Antiquitopia

I had a student who raised a question when studying the Gospel of Judas—whether or not Judas had any relation to Secret Mark.   The reason is that they both turn a distinctive phrase:   “mystery/mysteries of the kingdom.”   I appreciated the thought, and I had no answer at the moment, except that most scholars shy away from using Secret Mark in their reconstructions these days, given all of the speculation about it possibly being a modern forgery perpetrated by its discoverer, Morton Smith.   I, nonetheless, had an itch in the back of my head to look back into the synoptic Gospels—if for no other reason than Secret Mark’s vocabulary and phrasing is rarely, if ever, distinctive (indeed, one of the arguments for it being forged is that it overuses typical vocabulary of Mark).   So, I turned to the synoptics, and, interestingly, they rarely use the phrase.   “Mystery” and “Mysteries” may show up, and “kingdom” is all over the place, but ...

In case you missed it, there was an online discussion of the Gospel of Thomas between Simon Gathercole and Mark Goodacre on the Gospel of Thomas and its relationship to the synoptics.  It streamed live at The Marginal Review of Books at 9 eastern / 8 central this morning.  It is about a half hour long.

Other people have been sharing this video.  It is a nice appetizer for people to read the Gospel of Thomas for themselves and consider its role in the development of early Christianity.

I want to proceed with some preliminary notes.  They are basic, foundational, but lead to a working hypothesis of this fragment that, I hope, will help lead to a particular social context.   First, here is a reiteration of my translation from my previous post : Line 1:  ...my mother gave me li[fe]... Line 2:  ...the disciples said to Jesus... Line 3:  ...deny.  Mary is worthy of it.... Line 4:  ..........Jesus said to them, "My wife.... Line 5:  ....... she will be my disciple and.... Line 6:  ...Let wicked people.... Line 7:  ...I dwell with her because... Line 8:  .....................an image................ The first note is literary genre (or at least micro-genre).  This is a dialogue form.  In line 2, we have the introductory formula for speech--here, the disciples' speech to Jesus.  The fourth line, then, shows Jesus' response.  This fragment, therefore, presents us with a glimpse of a dialogue ...

The Master said, "If one learns from others but does not think, one will be bewildered. If, on the other hand, one thinks but does not learn from others, one will be in peril." (Confucius, Analects 2.15; trans. D.C. Lau) The point is you must learn, but must apply your learning from others, thereby multiplying knowledge through thinking. It seems, moreover, to be a conjunctive process that oscillates between learning and thinking and back again. By the way, my more regular readership might want to know that the Analects resemble, at least formally, the Gospel of Thomas , in the sense of being a series of sayings that begin with "The Master said..." as Thomas begins each new saying with "Jesus said..." albeit with some variations (some sayings begin with a disciple's statement or question).