Subject: Re: Thoughts of GosThom
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 11:01:12 -0700
From: peterson@mail.ics.edu (Jeff Peterson)
To: mahlonh.smith@worldnet.att.net, miser17@epix.net
CC: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com

At 2:28 AM 10/1/98, Mahlon H. Smith wrote (edited):

>Not to question Steve's masterful summation of the arguments re GThom's
>independence of synoptic texts. But I think there is a fourth argument
>to support Thomasine independence that puts the dependence people on the
>defensive:
>
>4. Randomness: GThom is regularly more disorganized than parallel
>synoptic material.

Mahlon raises an important point here; the common order of material is as important a consideration as verbatim agreement in the question of literary dependence among the Synoptics, and the order of sayings in Thomas deserves consideration.

The clear generic difference between the sayings-collection Thomas and
narrative Gospels may however qualify the judgment that variation in order supports literary independence. I would like here to suggest two sorts of texts that invite comparison with Thomas.

(1) The collection of CHREIAI derived from notable teachers was a
burgeoning interest in Hellentistic Roman philosophic circles. Ronald Hock and Edward O'Niel's collection of texts with introduction provides
instructive material for comparison with Thhomas. I'd especially note the following: (a) The essential element of a chreia was a teacher's memorable statement, sometimes placed in a dramatic setting. (Since Bultmann NT scholars tend to think of only the last as meriting the designation, but the philosophic tradition includes sayings transmitted with and without dramatic context.) (b) Plutarch and Seneca attest a first-century pratice of compiling individual collections of chreiai from both oral and written sources. (c) Diogenes Laertius and other writers who transmit chreiai recommend BIOI as sources to mine for sayings. An interpetatation of Thomas as a collection of Jesus chreiai --  most presented without context, some with a minimal dramatic setting comparable to those in the Lucan travel narrative, compiled from various oral and written sources including BIOI of Jesus, viz., narrative Gospels -- merits consideration.

(2) Thematic commentary (i.e., commentary not treating a single text
sequentially but deriving lemmata from various texts in elucidation of a topic). To treat one example that may supply a further formal parallel to Thomas, the _Midrash on the Last Days_ or _Florilegium_ (4Q 174) preserved at Qumran is a commentary on various passages drawn from disparate scriptural scrolls; the principles of sequence leading from one lemma to another are not clearly discernible, but the overall approach to the subject provides a coherent perspective.

4Q174 is regrettably fragmentary (so we can't know how many texts were
selected for comment or how its length compared with Thomas), and the
parallel with Thomas isn't precise (no parallel ever is) but it is
suggestive. In Thomas, commentary on the Jesus-lemmata is eschewed, but
that each saying has an interpretation is clear from the incipit: the words of Jesus included here are "hidden," and whoever "finds their meaning" will be spared from death, i.e., the implied reader is invited to supply a commentary to the text.

This commends an interpretation of the text as not a naive transcription of words of Jesus current in oral tradition but the product of sophisticated reflection on sayings of Jesus over which the author (and his community?) had taken much trouble in study and meditation; the context of study itself suggests that some, at least, of the author's sources were in writing. If no satisfactory principle of arrangement has yet been identified, that is an invitation to redouble our efforts to find the unstated meaning of these hidden sayings that the author holds out as a possibility for the reader.  In this we may find the rationale for the presentation of the sayings in the Thomasine order.

As I may one day find the time to write this up, I'll add the following
pesky advisory and send my legal department a memo. ;-)

(c) 1998
Reproduction beyond fair use only on permission of the author.

Best to all,

Jeff

Jeffrey Peterson
Institute for Christian Studies
Austin, Texas, USA