Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 10:07:54 -0700 (MST)
To: miser17@epix.net
From: Phil@sedona.net (Philip B. Lewis)
Subject: GThos & Orality
Cc: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
Sender: owner-crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
Precedence: bulk

On Wed.May 7 Philip Lewis posed four questions to three crosstalkers whom he
respects.  Steve Davies and Stephen Carlson have answered (Thank you,
friends).  Let me re-pose the questions and state what IMO are responsible
answers:

Are there answers to these questions about Greek POxy. & Coptic GThos?

1. Apart from appearing as sayings enscribed in mummy wrappings, to what
USE(S) would Greek Thomas have been put?

	Steve Davies, in his chapter on _The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom_
on the Thomas Webpage, had correctly identified GThom's place in the Wisdom
Tradition.  Let's treat it that way.

	R. B. Y. Scott in his Introduction to the Wisdom literature of the Tanach
in the Anchor Bible series' Vol.18, traced the antiquity of what he called
"the Wisdom Movement" and identified its characteristics.  The history goes
back to Sumerian and Egyptian roots, was to be found in Akkadian, Persian,
Babylonian, Phoenecian, Edomite and Canaanite cultures as well as in "The
Writings" of the Bible.  It consisted of varied forms - one liner proverbs,
doublets, quatrains, paradoxes riddles, and parables.  As a "tradition" it
embraced folklore, advice of fathers to sons, tutors to their charges,
teachers to students in academies (as old as Sumer, but Cf. the turn of the
millenium schools of Shammai, Hillel, Johnanen ben Zakkai, and Gamaliel).
It was cast in forms easily remembered since it was conveyed originally
"within the heads" of traveling "wise men."  On the invention of writing it
formed the lesson material, and the creative reconstructions, of scribes
(The scribe arising as a distinct profession).  It is in this heritage that
GThomas finds its place.

	We may note that as a gathering of "secrets" GThos leans heavily on
paradox.  Discussions of the paradox of a lion who eats a man, or a man who
eats a lion, and which have preoccupied crosstalk lately, are from our
century's standpoint rather fruitless.  Fruitless because paradox was a
device for stirring comment leading to discussion.  The essence of paradox
lies, not in the form which states it, but in the interpretation roused by
it.  And note that we are never given those "answers" to paradox in GTHos.!

	What USE are we entitled to envision for GThos as a whole?  Originally its
sayings were employed to communicate a Jesus Person's oral representation of
the Great Ones teaching.  That is what must be inferred from the nature of
the sayings themselves.  The same broad judgment is applicable to Q.

2. What can be surmised from those uses about the community for which Greek
Thomas was meaningful?

	Greek and Coptic GThomas were written texts.  Until they achieved that
degree of fixedness one cannot assume - in view of the oral nature of the
material - that they implied a "community" as recipients of the instruction.
Once the oral forms were gathered and enscribed, "community" becomes relevant.

	Just as obviously IMO, the sayings indicate a gathering process.  At
points, as I believe Steve had noted in his structural analysis of the
material, there are sequences of related sayings.  Those sequences are
interrupted as that "unit" of material gives place to additional orally
crafted material.  So one should view GThos as the product of a process
undertaken in the interests of people who sought to preserve for themselves
what were understood to be authentic, authoritative teachings for their own
guidance.  It occurred under some cloud of isolation from "the world."  The
cloud may have harbored storms of persecution, though hardly a typhoon that
would sweep believers away.  Death, in GThos., is natural, not the violent
calamity that persistent persecution would suggest.  Cohesion of the
community is assumed under the authority of a leader's inherited role
(James, the Just), but there is no strong urging to "hold to the faith."
GThos. is for instruction, not polemic.

3. Allowing for the fact that the Oxyrhincus papyri are fragmentary, are
there any conservative speculations as to how much elaboration may have
occurred before Coptic Thomas appeared?

	Stephen Carlson's examination, still in progress at this writing, shows a
strong consistency between the two, although as we know, some two hundred
years separate the Greek and Coptic versions.  Unless the Coptic version  is
considered to have been retained because of its antiquity, the GThos people
appear to have been able to maintain themselves without serious interference.  

4. If such elaboration occurred is any "layering" evident in the development
of Coptic Thomas?

	Again, Stephen's examination would not sustain any such speculation, even
though the POxy fragments do not cover the whole span of Coptic Thomas.

I would be delighted to have a responsible authority shoot holes in my
analysis, for I am still puxxled by GThos if we are to think of it as a link
in a literary chain of dependence.  Oral resources cannot be so easily
dismissed from our understanding of how Christians developed their
traditions in the first two centuries of our era.

Philip
-phil@sedona.net

"What I need to know remains to be learned."
                                       pbl