as easily imagine some situation in Galilee where he said this. The saying is rather closely paralled in John's gospel, supposedly spoken during Jesus' lifetime. And again, IF pearls/holy-things mean teachings in 93, 92 makes the point that people don't have them! > for it partakes of the same "then and thereafter" distinction > found in GTh 12 where the followers are to turn to James the Righteous after > Jesus' departure. And GTh 12 pretty clearly indicates that because Jesus will be dead and gone and not saying anything to anybody, folks must turn to James. This contradicts a resurrection interpretation of GTh 92. > And who were these critics? Apparently the bishops of > the second century church who, as Elaine Pagels has pointed out, railed > against the Alexandrian gnostics, condemning their "holy" teachings and > branding them heretics. How do you conclude this "apparently?" Thomas never mentions bishops. Maybe Thomas was written by a first century bishop who didn't like ideas promulgated by Paul. Who knows? > Until there is a better historical methodology available, that seems to be > how one should exegete the proverb in their respective texts. Again, I don't want to argue about exegeting Matthew and I think it can be done. Exegeting Thomas is much trickier because the text, IMO, is perfectly happy to be self-contradictory and inconsistent and the sayings often follow one another at random. When one either contradicts the next (as 92/93 do if holy-things are sayings) or just don't relate to each other at all, I'm not surprised. I'm more surprised to find a sequence in Thomas that does seem to make a coherent point (and even then I'm suspicious that I'm reading that point into the original). Steve