Gospel of Thomas...

[Zenkai]

Advise your friend not to read it, and especially not to memorize it.

 

[FaithInTheSon]

So, I say it isn’t any parable in the Gospel that has been twisted and you say “go read?” SRSLY?? So, you don’t have a clue about any parable, do you? Son, I’ve read Matthew more times than you’ve had birthdays. There’s no parable there “perverted” in the GTh.

You made the claim, the burden of proof is on you. There are no examples.

Normally it would be right!? except this time.

fine if you really need proof. I would go get all the proof you require, but I will just stick with this 1 parable and let you do the rest of the digging.

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some fish of every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels but threw the bad away. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

Since you have read it so many times I’m sure you don’t need numbers.

Now you tell me how this isn’t proof since I’m sure you were already aware of it.

Good vs bad is much different from small vs large.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Normally it would be right!? except this time.

fine if you really need proof. I would go get all the proof you require, but I will just stick with this 1 parable and let you do the rest of the digging.

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some fish of every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels but threw the bad away. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

Since you have read it so many times I’m sure you don’t need numbers.

Now you tell me how this isn’t proof since I’m sure you were already aware of it.

Good vs bad is much different from small vs large.

Haha made you look it up!

Just kiddin,’ so— Here’s the GTh:

And he said, “The man is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of small fish. Among them the wise fisherman found a fine large fish. He threw all the small fish back into the sea and chose the large fish without difficulty. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Lotsa fishermen in Israel at the time, lots of fishing references in the Gospels. Do you think Jesus only had one parable per lesson?

Let’s look at the two:

Canonical: Kingdom of God is like
**GTh: **The man is like

Canonical: is like a dragnet
GTh: is like a wise fishermen

Canonical: net full of fish
GTh: net full of fish

Canonical: men take out the good and throw away the bad (many fish in both cases)
GTh: finds a single large fish to keep, threw the small ones back into the sea

In the Canonical Gospel, Jesus is giving another example of how the wheat and the weeds will be separated.

In the GTh what lesson is being taught? A man wants to “catch” many things. But this man sees the thing of greatest value and lets the other things go. Just like the man sold all his other possessions to buy the field with the treasure in it or the pearl of great price.

The GTh isn’t a “perversion” of something similar, it’s just a parable not included in the Gospels. Did Jesus say it? He could have, sounds like Him. Could Thomas have used it himself when preaching the Gospel? Why not?

The argument against your theory is that the majority of the GTh comprises almost exact quotes from the canonical Gospels, why weren’t those “perverted.?”

The GTh isn’t a “false” Gospel, it’s just what people called it, it doesn’t call itself anything but a collection of sayings of Jesus.

Trying to turn the GTh into something evil is not reasonable. It’s an ancient Christian writing. The Church hasn’t condemned it in such a way, why would you? It’s just not Canonical.

 

[FaithInTheSon]

Haha made you look it up!

Just kiddin,’ so— Here’s the GTh:

Lotsa fishermen in Israel at the time, lots of fishing references in the Gospels. Do you think Jesus only had one parable per lesson?

Let’s look at the two:

Canonical: Kingdom of God is like
**GTh: **The man is like

Canonical: is like a dragnet
GTh: is like a wise fishermen

Canonical: net full of fish
GTh: net full of fish

Canonical: men take out the good and throw away the bad (many fish in both cases)
GTh: finds a single large fish to keep, threw the small ones back into the sea

In the Canonical Gospel, Jesus is giving another example of how the wheat and the weeds will be separated.

In the GTh what lesson is being taught? A man wants to “catch” many things. But this man sees the thing of greatest value and lets the other things go. Just like the man sold all his other possessions to buy the field with the treasure in it or the pearl of great price.

The GTh isn’t a “perversion” of something similar, it’s just a parable not included in the Gospels. Did Jesus say it? He could have, sounds like Him. Could Thomas have used it himself when preaching the Gospel? Why not?

The argument against your theory is that the majority of the GTh comprises almost exact quotes from the canonical Gospels, why weren’t those “perverted.?”

The GTh isn’t a “false” Gospel, it’s just what people called it, it doesn’t call itself anything but a collection of sayings of Jesus.

Trying to turn the GTh into something evil is not reasonable. It’s an ancient Christian writing. The Church hasn’t condemned it in such a way, why would you? It’s just not Canonical.

Because you tell a lot of truth and little lies if you want people to believe you.

The Church did condemn these gospels to my knowledge. If not Thomas definitely “Mary”. Have you read what they found from marys gospel?

Both of them were found in the same place. I do have very good reason to believe Mary’s is demonic. Just go read it you will see. Also… seriously… didn’t the Church declare these gospels to be heretical writings of early “Christians”?

EDIT: BTW you have not convinced me on Thomas I have just realized I will not convince you. I read that explanation online too. I just don’t quite buy it.

 

[Pitcharan]

Last night, my roommate was looking this particular Gospel up and intends on memorizing it. I say good for him, but I’d like to know why this Gospel was taken out of the Bible and why does it predate the other four gospels?

I am unable to question the combined wisdom of all the churches as I am too small for that.

 

[Julia_Mae]

I read that explanation online too. I just don’t quite buy it.

I wrote it. For this thread.

Cya.

 

[R_C]

The GTh isn’t a “false” Gospel, it’s just what people called it, it doesn’t call itself anything but a collection of sayings of Jesus.

Trying to turn the GTh into something evil is not reasonable. It’s an ancient Christian writing. The Church hasn’t condemned it in such a way, why would you? It’s just not Canonical.

What???

Did you miss this post?

It is indeed condemned by the Church as a false Gospel.

 

[Julia_Mae]

What???

Did you miss this post?

It is indeed condemned by the Church as a false Gospel.

Yes, I read the post. This thread is about the GTh as we know it from the Nag Hammadi and other modern finds. Even if these old writings referred to the exact same writings, they don’t constitute any official condemnation by the Church of these documents as a “false gospels.” They are just opinions. Every single opinion expressed by every Doctor of the Church is not dogma or official teaching.

The GTh is a set of brief disparate quotes without much context. You have to read a lot into them to try and make them any kind of heresy. Find me a modern commentary from the Church, like in the last 100 years, on the GTh if you want to make this case.

 

[FaithInTheSon]

I’m sure you did write it for this thread. You learned it from an explanation online.

Have you read the other false gospel (mary) that was found in the same “library”?

Go read it if you haven’t. While Thomas may be harder to prove, “Mary’s” Gospel seems to be quite blatant about it. I am almost certain the Church said these are heretical gnostic gospels but I won’t bother to prove it to you as you have the internet and can search yourself.

I would actually normally recommend against reading it (mary). It did seem to corrupt my mind for a while. However, since you are a supporter of this “lost gospel” you should read the other gnostic texts found with it.

 

[FaithInTheSon]

Yes, I read the post. This thread is about the GTh as we know it from the Nag Hammadi and other modern finds. Even if these old writings referred to the exact same writings, they don’t constitute any official condemnation by the Church of these documents as a “false gospels.” They are just opinions. Every single opinion expressed by every Doctor of the Church is not dogma or official teaching.

The GTh is a set of brief disparate quotes without much context. You have to read a lot into them to try and make them any kind of heresy. Find me a modern commentary from the Church, like in the last 100 years, on the GTh if you want to make this case.

You have to read a lot into them to make them anything at all. They are mostly parables so that would be the nature of it.

 

[mattdantuono]

A great resource for this is John P. Meier’s first volume of “A Marginal Jew”. Here is an excerpt from a video I made and posted to youtube (MisterD418)

The Gospel itself is a collection of 114 sayings with a Gnostic intention that can only be understood in light of other Gnostic writings like The Hymn of the Pearl. This Gnostic worldview imposed on the Jesus story is characteristic of the 2nd century, and this Gospel would fit well if placed in that time period.

Those who do argue for the early date point out that the sayings are shorter, and the author had no reason to shorten the sayings so much. The parables match up well with hypothetical forms of the parables reconstructed by form critics. Many sayings are easily converted into Aramaic and show a rhythm and rhetoric associated with Jesus. And lastly, no Synoptic order is apparent.

The main problem with these arguments is that none of them represent standard or agreed upon criteria for an early date. Most of the arguments are based only on a small number of sayings.

Bertil Gartner demonstrates that the early Church Fathers often quoted freely from Scripture from memory, shortened quotations, and rearranged their order (e.g. the Diatessaron).

Robert M. Grant points out that the shortening of the sayings is understandable since the author seems to be rewriting the story for a Gnostic perspective, but traces of Synoptic order can still be found.

H.E.W. Turner says different versions of sayings in Thomas could be due to Gnostic methods of exegesis, doctrine, and spirituality.

Thomas is working from a particular theological stance and wants the gospel to be esoteric and unclear. He would naturally drop any piece of the text that clarifies the sayings.

Jean-Marie Sevrin demonstrates that the Synoptic parables (63, 64, 65) have been reordered to make the Gnostic point that the material world leads to death and that self-knowledge leads to life.

Wolfgang Schrage has examined all Synoptic and Thomas parallel sayings. Most are explained by a dependence on the Synoptics. Usually a case of Synoptic saying being filtered through Gnostic thought.

Tuckett also holds that some Synoptic-like sayings in Thomas show a dependence on the Synoptics.

Also, it is important to remember that shorter, more concise sayings do not imply an earlier date (H.J. Held, E.P. Sanders). Matthew often shortens Mark’s miracle stories. Also, Matthew shortens some of Jesus’ sayings to fit the location where he is writing (e.g. Matt 19:9 and Mark 10:1-12).

Even the reference to the future day of judgement in saying 57 does not make sense in the theological framework of Thomas.

Based on these similarities, many scholars conclude that Thomas definitely knew Matthew and Luke, implying that Thomas was written after them

There are also some parallels with John. These parallels indicate that Thomas knew John’s gospel at least from memory.

In Conclusion, Thomas was based on the Canonical Gospels and was therefore written afterwards.

 

[steve53]

“The Gospel itself is a collection of 114 sayings with a Gnostic intention that can only be understood in light of other Gnostic writings like The Hymn of the Pearl.”

What!?

 

[Julia_Mae]

I’m sure you did write it for this thread. You learned it from an explanation online…

No, I’m a whole grown-up person with an IQ at least twice my age (which I’ll lay 4-1 is at least twice yours - age not IQ) and I didn’t have to have anything this obvious explained to me. Now stop it, you’re making yourself look silly.

 

[FaithInTheSon]

No, I’m a whole grown-up person with an IQ at least twice my age (which I’ll lay 4-1 is at least twice yours - age not IQ) and I didn’t have to have anything this obvious explained to me. Now stop it, you’re making yourself look silly.

I was not trying to imply that you are stupid I am sorry if I offended you. However, I do not see how IQ relates to the topic of discussion?

On a side note - gnostics pride themselves on intelligence and actually think it is necessary to enter heaven.

 

[patrick457]

Just a side note. Referring to ‘gnostics’ is the same as referring to ‘Protestants’: there are different groups who only hold a few of things in common such as the belief that matter is evil, and the belief in the necessity of secret knowledge which grants emancipation. In everything else (tenets, ritual, etc.), they often differ wildly. So if one wants to speak of ‘gnostics’, I say that we’ve got to specify which gnostics we are talking about. Is it the Sethians? The Valentinians? The Borborites? The Carpocratians? The Ophites? The Mandaeans? The Manichaeans? The Cainites? The Basilidians? The Cerinthians?

Personally I think that while Thomas does convey (or can be read as conveying) gnostic ideas I don’t think we can pin it to any particular group (the text doesn’t have any identifying characteristics), and it doesn’t exactly fit the pattern of blatantly gnostic texts (like the Pistis Sophia or the Gospel of Philip). Just my nitpicking behavior cropping up, but I think ‘proto-gnostic’ might be a good adjective.

P.S. There was actually a heavily-edited copy of Plato’s Republic at Nag Hammadi.

 

[The_Scott]

P.S. There was actually a heavily-edited copy of Plato’s Republic at Nag Hammadi.

Do you know what the edits were? Did they make it conform to their metaphysical and political philosophical ideals?

 

[patrick457]

Do you know what the edits were? Did they make it conform to their metaphysical and political philosophical ideals?

You could say yes.

 

[patrick457]

I was not trying to imply that you are stupid I am sorry if I offended you. However, I do not see how IQ relates to the topic of discussion?

On a side note - gnostics pride themselves on intelligence and actually think it is necessary to enter heaven.

To be more precise, it is the emphasis in special, esoteric gnosis (knowledge) which is one of the few things all the gnosticisms share. It is not so much about entering Heaven as it is interpreted the orthodox idea but in breaking free of the material world.

 

[farpinho]

I share the opinion of Vouthon in the matter

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=8618120&postcount=44

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=8618296&postcount=45

 

[patrick457]

Yes, I read the post. This thread is about the GTh as we know it from the Nag Hammadi and other modern finds.

Such as Oxyrhynchus (P. Oxy 1, 654, 655 and a funeral shroud), as stated earlier. The fun thing about P. Oxy. 654 is that it was originally a survey list: the papyrus was reused by writing the text of Thomas at the back. The shroud strip (5th-6th century) has, fittingly enough, a snippet of Logion 5: “Jesus said, ‘Nothing is buried which will not be raised.’”