Talk:Gospel of Thomas

"Gnostic" or "gnostic"

At least in the first section, the term "gnostic" varies in its case, and it varies in similar contexts: E.g., one finds "Gnostic teaching" here, and "gnostic belief" there. I'm not sure if there's some particular, esoteric reason for the variation, but if so, such variation is a grammatical anomaly and as such ought to be taken under consideration by page monitors.

Date Of Oral Tradition

Whether or not it was written in 60 or 240, isn't it important how early these words were uttered? Oral tradition back then was gospel as common people had the power to memorize entire books amd book length speeches, since there was no such thing as mass production or printing press. If it was ever spoken incorrectly in front of an audience, they would refute it and say "no, your telling it wrong, its this..." What has happened to the human mind since the printing press is staggering, and now texting or txting and students not being able to write entire pages of essay without without updating their facebook status in between, leaves teachers baffled at broken looking papers. I am saying with modern advances we have traded in certain abilities.

Therefor it is possible that even if it was written down as late as 200 years after Christs death, it might make no difference on its authenticity. Invalidations would be if it changes who Christ IS or if Thomas never said those things. Not the dates of being written.

That said I have never read it and am now curious. But someone needs to point out the importance of spoken word back then.

Thomas, New Scholarship and the Oral gospel traditions

In a general sense I think it would be fair to say that there is now a "consensus that Jesus must be understood as a Jew in a Jewish environment." Voorst 2000. p 5 (As to the importance of Aramaic, please see Talk at Oral gospel traditions.) Over the past ten years the thinking of Biblical scholars has undergone a radical transformation. Many scholars now believe:

1. Jesus was a Jewish rabbi living in a Jewish society (Sitz im Leban).
2. Jesus and later his disciples were active participants in the Oral Tradition of the Second Temple Period.
3. Early Christians, up to the time of the creation of the first Gospels, sustained the Gospel message of Jesus, by sharing the stories of his life and his teachings orally. This Oral Tradition remained vibrant until the destruction of the Temple.
4. These 21st C. scholars generally agree that Mark was the first to write down the Oral Tradition in the form of a Gospel. They further agree that Matthew also wrote down the sayings in a Hebrew dialect. However, most modern scholarship agrees that the canonical Gospel of Matthew does not appear to be a translation from Hebrew or Aramaic but was composed in Greek. (ie Matthew's Hebrew Gospel and the Gospel of Matthew are two distinct Gospels.)

Three of the most notable scholars to join this new scholarly position have been Bart Ehrman, Maurice Casey, and James Edwards.

The majority of links that I have clicked in this talk leads to the previous millennium, and some links lead to only one or two articles, or nothing. The oral memory theory is used to explain the delay in decades with regards to writing down the stories about Jesus, and naturally can't be debunked nor proven

You say "new scholarly position" yet it is unclear to which points you refer. All of them? For the record, Maurice Casey died in 2014, 6 years ago https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Casey. Markan Priority is supported by the vast majority of scholars today, yet exactly how Mark gathered his material remains debated. The part of oral memory entered that debate decades ago, and the theory in itself, like "layered tradition", is prone to cause a stalemate in and discussion: it can neither be denied nor confirmed, and the downside of it is that it is used to argue that e.g. the Gospel of Thomas is authentic exactly because it has so little in common with the Synoptic Gospels: oral memory is the key there, and I am still unsure whether such is argued in seriousness or merely to sabotage, yet the fact of the matter is that where written sources contradict or pose questions, oral memory enters the scene as some kind of panacea Sato21st (talk) 10:55, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

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Garbled nonsense in The role of James

A sentence in the Role of James section as currently written:

Moreover, there are some sayings, (principally log. 6, 14, 104) and Oxyrh. papyri 654 (log. 6) in which Gospel is shown in the opposite point of view to Jewish mores specially in respect to the circumcision and dietary practices (log. 55), key issue, in the early Jewish-Christian community led by James (Acts 15: 1-35, Gal. 2:1–10).

reads as if it were composed or edited by a non-native speaker. "Especially" and "a key issue" seem expected, but since I am unclear as to the writer's intent, I won't try fixing this. Perhaps someone can address this obscure statement? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 21:35, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Proto Gnostic

The Gospel of Thomas has almost no gnostic concepts in it and yet this article presumes it is gnostic in origin. There are many mentions of secret teachings in the cannon and this does not presuppose that there being secret teachings is gnostic in origins. In fact Ireneas states that there is orthodox gnosis as well as the heretical gnostic teachings. The concept of the body as a poverty is in the text, but this is also considered to be a miracle. I do not see any other Gnostic concepts here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.15.50.63 (talk) 18:24, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree. When I read the Gospel of Thomas it didn't read as Gnostic at all. If anything, it appears to be some kind of pre-Gospel Christian literature. Maybe it would be better to fit it under "early Christianity" or "apocrypha". Bagabondo (talk) 08:08, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Gnostic is a useful a term as religious: it is an umbrella term for many concepts, varying from self-seeking to full blown duality with a Creator and a demiurge, much like the Christian God and Satan. The main reason why Gnosticism as a label to Thomas gets pushed is the majority opinion that it evolved in the first century CE as a reaction to ["orthodox teachings, traditions, or the authority of the church"], as if there were anything like an organisation or orthodoxy at that time. It is a veiled attempt at pointing out dependency Sato21st (talk) 12:24, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

So what, precisely, does anyone wish to change? The article makes clear in the lead that "It is possible that the document originated within a school of early Christians, possibly proto-Gnostics.[8] Some critics further state that even the description of Thomas as a "gnostic" gospel is based upon little other than the fact that it was found along with gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi.[9]". (I'm going to re-write that sentence as it's just ugly). Should this be expanded on in it's own section (something like "Relation to Gnostic Texts")? If so, then Bart Ehrman's "Lost Christianities" has a whole chapter on the Gospel of Thomas, as well as his arguments that it does reflect Gnostic teachings (Chapter Three- The Discovery of an Ancient Forgery: The Coptic Gospel of Thomas-specifically the subsection "Interpreting the Gospel of Thomas). And obviously we would have to balance this out with sources that argue the opposite. Remember, it is NOT our job to decide what is "right", but to present the RS and what they say. Vyselink (talk) 03:10, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

What is the editio minor?

​Recently added was its editio minor counts more than 80% of parallels, but I find this sentence unclear. What is this referring to? – Thjarkur (talk) 20:22, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

The editio minor was intended as major, yet quickly published and relatively very brief: https://www.worldcat.org/title/gospel-according-to-thomas/oclc/787635

At the end it contains the parallels. The translation by Guillaumont et al is considered the major early transcription and translation. I'll grant that the term "editio minor" might be confusing indeed, in hindsight. In its Preliminary Remarks on page v the authors themselves refer to it as "fragment of a work which is much more extensive and complete" and "extract" Sato21st (talk) 21:45, 10 September 2020 (UTC)