From: William Arnal date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 23:33:06 Subject: Re: Mark or Thomas (#65-66) On Sat, 20 Apr 1996, Maureen Smith wrote, in response to some of my comments: > >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! > > I didn't pick a good example when I said this before, but for me it > is still difficult to imagine that the oral tradition circulated > collections of sayings without stories. At least for me it is > counterintuitive to think that the only thing the early followers of > Jesus chose to remember were words out of context. And I'm with Davies on this one (something I meant to comment on before, when the thread was current, but I had rather "tuned out" for a while): the Gospel of Mark in particular seems to want to create stories, particularly paradigmatic stories, out of Jesus' teaching. Hence individual bits of teaching (whatever they originally meant) are narrativized and turned into examples -- like the "little children" stuff, and so on. I actually we think can apply this to some of the major biographical episodes recorded in Mark: for instance the Temple tantrum seems to me little more than a fabricated narrativization of Jesus' various and sundry anti-Temple sayings. If the earliest Christians saw Jesus primarily as a teacher or sage (or even if only SOME early Christians view him this way), it would make sense that sayings tradition would be passed down without narrative. > Actually I'm not sure what stand you're taking, so I do need to > read the debate. I could take it that you don't think Thomas is > especially Gnostic, when you say this: > > >I suspect that in large measure it's the "hellenistic" feel that > >Thomas has that makes it appear "Gnostic" to people. > > But then I get confused when you say this: > > >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. > > I take that to mean you're saying, yes, it's Gnostic-like, but then > gnosticism must go back further than we thought. That is exactly what I'm saying. If it came right down it, I'd try to argue that John, 1 Cor, Col, and Eph are Gnostic as well. My apparent equivocation on Thomas comes from my view that Thomas is NOT obviously, or, better, remarkably and exceptionally Gnostic. It is Gnostic in approximately the same way as Col or Eph. But this IS Gnostic, and so, I disagree with Davies when he says it isn't really Gnostic at all; in many cases, in my view, this impedes understanding the document properly, and also impedes recognizing, potentially, when is secondary and what is primary, vis-vis the document's composition. My reasons for coming to this rather confused view are on Davies' Thomas homepage, as are his rejoinders. But basically, ...when Davies argues (as he has a couple times on this list), I usually feel like throwing in my agreement: Thomas is NOT the Gospel of Philip, and can't be assumed to be, prima facie; I'm all for reexamination of the question, and for being more precise about terminology. > I admit I thought my other point was stronger, about the "secret > knowledge" element of Thomas (which I take to be different than the > secrecy motif in Mark, but that's another topic). What I was thinking Actually, although it's another topic, it's an interesting one. How is Thomas' conception of "secret knowledge" any different from Mark's?; even more problematic, how does it differ from Paul's in 1 Cor? > of with Thomas #14 was that if the Gnostics rejected the material > world, it might follow that they wouldn't be bothered with things like > almsgiving. What difference does it make if the real world is the > spiritual world anyway? This is the kind of reasoning, as I understand it, that makes Davies froth at the mouth. It assumes Thomas is Gnostic, and then goes on to explain the plausibility of its statements in terms of that Gnostic theology. But that's no argument at all. Who would dream, for instance, of applying the same argument to Mark's "thus he declared all foods clean"? Yet it follows in precisely the same way: since Mark is Gnostic (I'm being sarcastic), it follows that his repudiation of dietary laws stems from his rejection of this-worldly affairs. > As for saying it might as well be Pauline, I don't agree. Paul, > for example, in an undisputed letter, said to "pray without > ceasing" (1 Thess 5:17) and said "Beloved, pray for us" (5:25). > I wouldn't know how to look up something in Q, but the two passages > you cite that I could look up are about the dietary laws, which > seem to me to be a different issue. (I tried Luke for Q, because > if I remember right that has worked before when I have been similarly > puzzled, and the verse could be relevant in its advice about "eating > and drinking whatever they provide." If that's it, we're looking > at the dietary laws again.) > > The obvious fact that I'm not up to speed on all the scholarly > stuff--I haven't read most of the books, I don't know all the > conventions for citation--brings to mind all the books Tom Simms > now wants me to read before I say another word. Sorry for being presumptuous, and actually you didn't miss the boat on this at all: almost all the texts I cited were about dietary laws (Luke for Q is right, by the way). I just don't see much difference in principle between this and some of the other stuff; and Matthew does, by the way, suggest that precisely these three types of piety are occasion for sin because of the public (hence: hypocritical, for Matthew) character of their performance. Not the same thing, for sure, but I would argue similar in principle. > Look, I have all I can do to keep up with work, school, crosstalk, > and--oh, yes--have a life. The net is wonderfully democratic, and I agree that calls to go out and read books aren't that helpful for this type (i.e., e-mail lists) of discussion. It's one thing when someone says "so-and-so's argument is no good," and it turns out they haven't read so-and-so's book. But that's different than saying, "I can't see how x conclusion can be derived from this text" (or whatever). The best response I can think is to say: "for so-and-so, it's derived like this..." rather than "go read so-and-so." The net is DANGEROUSLY democratic, and I say we should keep it that way. For my own part, though, it seems that school and e-mail lists are QUITE incompatible with having a life. It's been years, for me. What's it like? Bill