Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 22:08:07 -0700 From: Bob Schacht Subject: re: John and Thomas X-Sender: bms1@nauvax.ucc.nau.edu To: Andrew Lincoln , Stevan Davies Cc: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com At 11:19 PM 6/4/97 -0400, Andrew Lincoln wrote: >Steve, > >Thanks very much indeed for your superb rundown on the Riley book and its >arguments. > And my thanks, too! >... >3. You ended: > >> I wonder if any gospel of the first century can be said to >> demonstrate the existence of a community of Christians focused on one >> particular disciple. This is, I think, a twentieth century scholarly >> error. We speak of Johannine Christians meaning the authorship and >> presumed sympathetic audience for a book now called "John's" gospel. >> Ditto Matthean Christians etc. And this is done by scholars who do >> not seriously claim that we know the name of the author of "John" was >> John or the name of the author of "Matthew" was Matthew. Do we know >> that there were Christians who would have recognized themselves as >> "Thomas" Christians such that an attack on "Thomas" would be an >> attack on them? I doubt it. Would an attack on "Matthew" have been >> recognized by a self-conscious group as an attack on them? Does an >> attack on a document's scribe (GT incipit) entail the existence of a >> community identified with that scribe? I doubt it. In GT 13 Matthew >> and Peter evidently represent points of view Thomas doesn't like, but >> I do not think we can go from there to infer the existence of >> "Matthean Christians" or "Petrine Christians." Suppose we take the >> groups in Corinth to be ideologically divided separate Christianities >> so that there was, in Corinth, a Petrine Christianity. It still >> doesn't follow that Thomas, in using Peter as a foil for an >> inadequate idea is attacking that Petrine Christianity. Do you think >> that in the year 98 a novelistic attack on the disciple John would have >> been taken to be an attack on the people who sympathetically read the >> book we call "the Gospel of John"? When there are no quotations from >> that gospel? And when the ideas attributed to the disciple John are by no >> means clearly ideas contained in the book we call "the Gospel of >> John"? I don't think so. > >Here you extend your skepticism about a Thomas Christianity to other >gospel figures. Perhaps the examples you give are not all of a piece. When >scholars talk about a Matthean community, they do not necessarily mean >that this was a community where Matthew held a revered place but it is >more a convenient way of talking about the Christians for whom this >particular gospel appears to have been written. Andrew, I was going to make this point if you didn't! The Ebionites, if I remember correctly, had a special fondness for some version or other of the Gospel of Matthew. This sort of thing would be quite natural. After all, during the first few centuries there was no canon. The gospels-- especially the synoptics-- seem to cover more or less the same ground, so it is easy to suppose that each community would have a favorite. > Whether or not it was >written for a particular group needs of course to be argued, but with >Matthew a case could be made. Whether a case could be made for Luke might >well be a different matter. Yes, as to the *writing*. But Marcion and his followers were partial to the Gospel of Luke. > But when it comes to John, then scholars >appear to be talking not just about its group of putative readers but also >about this group revering a particular authority figure. See, e.g. Brown, >The Community of the Beloved Disciple. And here a reasonable case could >also be made that the evangelist is in fact speaking for a group that >looks to this Beloved Disciple as its leading light. > And the Gospel of John became a favorite of the Gnostics. We might also speak of the Gospel of Mark having a special place in Rome. >So the corollary of your argument about attacks on groups through an >attack on or a negative portrayal of a particular name might also need to >be nuanced. A negative view of the character Matthew might well not bother >the Christians who particularly valued the gospel that now bears his name. >And you have made a convincing case that the same applies to Thomas. But a >negative portrayal of the Beloved Disciple is far more likely to disturb >the Christians who valued the gospel that came to be called John's Gospel. > >Thanks again for your views on all this. >Best Wishes >Andrew > > This has been a most interesting thread. Thanks! Bob 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]