from: stevan Davies" date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 18:55:04 +0000 Subject: Re: Mark or Thomas Stephen Carlson wrote: > I don't think I'm arguing that you can't disprove that GTh13 knows > Matthew. Instead, I see a pattern of evidence that show GTh13 to be > more closely connected to Matthew than either of the other synoptic. Now that I think of it, wouldn't your arguments re: praise and Simon Peter work just as well as arguments that Matthew knew Thomas and knew Mark 8:27ff was originally a praise passage and so revised Mark, including the use of Simon Peter there? > I haven't read Patterson's book (and it is not available in my library), My copy isn't immediately available, but he doesn't have anything interesting to say about the matter (or I'd remember). He thinks the two are just oddly different forms of some unknown original but doesn't go into the matter. > but many reasons for a literary dependence are present between Thomas > and Matthew: (1) structural parallels: GTh13:5 // Mt16:17-18, but Mt is > *secondary* to Mk here; And secondary to Thomas as a motive to revise Mark! (2) same juxtaposition of ideas: giving, praying, > and fasting (M material not in Mark); You and I are the only humans on the planet who think these are causally connected, and we disagree on the causal direction! (3) one of the "authors" is referred > to by name and is wrong: Matthew in GTh13:3; and (4) finally, but less > probatively, shared terminology "Simon Peter," Simon Peter is a common usage, I think Matthew is just a name. It had to be some disciple or other and couldn't be James or Thomas, or, probably, Judas. That leaves a one in nine chance. > The biggest counter-example is why doesn't Thomas heavily redact other > parts of Matthew. Perhaps the reason is that this passage of Matthew > is the key passage to the emerging catholic (public & apostolic) church's > authority. GTh13 both repudiates Peter (who represents the catholic > orthodoxy) and Matthew (whose text records Peter's authority). I can > easily understand a polemical motivation to redact it to support an > alternate claim of authority (via the secret teachings to Thomas). But there are lots of other parts of Thomas where the Matthew version was a possibility, but is missing. There must be about 50 shared sayings none of which is unquestionably Matthew's version. > I would appreciate it if someone who has access to Patterson's > treatment would kindly share with Crosstalk his reasons why Thomas > is not dependent on Matthew here. I'd not be terribly suprised to learn that somebody has suggested this argument before in a book on why thomas is gnostic, but I'm sure you have done it better than they did. Patterson does not address the question, not having had access to your thoughts. I think that we are just going to have to disagree on this matter! Steve