A Common Written Greek Source for Mark and Thomas

John Horman

Description

This book uncovers an early collection of sayings, called N, that are ascribed to Jesus and are similar to those found in the Gospel of Thomas and in Q, a document believed to be a common source, with Mark, for Matthew and Luke. In the process, the book sheds light on the literary methods of Mark and Thomas. A literary comparison of the texts of the sayings of Jesus that appear in both Mark and Thomas shows that each adapted an earlier collection for his own purpose. Neither Mark nor Thomas consistently gives the original or earliest form of the shared sayings; hence, Horman states, each used and adapted an earlier source. Close verbal parallels between the versions in Mark and Thomas show that the source was written in Greek. Horman’s conclusion is that this common source is N.

This proposal is new, and has implications for life of Jesus research. Previous research on sayings attributed to Jesus has treated Thomas in one of two ways: either as an independent stream of Jesus sayings written without knowledge of the New Testament Gospels and or as a later piece of pseudo-Scripture that uses the New Testament as source. This book rejects both views.

Sujets

• Religión
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 25 février 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781554582426
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A Common Written Greek Source for Mark & Thomas

Studies in Christianity and Judaism / Études sur le christianisme et le judaïsme :20

Studies in Christianity and Judaism / Études sur le christianisme et le judaïsme publishes monographs on Christianity and Judaism in the last two centuries before the common era and the first six centuries of the common era, with a special interest in studies of their interrelationship or the cultural and social context in which they developed.

Series Editor: Terence L. Donaldson, Wycliffe College

Studies in Christianity and Judaism / Études sur le christianisme et le judaïsme :20

A Common Written Greek Source for Mark & Thomas

John Horman

Published for the Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion / Corporation Canadienne des Sciences Religieuses by W ilfrid Laurier University Press 2011

This book has been published with the help of a grant f rom the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Horman, John,1940– A common written Greek source for Mark and Thomas / John Horman.

(Studies in Christianity and Judaism series ;20) Also issued in electronic format. ISBN978-1-55458-224-2

1. Bible. N.T. Mark—Criticism, Textual.2. Gospel of Thomas (Coptic Gospel)—Criticism, Textual.3. Bible. N.T. Mark—Language, style.4. Gospel of Thomas (Coptic Gospel)— Language, style.5. Jesus Christ—Words.6II. Series: StudiesI. Title. . Synoptic problem. in Christianity and Judaism ;20

BS2585.52.H66 2011

226.3'066

Electronic formats. ISBN978-1-55458-242-6(PDF), ISBN978-1-55458-343-0(EPUB)

C2010-905623-X

1N.T. Mark—Criticism, Textual.. Bible. 2. Gospel of Thomas (Coptic Gospel)—Criticism, Textual.3. Bible. N.T. Mark—Language, style.4. Gospel of Thomas (Coptic Gospel)— Language, style.5. Jesus Christ—Words.6I. Title. . Synoptic problem. II. Series: Studies in Christianity and Judaism ;20

BS2585.52.H66 2011a

226.3'066

C2010-905624-8

©2011Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion / Corporation Canadienne des Sciences Religieuses and W ilfrid Laurier University Press

Cover design by Sandra Friesen. Cover image: Papyrus1531, verso. Image © The British Library Board. Text design by Catharine Bonas-Taylor.

This book is printed on FSC recycled paper and is certified Ecologo. It is made f rom100% post-consumer fibre, processed chlorine f ree, and manufactured using biogas energy.

Printed in Canada

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Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

N: A NEW GREEK SOURCE The Scope of N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Sayings Common to Mark and Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N2:19. . . . . . . . . . . .The Bridegroom and the Bridechamber N2:21. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Old and New N3:27. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Binding the Strong Person N3:28Speaking against the Holy Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N3:31Jesus’s Mother and Brothers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N4:3The Sower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N4:9. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Has Ears W hoever N4:11Mystery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N4:21A Lamp under a Storage Vessel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N4:22W hat ill Be Revealed Is Hidden W . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N4:25W hoever Has W ill Receive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N4:29. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .the Fruit Ripens W hen N4:30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A Mustard Seed N6:4A Prophet Is Not Received . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N7:15Goes into the Mouth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .W hat N8:27. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .W hat Am I Like? N8:34Carry One’s Cross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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23 23 30 38 42 47 53 64 66 67 71 76 79 82 88 92 97 98

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N9:1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Tasting Death N10:15Become as a Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N10:31. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .The First and the Last N11:23. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Moving a Mountain N12:1. . . . . . . . .The Vineyard Owner and the Sharecroppers N12:10The Stone That the Builders Rejected . . . . . . . . . . . . . N12:13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Taxes to Caesar N13:31Heaven W ill Pass Away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N14:58. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .I W ill Destroy This House

Other Candidates for N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Setting of N in Early Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

EXCURSUS Excursus1: Sayings of Jesus and Narrative about Jesus in the Early Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Excursus2: Esoteric and Exoteric Sayings and Settings in Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Excursus3. . . . . . . . .: Narrative Frameworks for Sayings in Mark

Excursus4: Structural Markers Indicating the Use of Sources in Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Excursus5: Thomas and the “Gnostics” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nag Hammadi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scriptures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Greek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Coptic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

99 100 104 106 110 120 124 131 132

135

143

151

157

173

179

193

205

215

241

249 249 249 250 252 255 255

Preface

This work could not have been completed without help from a large num- ber of people. First and foremost, I should thank Magdalene Horman, my wife, who has read through the complete manuscript many times to check for spelling and grammatical errors, as well as for redundancy, inconsistency, obscurity, repetition, structural problems, in short, for all of the errors for which I reproach the author of the Gospel of Mark. Thanks are still in order to E.P. Sanders, G. Vallée, H. Rollmann, and the late R. Huebsch, who read and offered suggestions for the article that lies at the root of this work, as well as to Stevan Davies, who read an ear- lier version of this work and convinced me that I really did need to prove that Mark did not use Thomas. An informal colloquium that meets approx- imately monthly in Waterloo has discussed many parts of this work and offered valuable suggestions. In this group I am particularly thankful to Harold Remus, Michel Desjardins, John Van Seters, John Miller, Michèle Daviaux, and Paul Dion. I also thank members of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies at whose meetings I presented other parts of this work; in this group I have received helpful suggestions f rom, among many, John Kloppenborg, William Arnal, Steve Wilson, and two anonymous reviewers. I wish to thank the anonymous readers who reviewed two versions of this manuscript for the series “Studies in Christianity and Judaism/Études sur le christianisme et le judaïsme.” The arrangement of this book, and many of its features are the result of the care they have given my manuscript. Thanks are also in order to the membership of First Unitarian Congre- gation of Waterloo for their interest and encouragement and for providing

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a religious context in which I could discuss my research freely without hav- ing to worry about apologetic interests. W hile preparing this work, I became aware of a widespread interest in the life and sayings of Jesus among the general public. This interest is driven in part by certain recent imaginative works about early Christianity, but also, I think, by a genuine interest in exploring Christian origins. Hence, in spite of the technical nature of this work, it is likely that at least some who lack a technical background in early Christian literature will want to read it. Conscious of such an audience, I have tried as much as possible to allow the general reader at least to understand where the argument is going. Such readers are, however, warned that they will find some of the arguments very difficult. This effort should also allow readers with more technical back- ground, including readers whose first language is not English, to see more quickly where my arguments have gone astray. I have also, wherever possible, provided translations for the Greek and Coptic text. These translations are my own, but I have compared them against other translations for accuracy and context. Readers who read these languages fluently will also benefit, since they will see more quickly where my arguments are based on misunderstandings of the text. I have tried to use “inclusive language” to the extent that the text allows or demands, in order to show a twenty-first-century reader as precisely as possible when the ancient authors can be understood as referring to humans of both sexes and when they cannot. Certainly when writing for an audi- ence which requires the English “man” be used only to refer to male human beings, it is simply incorrect in most cases to translate the Greek  or the Coptic rwme as “man.” In such a context the correct translation is usually “human” or “person.” Occasionally, however, the lack of an obviously gender-neutral personal pronoun in the English language has defeated my efforts. In those cases my compromise favours clarity of language over inclu- sivity. W hen referring to the authors of ancient works, I use the pronoun appropriate to the gender of the putative author, even though the actual author could be of the other sex. Hence for the authors of Thomas and Mark I use “he,” while for the author of the Gospel of Mary I would use “she.”

Introduction

In1979, I proposed that the authors of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Thomas shared a common written Greek source for their respective versions 1 of the illustrative story of the sower, a source apparently represented, at least for this story, more accurately in Thomas. Since Matthew and Luke depend on Mark for their versions of that story, all versions of the story go back to that source. Such a source would have contained not only one story, but also other sayings common to Mark and Thomas. Unfortunately, my circumstances at the time did not permit an expanded work taking these other sayings into account, nor did anyone else adopt the proposal in the intervening years. Since then, I had some opportunity to investigate the sayings which could be attributed to such a source, beginning with a close comparison between the Greek text of Mark and the Coptic translation of Thomas, taking into account the Greek fragments of Thomas and the Coptic trans- lations of the synoptic gospels. It became apparent that the illustrative story about the sower was no exception, and that other sayings were, when sub- jected to textual comparison, sufficiently close to either allow or sometimes require a literary relationship. As expected, the longer sayings, especially the illustrative stories, provided the best evidence for relationship. The evidence did not, however, support a simple verdict that Thomas always gave an ear- lier version that Mark had adapted. To account for the complexities of the evidence, I required a hypothetical source written in the Greek language, which I came to call N. W hen I wrote that article, the majority of detailed published works on Thomas held that Thomas was a Gnostic work completely dependent on

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