Subject: Re: Thoughts of GosThom Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 00:00:02 GMT From: "Mark Goodacre" Organization: University of Birmingham To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com A few remarks on the way that it seems to me both Steve and Mahlon see things. After writing persuasively about the question of randomness in Thomas, Mahlon concluded: > Ergo, GThom was composed without reference to any synoptic gospel or > source. What I still do not follow is why the apparent absence of the possibility of a good case for wholesale dependence is held to lead us to the conclusion that Thomas was composed without any reference to the synoptics. In other words, this is to polarise the debate again, isn't it? Likewise, Steve talks about "the dependence side" as those who think that Thomas is "a collection composed through interaction with the Canonical Scriptures . . ." Other Thomas bigwigs, like Steve, use the same terms of debate. Crossan: "Is it a dependent collection of sayings from within those four gospels or is it an independent witness to the tradition about the sayings of Jesus? Two separate reasons persuade me that Thomas is completely (sic) independent of the intracanonical tradition" (_Four Other Gospels_, p. 35). Or take Patterson: "At issue has been the question of whether the Gospel of Thomas represents an independent codification of the Jesus' sayings tradition, or whether it is dependent on written versions of the canonical gospels. On the latter view, it would be easy to regard Thomas as a relatively late collection of materials excerpted from the canonical sources, and then modified to reflect the particular theological views of the later collector . . . However, on the view that Thomas represents an independent stream of the Jesus tradition, it would have to be taken seriously as another important witness to the origin and development of the early Christian sayings tradition, and perhaps relevant to the problem of Christian origins after all." (_Q-Thomas Reader_, p. 85). Having perused Andrew's most helpful Thomas Crosstalk archive, I find someone writing, in my opinion persuasively, that: "The assumption appears to be that Thomas is either wholly independent of the synoptics or wholly dependent. Since the wholly dependent line is held (rightly) to be unconvincing, it seems to be argued (in my opinion wrongly) that the wholly independent line is correct. Of course this exaggerates a little, and of course there is a great deal more sophistication and nuance in the argument than that summary suggests, but I am summarising what I see to be an underlying and unnecessary assumption." (http://www.teleport.com/~cabern/andrew/thomas/xtalk/thomas497.txt) Steve writes (on "the dependence side"): > Their problem and task is to explain how it is that what appears to > be a collection of sayings drawn from oral tradition is, in fact, not > this but rather is a collection composed through interaction with the > Canonical Scriptures despite the fact that sayings composed > through interaction with the Canonical Scriptures as found in the > writings of e.g. Justin, 2 Clement, don't look like this at all, > while Q (pace Mark G) does look a good deal like this. How similar is Q to Thomas? An old chestnut, I know, but I think that reports of their similarity have been greatly exaggerated. Further, my own position, lest I be confused with one on a wholesale "dependence side", is that Thomas is not primarily dependent on "the Canonical Scriptures", even if he (a) sometimes shows familiarity with the canonical Gospels and (b) is also familiar with oral traditions that have interacted with the Gospels. To talk about his familiarity with "Scriptures" or to talk about "literary dependence" is something I feel nervous about, and have done since I saw Vernon Robbins's point some time ago on Crosstalk (also in Andrew's archive) about the oral nature of Thomas over against the Synoptics. I would like to say to the list, though, how much I enjoyed Jeff Peterson's fascinating contribution on this topic. I look forward to being educated further -- and I hope to see that material in print. Mark ------------------------------------------- Dr Mark Goodacre mailto:M.S.Goodacre@bham.ac.uk Dept. of Theology Tel: +44 (0)121 414 7512 University of Birmingham Fax: +44 (0)121 414 6866 Birmingham B15 2TT United Kingdom Homepage: http://www.bham.ac.uk/theology/goodacre World Without Q: http://www.bham.ac.uk/theology/q