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“No Rhyme or Reason”: The Hidden Logia of the Gospel of Thomas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Allen Callahan
Allen Callahan
Affiliation:
Harvard Divinity School
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Extract

Professor Helmut Koester has offered this incisive criticism and insightful characterization of research on the sayings traditions of the Gospel of Thomas:

What is most puzzling about the composition of sayings in this wisdom book is the arrangement and order of the sayings. There is seemingly no rhyme or reason for the odd sequence in which the sayings occur in the Gospel of Thomas…. several attempts have been made to find the author's compositional principle, none of them convincing.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 90 , Issue 4: Special Issue Honoring Helmut Koester , October 1997 , pp. 411 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1997

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References

1 Koester, Helmut, Ancient Christian Gospels (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, 1990) 81.Google Scholar

2 See Dibelius, Martin, James: A Commentary on the Epistle of James (rev. Heinrich Greeven; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976).Google Scholar

3 In Fallon, Francis and Cameron, Ron, “The Gospel of Thomas: A Forschungsbericht and Analysis,” ANRW 2.25.2 (1984) 4237.Google Scholar

4 Here and elsewhere, unless specifically stated otherwise, I refer to the translation of Lambdin, Thomas in Layton, Bentley, ed., Nag Hammadi Codex 2. 2–7 together with 13. 2*, Brit. Lib. Or. 4926 (1), and P. Oxy. 1, 654, 655 (Nag Hammadi Studies 20; 2 vols; Leiden: Brill, 1989) 1. 53–93.Google Scholar

5 Hippolytus Ref. 5.7.20. Cited in Meyer, Marvin, ed., The Gospel of Thomas (trans. Harold Bloom; San Francisco: Harper, 1992) 70.Google Scholar My emphasis.

6 My emendation.

7 My emendation of in the text.

8 Harold W. Attridge, “The Original Text of Gos. Thorn., Saying 30,” BASP (1979) 153–57, esp. 157.

9 Ibid., 157. (Gos. Thom. 30 // Matt 18:19–20; Gos. Thorn. 39b// Matt 23:13).

10 Till, Walter C., Koptische Dialektgrammatik (Munich: Beck, 1961) 52 (§244).Google Scholar

11 Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 83.

12 On this syntactical construction, see Shisha-Halevy, Ariel, Coptic Grammatical Chrestomathy (Leuven: Peeters, 1988) 117.Google Scholar Shisha-Halevy calls this construction “a verb of incomplete predication … expanded by the circumstantial” with the verb , and adduces fifteen sentences as examples from Sahidic Coptic literature. Shisha-Halevy's sentence no. 4 is syntactically identical to that of Thomas logion 42: , “Be like God.”

13 The translation here is based on Hans Jakob Polotsky's ingenious emendation. See Layton, Nag Hammadi Codex, 2.2–7. 74.

14 Matt 23:1–36.

15 Matt 15:21–28; Mark 7:24–30.

16 Luke 7:36–47.

17 See Crum, Walter E., ““ A Coptic Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993) 729b.Google Scholar

18 See Matt 21:33–41 and 21:42; Mark 12:1–9 and 12:10; Luke 20:9–16 and 20:17.

19 Layton, Nag Hammadi Codex, 86.

20 Ibid., 90.

21 Ibid., 93.

22 Ricœur, Paul, “Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation,” in Mudge, Lewis, ed., Essays on Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980) 85.Google Scholar

23 Title of both the Gattung and the classic essay by James M. Robinson, “LOGOISOPHŌN: on the Gattung of Q,” in Robinson, James M. and Koester, Helmut, Trajectories through Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971) 71–113.Google Scholar