What is your Opinion of the Gospel of St. Thomas, and should it be considered heresy?

SouthPads · 2012-05-22T22:11:20.202530+00:00

Why don't you e-mail him and ask his position on that matter?

Well, I could, but you know, actually reading the book works, too. It's a little slower, but you get a more nuanced answer than a simple "yes" or "no."

The Ethiopian church came from the Coptic church (which does not include Enoch), and it come in 1959. 1959! What mighty authority!

So you're saying the Ethiopian Orthodox Church came into existence in 1959?

And that suddenly, they started printing copies of the Bible with Enoch in them ex nihilo in 1959?

I just want to be clear that that's what you think happened. (You might want to Google the word "Abuna".)

This is also an interesting list:

No scholar claims the Gospel of Thomas was written by Thomas or any other disciple of Jesus or any of their disciples.

No scholar? I've named three. Here's a fourth: Stephen Patterson. Teaches at Willamette & ETS, got a Masters at Harvard. He also doesn't think it's particularly gnostic, but has some ideas in common with Platonism.

Stevan Davies (you can read a pretty concise interview here) also thinks the Gospel of Thomas goes back to the very first Christians. (And, like Patterson, doesn't think it's an especially gnostic, or Gnostic, book.)

(I am reading "or any of their disciples" to mean "followers of Christianity between 50 and 70 CE" - scholars tend to talk about things in terms of proof vs. probable vs. possible. If some text dates back to 70 CE that talks about Jesus, it's highly improbable that it came from anyone other than a disciple.)

No statement of canon, orthodox or heretical, recognizes the Gospel of Thomas as genuine.

I'm not sure I understand what a "heretical statement of canon" would be. It seems like using the name "Gospel" is a "statement of canon," isn't it?

No church father speaks of the Gospel of Thomas, except to call it heresy.

Could we define "church father" here? I noticed that Valentinus popped up in that chart you linked to. That was kind of funny.

Does Thomas himself count as a church father? I know he counts as a disciple....

No disciple of Jesus, nor any of their disciples, hold the truth proposed in the Gospel of Thomas (Gnosticism) as anything but heresy.

There's that big-"G" Gnosticism again.

I'm curious what "truth" you think the Gospel of Thomas is actually proposing. Have you read the Gospel of Thomas? It's a list of sayings - much shorter to read than Mark or John.

Here's one, Saying 22:

Jesus saw some infants who were being suckled. He said to his disciples: These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom. They said to him: If we then become children, shall we enter the kingdom? Jesus said to them: When you make the two one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper as the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female, and when you make eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter the kingdom. <<

What makes that heresy?

Consider Galatians 3:28 -

Here is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

or Mark 10:14-6 -

When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

Saying 22 is one of the more peculiar bits of Thomas, but it still reads pretty close to canon to me.

SouthPads · 2012-05-22T19:49:59.603205+00:00

What study have you done? Are you being guided in your study by anyone, or just googling questions and reading the top hits?

I read books. Also, have a degree in hermeneutics. Says so on my diploma and everything. I know lots of people who are way smarter than me. That's why I try to be cautious and use phrases like "I don't know enough about..." when offering context for propositions.

I like Crossan. I want to like Pagels, but am a little less confident in her interpretations. I kinda like Stevan Davis, too. I've read them all.

a PhD in the ancient Church taught me all this.

What, that no "critical scholar" traces Thomas back to the early Church?

That Enoch was never in anyone's canon?

I'm sorry if my disagreement on those scores comes across as misrepresentative of known history to you.

Your PhD may well know his stuff way better than I do; I have no basis on which to evaluate this claim.

You trust Irenaeus because he said he was there; I trust Thomas because he said he was there. And the ideas I receive by actually reading Thomas are consistent with my understanding of what the canonical gospels are saying, how they came into existence and how spirituality works in the world.

GunnerMcGrath · 2012-05-22T19:16:30.103429+00:00

I think Jorge de Luis de Jesus Miranda gave himself an out somewhere - but it's either June 30 or else sometime in October. Definitely before the end of the Mayan calendar, though.

GunnerMcGrath · 2012-05-22T18:24:26.300096+00:00

I wonder if any of Camping's followers have joined the Growing In Grace movement.

I think we've got five weeks now until their Last Days....

HungryGhosty · 2012-05-22T18:08:28.584109+00:00

Yes, compliment!

SouthPads · 2012-05-22T18:08:05.384264+00:00

Why not give the whole quote?

The "whole" quote actually goes on from there, too. Origen says it's good to read these gospels so you know what other people are talking about: "We have read many others, too, lest we appear ignorant of anything, because of those people who think they know something if they have examined these gospels."

You act like the early Christians were divided on fundamental issues like this, and that's also garbage. See this?

I see a chart there in which one group of Christian theologians outlines some books written by people who call themselves Christians that they agree with, and some books written by people who call themselves Christians that they don't agree with.

I also don't see an entry for the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which is what Eusebius might have been referring to as "Thomas". Different book. He also didn't like Revelation, even though most of the other Fathers of the Church did... which certainly seems like a division.

Whether or not it's a fundamental issue is beyond my ability to judge.

(Note also that most of the question marks on the canonical books in that chart land next to the books produced by the Jerusalem Christians - some of the folks in Rome weren't convinced that James had the right ideas. They were, however, quite fond of the Apocalypse of Peter, apparently. Except Eusebius.)

John Dominic Crossan is a fine scholar, but I didn't say someone who dates it early, I said someone who thinks it is genuine. As in, someone who thinks it was written by one of Jesus's disciples or one of their disciples.

That's pretty much Crossan's position. He wrote the intro to The Gospel of Thomas: Discovering the Lost Words of Jesus. He discusses it somewhat briefly in this interview.

a chance for power and recognition in Jesus's name.

Hmmm. I'm not sure that'd be true of most times between Augustus and Diocletian. Maybe. I mean, people do all kinds of strange things for attention.

Where I really stop, though, is wondering why it'd work - who'd buy the bill of goods... unless it fit with their own experience of the world?

In Acts 8, we have Simon giving his name to the sin of simony, trying to buy religious influence. But what he's literally doing in that story is trying to buy the ability to perform miracles - to do a thing that other people can see and experience.

And, as Peter (the big lunkhead) explains (making Simon an even bigger lunkhead), you can't sell a miracle.

(Unless you were talking about Saul chucking the early Christians in prison.)

They had their own understanding of reality that was not the reality communicated by Scripture, but they pretended it was.

Again, it depends on the reading of Scripture.

jousen · 2012-05-22T16:33:53.433809+00:00

Why don't you ask this person to teach you and that way see what it is they're actually talking about?

jousen · 2012-05-22T16:33:03.505402+00:00

Well, what he's expressing is how a Chinese person understands Daoism in the world. Lineage and training is very important in nearly every traditional practice in China - otherwise, you're just making stuff up, the feeling seems to be.

I've certainly gotten (a tiny taste of) whole new worlds of understanding Daoism from taking tai chi from a Chinese teacher. The philosophy makes a whole new sense once you start putting it into practice, just by moving your body in a certain way.

alpaca_in_oc · 2012-05-22T16:25:02.729153+00:00

To be even more basic, if your stock price drops, it means fewer people with money think you'll be making money - you're not worth giving money to.

And people with money are kind of necessary for keeping a business going. Not only do they give you money to pay people to get stuff done (with the expectation they'll get the money back plus extra), but they buy things from you (like ads, or user data, or licensing).

So it's your reputation... which also means your future profitability.

Azured · 2012-05-22T16:00:12.122085+00:00

I had this thought as well - two weekends of work time!

SouthPads · 2012-05-22T15:30:32.162259+00:00

I think we might be operating from different definitions of "gnosticism."

I'm defining it as "a strain of mysticism that gives primacy to a personal experience of God, using language and imagery from the Hellenic Middle East."

So, by that definition - the small "g" gnosticism, from gnosis, "knowledge" - then I believe the Bible can be read as a gnostic book. (I also think Pentecostal "gifts of the spirit" and Quaker services are fundamentally gnostic.)

God is a Word, a Logos - a thing that is conceptual.

This presupposes Enoch was ever in anyone's canon. It wasn't.

Then how did it wind up in all them Bibles in Ethiopia?

Why is it sitting next to every other Old Testament book (except Esther) in the Dead Sea Scrolls?

You can argue that the Dead Sea Scrolls don't constitute a "canon," if you like.

But I'd say that relies on a definition of canon that comes from the 4th century CE...

Heck, it presupposes Rome was the seat of power. It wasn't!

That's essentially what I'm saying when I say that there were lots of different branches of early Christianity, some of which got along with each other better than others.

That's why I don't know enough about church politics - there were dozens or hundreds of factions, some of which agreed with each other about most things but not all of them, and some of which had some downright weird ideas.

No one mentioned the gospel of Thomas because no one thought it was genuine.

I thought the idea of "Against Heresies" was that Irenaeus was outlining those beliefs he didn't think were genuine. Isn't that the point of "Against Heresies"? To identify heresies?

Find me a critical scholar

I have a strong feeling we'd need to define "critical scholar." John Dominic Crossan, the former Catholic priest, thinks Thomas goes back to around AD 50. But I suspect he's not "critical" in the way you mean.

The only argument (coherent or otherwise) on that page suggesting John was gnostic is a reference to the works of Epiphanius who wrote in the late 4th century!

Sorry, I meant this bit:

But the earliest known usage of John is among Gnostic circles. These include the Naassene Fragment quoted by Hippolytus Ref. 5.7.2-9 (c. 120-140), the Valentinian texts cited in Clement of Alexandria's Excerpta ex Theodotou (c. 140-160), a Valentinian Exposition to the Prologue of the Gospel of John quoted in Irenaeus' Adv. Haer. 1.8.5-6 (c. 140-160), and the commentary of Heracleon on John (c. 150-180, quoted in Origen's own commentary).

John may or may not have used the word "gnostic" to describe some element of his relationship with God.

But his book was definitely a favorite of those theologians who were later labeled as gnostic heretics.

Nonetheless, the Gospel of Thomas is not spoken of by any early Christian fathers...

That - "early Christian fathers" - is a phrase that usually means the founders of the Roman Christian community. And yeah, Origen mentions it by name in his Homily on Luke. He doesn't find it authoritative or necessary, but he does speak of it. "I know a certain gospel which is called 'The Gospel according to Thomas,'" he says.

I'm slightly concerned by your use of the phrase "twisted to their devices" or "usurp fledgling Christianity for their own devices." What devices? If there's a conspiracy here with some ultimate aim that is not loving your neighbor and enjoying a closer relationship with God, then what is that aim? What's the device? I mean, are you thinking that sizable groups of people throughout the Roman Empire were making stuff up just to mess with the followers of some tiny Middle Eastern cult's heads?

Isn't it more likely that they had some understanding of reality - an epistemology - which they were trying to describe... and that was best described in terms of gnosis?

SouthPads · 2012-05-22T00:07:54.761355+00:00

The more I read about these guys, the more I think the pre-Nicea faith had a lot in common with, like, the electronic music scene in the 2000s. That's not jungle, it's breakbeat! Or whatever.

SouthPads · 1 day

How foolish which first Christians were?

I don't see much in the canonical gospels about any other writings... (and they could possibly be quoting Thomas itself, so much of the material is identical)... so I guess the first Christians in the next generation or two down?

The Roman church wound up excising Enoch even though it's quoted in Jude's epistle - so it seems like Jude (who was one of the Jerusalem-based Jamesian Christians) liked Enoch but the Roman folks didn't much care for it.

Irenaeus mentions Enoch in Against Heresies because, as the title implies, he thought it was heretical. He has a lot to say about the Gospel of Judas, but not so much to say about the Epistle of Jude or the Gospel of Thomas.

I'm not aware of any "first Christians" who "condemned" Thomas at all - not by name, anyway. (Irenaeus argued that there should be no more than four gospels because there are four corners of the world. I'm not quite sure of the logic there, other than that he didn't much care for gnostics or Marcionites.)

Give praise that Christian theology is in possession of gnostic sensibility!

There are actually some fairly coherent arguments that the Gospel of John was the product of a gnostic community (scroll down a bit there) and later edited. The Valentinians published commentaries on John before Irenaeus was around - the earliest known citations of John, in other words, were made by gnostics.

Of course, people who believe in an ever-present, illuminating God would be inspired by descriptions of Christ like: In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

That odd sensibility of John's is probably why commentators like Origen wrote of John: "The Evangelists... proposed to speak the truth where it was possible both materially and spiritually, and where this was not possible it was their intention to prefer the spiritual to the material. The spiritual truth was often preserved, as one might say, in the material falsehood."

He's a mystic, he is.

johntheChristian · 1 day

Good luck!

Runs_With_Fiskars · 1 day

I think the Dominicans got that rep during the unpleasantness with the Cathars, routing the heretics out of Europe like hounds hunting rabbits.

SouthPads · 1 day

There's some textual evidence that John (and his followers) didn't much care for Thomas (and his followers).

Mark, for what it's worth, also may be ragging on John a little in his gospel - John's the one who gets corrected by Jesus in places, like Mark 9. Note that that passage is followed by Jesus basically telling the disciples to stop arguing and get along with each other. It seems likely that after the crucifixion, different apostles had some markedly different ideas about how things should go.

SouthPads · 1 day

Early Christians called it "fiction" and heretical.

Except the early Christians who thought it was valuable enough to preserve by hiding it in the desert with enough protection to last for a few centuries.

They were early Christians, too.

I've heard it was written by someone unconnected to Thomas and merely given his name for good press.

Well, it may have been written by Thomas' disciples. Hard to say, since we don't have his autograph to compare with the handwriting. The same problem extends to Matthew, Mark, Luke and especially John. And, for that matter, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Baruch....

SouthPads · 1 day

I'm a fan of it, and think the theology of Thomas (the idea of an immanent, ever-present spiritual reality) makes a lot of the more mysterious and difficult bits of the four NT gospels make a lot more sense.

I suspect it would have wound up in the canon, actually, were it not for the fact that the Christians who wound up in Rome thought it was surplus-to-needs (the stories are much easier to absorb than these sayings)... and possibly on the other side of split between the Paulines (who went into the Gentile world) and the Jamesians (who stayed more "Jewish" and didn't do so well when Jerusalem got destroyed), or else a similar split that divided the African Christians from the Romans, or even Thomas' followers from John's or Paul's or Mark's.

I don't know enough about church politics around 100-200 AD to know how serious those divisions might have been, but I do know that, for instance, even today the Ethiopian Orthodox have a "broader" canon of 88 books, compared with the 66 books of the King James Bible.

There were different approaches to what made a book worth reading back then, at least.

throwaway12426635 · 1 day

She's a person in anguish. You do what you can to make the pain go away.

Usually, this means listening without judging.

johntheChristian · 1 day

I am now thinking I should have done this during my stint in grad school rather than following the foxfire of English.

johntheChristian · 1 day

Oh, yes.

ohceemusic · 1 day

Maybe they'll put you on a team with octatone.

You'd need to get six other participants, though.

wirehead · 1 day

That's pretty awesome.

wirehead · 1 day

Wait, so your workflow was...

lyrics -> music -> vocals -> final mix?

Or did you start with some musical thing and then pass it around?

Azured · 1 day

Look at that - a system that improves itself!

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