From: "Stevan Davies" <miser17@epix.net>
To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
Date:          Sat, 10 May 1997 18:04:11 +0000
Subject:       Re: Thomas and Q
Reply-to: miser17@epix.net
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Bill Arnal wrote:
> The common source ancestor in this case would almost certainly NOT
> have been a signle document: at least, there's way too much
> divergence in order between Q and Thomas to support the existence of
> such a document. 

While you are right, this argument isn't entirely cogent. If Thomas 
is a pretty disorganized list, and Q is a topically organized list 
(as the Toronto school seems to maintain) then Q would have taken
material higglety pigglety from Thomas and put it wherever it fit
their topical organization. This is sort of what Matthew does with
Q and what Mark does with Thomas. The only reason for anybody
to take stuff from Thomas and put it in that order in their own work is
if their own work is also higglety pigglety and so Thomas' vague 
catchword order (at best)  would be maintained.. (cf. my forthcoming
work "The Higglety Pigglety as an Archaic Genre." 

> As far as one can tell from the actual internal
> evidence of the texts themselves, the relationship between Q and
> Thomas is not a literary one. 

Yes. I've never seen a scrap of evidence for it, and lots against.

> I really hate to toot my own horn
> here...

Ah, what heck. Go ahead.

Incidentally, Helmut Koester writes "It can be said 
WITH CONFIDENCE that the Q parallels in the
Gospel of Thomas ALWAYS represent, or derive from, more original 
forms of these sayings." from "Q and its Origins," in Gospel 
Origins and Christian Beginnings edited by James E. Goehring Sonoma, Calif. :
Polebridge Press, 1990. (emphasis added).

Unfortunately, I've found that The Professor at Harvard's 
Pronouncements on such things don't ipso facto command complete
adherence. This is a shame, for he is The Professor at Harvard and
we aren't. I think that while fame and fortune can be found in a 
variety of institutions (e.g. NYU, Duke, Stanford), being at Harvard
should command complete adherence regardless of argumentation
(Koester is always a little slim argumentationwise). Otherwise, what
is the point of a zillion dollar endowment? Or am I just rambling 
here....

Steve