Subject: Re: Proverb to Narrative To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com (Crosstalk) Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 00:50:58 -0400 (EDT) From: "Stephen C Carlson" In the discussion on Thomas 31 and Mark 6:4-6a (no prophet in hometown, etc.), I became interested in the second part of the logion, "no physicians heal those who know them" and their canonical parallels. Mark directly contradicts it; John implicitly does. Matthew agrees with Thomas, and does Luke implicitly. The (anti-)parallels of Mark, Matthew, and John are narrative, but Luke's is in discourse. Thomas 31b no physicians heal those who who know them. Mk6:5 ... except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. Mt13:57 And he did not do any deeds of power. Lk4:23 ... Doctor, heal yourself! v27 lepers not cleansed by Elisha [Luke is quite independent in both wording and context and shows his own redactorial interests (e.g., widows).] Jn4:44 ref. to the no prophet logion; v54: second sign was to to heal the officer's boy. [Jn4:54 is assigned to the Signs Gospel, but v44 is considered later, so its placement may be quite deliberate.] Stephen Carlson 888888888888888888888888888888 Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 10:58:36 -0400 (EDT) From: William Arnal cc: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Re: Mark or Thomas (#65-66) My first reaction to the Mark depends on Thomas hyposthesis was: yeah right, Davies is yanking our chains. But: For those of us who propose a Thomas independent of the synopstics, there's a little problem in the text that has always really bothered me, and the suggestion that Mark drew from (a version of) Thomas solves the problem in a way no other hypothesis does. In Thomas #65 is a version of the parable of the tenants that appears to have considerable priority over its Markan (12:1-12) parallel: unlike Mark, it is not allegorized, and in fact seems largely left uninterpreted; the focus, like other parables, is on decisive action, and the "son" is just the victim of that action, not a figure for Jesus, or so it seems. In Mark, the parable is considerably allegorized, it is a figure for the rejection of Jesus, and, in a move that looks like Marcan redaction, the saying about the rejected stone ("The stone rejected by the builderfs turned out to be the cornerstone") is in corporated into the pericope, as Jesus' auto-interpretation of the parable (just like he does in ch.4, also, presumably, Marcan redaction). Here's the problem, both for opponents and proponents of Thomas' independence of the canonical gospels: Thomas #66, the saying immediately after the parable is: "Jesus said: Show me the stone which the builders have rejected. That one is the cornerstone." So, say opponents of the Thomas-is-independent view: how on earth does Thomas come so fortuitously to juxtapose the two sayings (parable & cornerstone saying) which Mark also coincidentally (and redactionally) joins together. There are three basic solutions to this problem, each with major problems: 1. Thomas here shows his dependence on the synoptic tradition. The difficulty with this view is that it requires Thomas to de-allegorize the parable in #65, reject the saying in #66 as an interpretation of #65 by separating it off as a distinct saying (the numbers aren't original, but Thomas does introduce #66 as a new saying with the "Jesus said" introduction as well as the "whoever has ears" conclusion to #65), while unaccountably retaining the original juxtaposition. 2. Coincidence or textual corruption. 3. The "oral tradition" solution, championed by Crossan in _In Parables_. According to this view, the oral tradition, whatever that was, showed a tendency to associate the two sayings, one as an interpretation of the other, but only an implicit, not expicit interpretation. Thomas picks up on the tradition at this stage, and retains the oral juxtaposition of the sayings, but rejects the interpretive dimension of this and makes it clear that the two are distinct sayings. Mark, on the other hand, picks up this juxtaposition and takes it to its conclusion, explicitly offering the stone saying as a christological interpretation of the parable. I've tended to take this view by default: it explains the coincidence as both Thomas and Mark having the same sequence as reflection of prior oral tradition, while retaining Thomas' overall independence (which nearly all the other textual evidence evidence supports). But there are BIG PROBLEMS with this. The saying can only serve as an interpretation of #65 if it's already been conceded that 65 is an allegory referring to Jesus. This was not a conclusion that came gradually as a result of the juxtaposition; rather, the juxtaposition resulted from this conclusion. And Thomas does NOT offer #65 as an allegory about Jesus. It is difficult to imagine the oral tradition circulated two completely unrelated sayings together, just because it felt like it: and we cannot claim that Thomas redacted the association away, and then claim that #65 is independent of Mark because it's more primitive! Davies' suggestion, however, provides a rather simple answer to a difficult problem: Thomas juxtaposed the two sayings for no apparent reason (this is not aproblem: Thomas is particularly well-organized, or at least, if it is, it's in ways no longer clear to our hylic minds. The juxtaposition didn't mean anything to Thomas: he regarded the two as quite distinct, separate sayings, and hence his non-allegorical interpretation of 65 was not problematized by 66 coming afterwards: it had nothing to do with anything. Mark, using Thomas, however, found this juxtaposition in it, and DID make something of it. His tendency to allegorical interpretation of parables made him see 65 as about the death of Jesus, and he consequently wrote 66 into the same pericope, as an interpretive gloss. This solves the problem of Thomas a) sharing a secondary juxtaposition with Mark; but b) treating the juxtaposition as two distinct sayings when c) we would expect the tradition to rather unilaterally turn associated distinct sayings into single melded sayings -- not the reverse, and not back and forth. Works for me! Regarding, desultorily, some other comments made on this thread: I really suggest that people take Davies' advice about tapping into his homepage for the discussion of Gnostic vs. non-Gnostic Thomas. It will prevent interested parties from rehashing old ground (that's a mixed metaphor, isn't it?). I suspect that in large measure it's the "hellenistic" feel that Thomas has that makes it appear "Gnostic" to people. For instance, the text cited by Maureen (Thomas #14) appears to take the cornerstones of Jewish piety (fasting, almsgiving, prayer) and reject them. But I completely fail to see what's Gnostic about this. It might as well be Pauline, or again, cf. Mark 7:14-23, 1 Cor 10:27, Q 10:7. In fact there's nothing even "hellenistic" (I mean this in the problematic sense of "non-Jewish") about this list of prohibitions: it takes Jewish practice as a self-evident point of departure. On the other hand, highly "Jewish" texts in Thomas include (but are mnot limited to): #39-40, 46, 52-53, and especially 27). And remember, we should not be drawing historical conclusions in advance of the evidence. That is, we should not assume that a "Jewish", "non-hellenistic", and "non-Gnostic" movement eventually became a "non-Jewish," "hellenistic", and "Gnostic" movement, unless our sources give us reason to believe this. Matthew drew on a not-very-Jewish Mark as a source for his own later and dependent self-consciously Jewish Gospel. Acts re-Judaizes Paul in the most striking ways. And so on. Should Thomas in fact turn out to be more easily understaood using Gnostic categories (which in fact I think is the case) this should not lead us to conclude, against all the other evidence, that it's late, it should lead us to question our assumptions about the provenance of gnosticism. Regarding the Greek style of Thomas. I think Maureen makes a very good and interesting point, and it would be helpful to see how much of Thomas' Greek style can be uncovered in Mark, in contrast to Mark's own style. There are a number of difficulties in doing so, however: the fact that we have only a few Greek fragments of Thomas, as has been pointed out, and also the fact that Thomas is not a narrative gospel, so if Mark used it as a source, there will be a huge amount amount of rewriting involved. Also: we only have one full MS for Thomas, so we have assume a measure of textual corruption. On the other hand, even though our only "full" (minus lacunae) MS of Thomas is in Coptic, there are so many loan words and such that one would think it possible to do a considerable amount of back-translation. If care were taken to keep in mind the problems involved, such a style comparison might be both possible and quite useful, if thoroughly tentative. One final thing: Davies compares his hypothesis to Mack's regarding Mark's dependence on Q. Here he's being unfair to himself. Mack's view on this score is inherently untestable (it's just an ideological assertion based on the way Mack views Mark's composition). Q IS the double-tradition, it's what Matthew and Luke have in common that was not derived from Mark. This makes Mark and Q methodologically (if not factually) speaking, thoroughly incommensurate: matter and anti-matter. How can we reconstruct Q as a source for Mark when we taking it from documents which used Mark as a source. It boggles the mind. But in the case of the Davies-hypothesis, we actually have texts of both Thomas (albeit problematic texts) and Mark, so we can actually do comparison. later y'all, Bill