Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 14:28:21 -0400 From: Stevan Davies To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Subject: re: Thomas/Q project > From: Jim West > Thanks to Bob for collating the results. It seems that the original > contention, i.e., that Luke is more like Thomas than Matthew has in fact > been demonstrated. Maybe, maybe not. Seems to me that it has not been demonstrated, assuming we mean "more like Thomas than Matthew to a significant degree." > What does this mean? Hmmm. What does this mean, indeed? 1. It's a problem for the prevailing assumption that we can rely on Q/Luke for the best preservation of Q sayings. 2. If Matthew used Luke or vice versa we would expect that fact to show up in their relationship to Thomas and it doesn't. Evidently. > I would like to suggest that Q and Thomas were very similar, and that the > possibility exists that Thomas is simply a later copy of Q. What do I mean? > Simply put, Thomas is Q redacted by a proto-gnostic. Nope. Too much Mark in Thomas for this to be a possibility. You could make a better argument here that Q is Thomas redacted by an eschatologue knowledgable of Mark and not very interested in reiterating Markan material. > The idea, then, that Q is hypothetical without substance because it has not > been found "in writing" is no longer viable. Q exists in written form in > Thomas! Foof. > Now all we need do to recover "pure Q" is remove the redactional > layers of Thomas, and viola! Q! In a sense, I agree with you here! In the Burton Mackish sense that Q is some primitive unknown sayings gospel that contains the real Jesus stuff before all of those self-interested Christians got their hands on it. Yeah. To my everlasting shame and chagrin, I abase myself by saying that I didn't realize until Stephen Patterson pointed it out that... if Thomas is independent of the Synoptics then when you have Thomas//synoptic sayings you have earlier Jesus tradition than is found in Thomas, Q, Matthew, Mark, or Luke. > Now all we need do to recover "pure Q" is remove the redactional > layers of Thomas, and viola! Q! Actually, "Voila! The best set of presumptively authentic sayings of the Historical Jesus." Steve