Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 16:58:19 +0000 From: Thomas Kopecek Reply-To: kopecekt@central.edu To: miser17@epix.net CC: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Re: More SBL: GThomas/Pagels Stevan Davies wrote in response to Schacht on Pagels: > > So, Tom Kopecek, do you recognize here a strand of first century > > Christianity known to us by any other label? Or are we stuck with the idea > > that John's polemic in the prologue was directed at Thomasine Christianity? > > I can't see ANYTHING in those negations that Thomas Christians > couldn't have agreed with (e.g. 28). > > > Pagels' idea works for me > > Now I wish I'd gone and heard it. But it's likely she'll be able to > find a publisher for her essay, wouldn't you say? I bet. What I find interesting about Pagels--and I often use her Gnostic Gospels in one of my courses (if only because it can be read by first and second year college students)--is that students are invariably disappointed when they view a video of her explaining her positions on this and that. My students tell me that she doesn't seem like a Princeton professor: that's particularly the case with the students who have just come back from their semesters in Paris, London, Vienna, etc. They tell me she writes with more intensity than she speaks. I've always found that interesting: not the Ron Cameron type as far as they are concerned. I wonder what they think a "Princeton" professor ought to be like--especially when being interviewed by the media? > > > it helps explain why GThomas did not make it > > into the Canon, > > Because of an obscure supposed polemic in a few lines of John, a > gospel that wasn't altogether accepted itself canonwise? I doubt it. I suspect the reason Thomas did not make it into the Catholic canon is that few Catholics could make sense of it, even if they had seen it (which is none too clear). And if they could make sense of it, they would not have liked it. Look what happened to that poor bishop (Serapion of Antioch, ca 200) who, at first blush, thought the Gospel of Peter being used by the Christian community at Rhossus (30 miles or so from Antioch) was acceptable Catholic fare? He then had to reconsider when he got to read it more carefully, claiming it to be touched with docetism. And at least GosPeter has a nice, reasonably Catholic, story- line. Even so, Serapion concluded in a letter to those who might be misled: "But others have studied this same gospel, to wit, the successors of those who originated it, known to us as Docetai and from whose teaching the ideas are mostly derived. With their comments in mind, I have been able to go through the book and draw the conclusion that while most of it accorded with the authentic teaching of the Savior, some passages were spurious additions. These I am appending to my letter." apud Eusebius 6:12. Maybe Thomas isn't docetic, but compared with GosPeter it is downright weird! While Serapion did not have trouble with most of Peter, I doubt he would have had the same reaction to significant chunks of Thomas, even granted the similarity of many of the passages to the NT gospel accounts.