A List of GTS Members with Thomas-Related Content in English at Academia (original) (raw)
Related papers
Thomas Christianity: Scholars in Search of a Community
The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas, ed. Jan N. Bremmer, 2001
Scholarship often suggests that standing behind the literature composed by the ancient church in connection with Judas Thomas was a particular sort of Christianity or even an identifiable school of thought. This supposed community is given the label 'Thomas Christianity,' a term that suggests an identifiable and distinct social group, presumably with some level of organizational structure as well as a corporate history and a characteristic ideology. This essay casts doubt on that presumption. One of the key questions of method to ponder is whether or how we can use a literary narrative as a transparent 'window' through which to gaze on some other world, or, less optimistically perhaps, as a reflective 'mirror' by which we at least get glimpses, admittedly distorted, of that other world. The assumption of much discussion of the 'communities' lying behind early Christian texts seems often to be that the narratives can indeed function as one of these types of glass. Once we pose the question of readership rather than of the identity of some generative community, we can begin to open up the dynamics of this literature as a conversation among authors, iconic characters, scribes, translators, and readers.
IS THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS GNOSTIC
David W. Kim, “Is the Gospel of Thomas Gnostic?.” In the Gnostic World: Routledge Worlds, edited by Garry Trompf, Gunner B. Mikkelsen, and Jay Johnson. London: Routledge, 2018: 170-179.
Tracking Thomas: a text-critical look at the transmission of the Gospel of Thomas
2009
Wallace for his initial thoughts on the transmission of the Gospel of Thomas that pushed me to take up this subject in the first place, his guidance through the initial stages of the formulation of the argument of the paper, and his consistent availability in pursuing the project through its completion. Additionally, many thanks go to Stazsek Bialecki, Adam Messer, Philip Miller, and Matt Morgan, my σύνδουλοι, without whose thoughts, criticisms, and encouragement I would be in the tall grass. Finally, I would like to thank my lovely fiancée Angel, who has put up with many cancelled evenings through the completion of this work. 1 Technically speaking, this statement is untrue: though the Coptic manuscript was discovered approximately 60 years ago, Thomas has been known to scholars in one form or another since the late 19 th century.
Mysticism and the Gospel of Thomas
Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche, 2008
The Gospel of Thomas has been a thorn in the side of biblical scholars for many years. No matter how we look at it~ it just doesn't fit the conventional categories or constructs that we have built to support our reconstruction of biblical history and literature since the Enlightenment. It is problematic because it doesnlt make sense to us in the interpretative framework we are familiar with from our training as biblical scholars either in divinity schools or university departments. It is "off' every so slightly. Jesus' words aren't remembered in the same way that they are recorded in the Synoptics. He talks about revealing ~~mysteries" to a few worthy people, rather than preaching ethics openly to crowds. He focuses on internal spirituality, turning upside down traditional apocalyptic images. He speaks favorably about singlehood, not just preferring it to marriage, but demanding it. And so forth.. Because it is "off" it is puzzling what to do with it. The easiest solutton, and one of the first in the history of interpretation on the Gospel ~f Thomas, is to understand it as a deviation from canonical tradition. If 1t doesn't match the canonical picture which we have traditionally understood to mean "orthodox" than it must be "heretical." Who were the great_ heretics? The Gnostics. So it must be a Gnostic perversion of the genu1~e ~ords of Jesus found in the canonical gospels. 1. This Is an easy solution until we start tugging at the loose fnn?es around the edges: when we realize that our category "Gnosticism" 15 a 1 Th. . dee opmlOn that the Gospel of Thomas emerged out of Naasene Gnosticism was ~elope~ by severa~ international scholars in a variety of early publications: ,~ran;~ Notes , 170-180; td./Freedmafit Secret Sayings• Schoedel "Naasene Themes ' 22. 234• Smyth, "G • • " ' ' 04 The on-. ' nostlClsm , 189-198; Comelis, "Quelques elements", 83-1 • g~ns of the Gospel of Thomas in the Valentinian Gnostic tradition was pioneere.d .b~ t thre~ scholars: Cerfaux/Garitte, "Paraboles" 307-327• Gartner Theology. The opiruW~l at 1ts th 1 ' ' ' h 1 • 1so ,. eo. ogy represents a generic Gnosticism was argued by many sc o, ars.
HOW THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS WORKS
Pp.261-280 in William Arnal, Richard Ascough, Robert Derrenbacker, and Philip Harland, eds., Scribal Practices and Social Structures among Jesus Adherents: Essays in Honour of John S. Kloppenborg. Leuven: Peeters, 2016
Of the documents unearthed near Nag Hammadi in 1945 1 , none has attracted so much attention, scholarly and otherwise, as the Gospel of Thomas. The second volume of David Scholer's Nag Hammadi Bibliography, for instance, covering the period from 1970 to 1994 2 , devotes 39 pages to listing academic bibliography on Thomas. To put this in perspective, consider that Scholer requires a scant six pages to list all books, articles, reviews, and dissertations on the Apocryphon of John over a period of more than two decades. In 2012 alone, three significant new Englishlanguage books on Thomas were released 3 ; in 2014, Journal for the Study of the New Testament had a special issue largely devoted to Thomas, Simon Gathercole published a full-blown commentary 4 , and Stephen Patterson published a popular treatment 5 . The fact that Thomas is so disproportionately (at least vis-à-vis the other Nag Hammadi writings) the subject of scholarly interest means that most avenues relating to original language 6 , 1. Or otherwise acquired. See n.D. LewIs -J.
Currents in Biblical Research, 2012
This article, the second of a two-part series, examines scholarly research on the Gospel of Thomas between 1989 and 2011. The previous article (CBR 5.2 [2007: 183-206) reviewed research on Thomas's place in discussions of the historical Jesus and the Synoptic Gospels between 1991 and 2006. The current study focuses on three concerns: (1) scholarly opinions of Thomas's genre, (2) the notoriously difficult problem of identifying Thomas's theological outlook, and (3) the relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and the Fourth Gospel. the historical Jesus, and whether Thomas was after all dependent on the Synoptic Gospels or attested to an independent line of tradition, largely innocent of the canonical texts. Now, five years later, Christopher W. Skinner and Perrin together examine a different, albeit related set of issues: what have scholars been saying about Thomas's genre, theological outlook, and relationship with the Gospel of John. While the first two questions have preoccupied Thomas scholars since the text's discovery many years ago, the last of these reflects relatively recent developments. On all three issues, the discussion remains lively, perhaps some indication that in the arena of Thomas studies the historical and theological stakes remain high.
The Gospel of Thomas: Prospects for Future Research
The Nag Hammadi Library after Fifty Years, ed. John D. Turner & Anne McGuire, 1997
What should our primary goal be as readers and interpreters of the Gospel of Thomas? Which form of the gospel text should we privilege, if any? I suggest that we should seek literary questions and literary answers about Thomas. The text obviously must have meant something to the many readers that we might imagine using the surviving Egyptian manuscripts. Perhaps the arrangement or sequence of statements and groups of statements does indeed convey meaning, though not necessarily the sort of meaning that we see even in other sayings gospels or in wisdom books. To explore this possibility requires adopting a more literary sensibility, a focusing of attention on reading the text in its own terms, searching out its hermeneutical soteriology. The task is difficult, and the meanings provided by stark juxtapositions are not always obvious. Perhaps that obscurity is already part of the point.