Tradition

[AletheiaRivers]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

Ah, I like that!

Have any of you read Elaine Pagels recent book about the gospel of Thomas? It would seem that John and Thomas were rivals.

Chris

I checked it out from the library and read it when it very first came out. It was, in fact, what made me take a second look at John. And what I found amazed me.

As a Witness, I never appreciated how different John was from the other gospels. I'd never heard of the Johannine community or of Logos Christology.

[Thomas]

I insert a short quote below. For a detailed refutation of Pagel's scholarship, I advise anyone to read the article, which is not too long.

"Put simply, Irenaeus did not write what Prof. Pagels wished he would have written, so she made good the defect by silently changing the text. Creativity, when applied to one's sources, is not a compliment. She is a very naughty historian.

Or she would be, were she judged by the conventional canons of scholarship. At the post-graduate institute where I teach, and at any university with which I am familiar, for a professor or a grad student intentionally to falsify a source is a career-ending offense. Among professional scholars, witness tampering is no joke: once the charge is proven, the miscreant is dismissed from the guild and not re-admitted.

The Gnostic Gospels, like those portions of Pagels's later work with which I am familiar, is chock-full of tendentious readings and instances where counter-evidence is suppressed. The example of "creativity" here discussed may fairly be called a representative specimen of her methodology, and was singled out not because it's the worst example of its kind but because it's among the most unambiguous. No one who consults the source texts could give Pagels a pass, and that means she forfeits the claim to reliability as a scholar. Attractive as her ideological sympathies may be to many persons -- including many academics -- she does not deserve to be ranked with serious textual scholars ... and her testimony on the accuracy of inventions such as Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code cannot be solicited without irony."

http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=43736

[Thomas]

Hi Aletheia,

The one thing to guard against is gnostics love to sew dissent, and endeavour to demonstrate dissent in the Church.

(You don't have to look far, however, Peter and Paul had a mighty ding-dong as reported in Acts - but the significant fact is that it was reported, and Peter was shown in a bad light - but the argument was resolved, and the apostles were one in their faith.)

There is strong (a stronger case than Pagels makes) case for arguing that John's Gospel was addressed to Christians drawn from the Essenes (something I think she is unaware of?) - much of the linguistic symbolism shows a knowledge of Essene mystical speculation.

The same argument applies to the Epistle to the Hebrews. This has always been doubted as issuing from the hand of St Paul, but its orthodoxy has never been questioned.

And, as I have written elsewhere, there is an argument to suggest that Paul was instructed by Essene Christians after his Damascus experience.

Certainly the ecclesiastical structure of the early church (something which Pagels distorts unforgivably) was based on the Essene system - ie the very structure she so obviously dislikes is born of those gnostics she so obviously endorses ...

The case that John was written to counter Thomas has little or no evidence to support it. There is no (I shall check my sources) evidence that a Thomasine gospel was ever in circulation in the Christian or gnostic community - whereas we know that others, such as the G of Judas, were.

Thomas

[AletheiaRivers]

Originally Posted by Thomas

The one thing to guard against is gnostics love to sew dissent, and endeavour to demonstrate dissent in the Church.

The case that John was written to counter Thomas has little or no evidence to support it. There is no (I shall check my sources) evidence that a Thomasine gospel was ever in circulation in the Christian or gnostic community - whereas we know that others, such as the G of Judas, were.

Thomas

Hi Thomas.

It's probably ironic that her book compelled the opposite reaction within me than she most likely intended. I didn't walk away from the book going "Oh, that big bad Gospel of John, trying to subvert Thomas." I actually found myself agreeing with John and becoming intrigued to learn more.

The GoT is the only Gnostic text I've read in full. Even then, Gnostic ontology isn't as prevalent in the GoT as it is in other coptic texts. Bart Ehrman's lectures on "The Lost Christianities" left me thinking "Man, those guys were weird!"

I understand the lure that the apocryphal texts have, in that they lend themselves to a more esoteric/mystical interpretation than the synoptic gospels, which appeals to many. As a amateur student of comparative religion, I appreciate many religious texts. However, as many times as I wander away from the Jewish and Christian scriptures in search of other views, I always find myself being pulled back.

[Thomas]

Hi Aletheia -

Yes, I read somewhere that Thomas is not 'properly' gnostic for the very reason you state.

Thomas