Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 14:39:20 -0700 From: Bob Schacht Subject: re: arnal's gnosticism X-Sender: bms1@nauvax.ucc.nau.edu At 02:46 PM 5/13/97 +0000, Stevan Davies wrote: > >I've found something that seems significant. Many of the Arnal >sayings convey grand conclusions. If you do X then Y will occur. >Or, opposite that, if you don't do X then Y won't occur. This should >reveal a pattern of ideas, if there is one. Or so one might think. >... Steve, Thanks for your continuing dialog with Bill on this thread. > >1. If somebody can explain that I've done something >illegitimate here, I'd appreciate it. Revising sayings into >a pattern may be imposing something on them that they >do not contain -- or it may not. > Sounds OK to me. >2. What I find missing is any "Why" statements. "IF this >THEN that" necessarily begs the question of "why should this >be the case?" It won't even do to say "this is the case because >JESUS said so" because the problem does not lie in the >accuracy of the statements but in their unintelligibility. > A fascination with why statements may be modern, or may be out of place in this context. For example, our legal codes are, in essence, full of If...Then... statements outlining the consequences of certain actions (or inactions). Normally, you won't find WHY statements there. For that, you can sometimes turn to the transcripts of legislative hearings, but who does that other than justices in the higher courts? So I do not find the absence of why statements so remarkable. Maybe Thomas was not interested in "why" questions. Or maybe Jesus was not interested in "why" questions! Let's turn this around. Can you provide examples of "why" statements in the canonical gospels? Are such statements ubiquitous in all gospels, or only in certain ones (say, GJohn)? Are such statements in the canonical gospels included in the sayings attributed to Jesus, or are they only to be found in commentaries on the sayings of Jesus? >3. I can't think of many authentic Jesus sayings that are >"IF THEN" in nature. Perhaps the beatitudes are. >But the beatitudes are descriptive not proscriptive (i.e. >IF you are poor THEN you get the Kingdom but not >IF you make yourself poor THEN you get the Kingdom). >There's a pattern of this sort in "IF you forgive THEN >you will be forgiven." > This may be a useful observation! >4. Thomas evidently saw Jesus sayings as lacking something >so that these supplements were useful. >What they are thought to lack is >A. What should I do? >B. What will happen if I do it? >so the Arnal sayings aren't just of all sorts, they are mainly >answers to A. B. > >Thomas begins with "IF you figure these sayings out THEN >you will not taste death" which sets the tone. > >These Thomas sayings are in the general form >IF you do X THEN Y will result. This presupposes >A. That you know what Y is >B. That you have some inkling of why Y will result. >C. X is something you know how to do. > >THOMAS NEVER TELLS YOU WHAT Y IS, >WHY Y WILL RESULT, HOW TO DO X. > I don't understand this. I thought you just gave us a list (omitted above) showing numerous examples of "Y". The questions of Why and How are different, and suggest to me that GTH was originally intended not to stand on its own, but as a reference to a community which had its own traditions concerning the whys and hows. >Therefore Thomas seems to presuppose a whole system that it >does not contain. Q.E.D. > Hence people turn to gnosticism to find >systems that seem to fit because the same vocabulary can >sometimes be found. > >But judging from the collection of authentic material, Thomas >just takes stuff and puts it on the list. We know that Thomas >found the list lacking in IF X THEN Y material and put that >sort of thing in. Where did Thomas get that material? I see >no sign that it was extracted from one, two, three, written >texts but, as with the Jesus material, it was circulating in oral >tradition. What sort of oral tradition? If it was oral it MUST >have been didactic in a Philip Lewis sort of way; somebody >must have delivered these Thomas sayings as dicta and THEN >explained what Y is, why Y will result, how to do X. You CANNOT >"find the interpretation of these sayings" from Thomas itself. >It just isn't there. > >Picture Jesus people going around saying Jesus things at each >other. The question arises: what is the point of all this? The >tradition starts picking up other sayings which have as their >very essence to be "points." I.e. "The point is, that if you do >X then Y will result!" These Thomas sayings are "points" they >are conclusions. They are the ends of argumentation... "and >so we can conclude that IF X THEN Y." > >But where was the argumentation to which they are the >conclusions? That's the question. > >Steve > Aye. Bob S. **************************************** Robert Schacht Northern Arizona University Robert.Schacht@nau.edu "This success of my endeavors was due, I believe, to a rule of 'method': that we should always try to clarify and to strengthen our opponent's position as much as possible before criticizing him, if we wish our criticism to be worth while." [Sir Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1968), p. 260 n.*5]