Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 14:22:09 -0400
To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
From: hartzler@pilot.msu.edu (Hartzler-Miller)
Subject: Mark or Thomas

For those interested in closer scrutiny of the G. Thomas 13 / Mark 8
parallel's Steve Davies is pondering, I've lined it out and added a few notes:

THOMAS   Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to
something and tell me what I am like."

MARK: Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around
Caesarea Philippi.  On the way he asked them, "Who do
people say I am?"

T: Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a just messenger."
     Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."

M: They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say
Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets."

T: Thomas said to him, "Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to
say what you are like."

M:"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
Peter answered, "You are the Christ.

T: Jesus said, "I am not your teacher.  Because you have drunk,
you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have
tended."

[Is this praise--praise comparable to Matt. 16.17, "Blessed are you Simon
 Bar-Jona!  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my
Father who is in heaven...." --praise not paralleled in Mark?]

T:  And he took him, and withdrew, and spoke three sayings to him.
[Steve Davies suggests the sayings were: T.14)  "If you fast, you will
give rise to sin for yourselves; and if you pray, you will be condemned;
and if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits. ]

M:Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must
suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief
priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed
and after three days rise again.

T:    When Thomas came back to his friends they asked him,
"What did Jesus say to you?"
     Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the sayings he
spoke to me, you will pick up rocks [what's the Greek word
behind "rock" here? petra?] and stone me, and fire will come
 from the rocks and devour you."

M:  He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and
began to rebuke him.  But when Jesus turned and looked at his
disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said.
"You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

Some comments: There is much to reflect on.  Both stories end on a note of
judgment, both include a secrecy motif, both have Jesus singling out one
disciple for special attention--Peter and Thomas respectively.  I find it
striking that in Thomas, only Thomas is granted the secret knowledge
whereas in Mark, all the apostles are in the know.

Greg Hartzler-Miller