Gospel of Thomas Commentary (original) (raw)

2021, Complete Thomas Commentary, logion 0-55

This most detailed analysis of the so-called gospel of Thomas evaluates and weighs every single Coptic word. The "Jesus" (I[h]S) that they reveal is radically different and polemic: Thomas reveals that we are split, separated, dualised; we are the Ego and the Self, and we created those two ourselves. Thomas points the way to salvation in the sense of liberation from both the Ego and the Self, slaveowner and slave: we are neither, those merely are the children of the living father - and we are the latter. The suckling infants in Thomas are still pristine, and stand in the Beginning - but then we bring about the end by "eating what is dead" and become dead ourselves. The cause for that is our upbringing, being patched with old patches: our new wineskins get filled with old wine. Thomas precedes modern psychoanalysis by one and a half millennium, and continuously points to the inside for finding answers: that is where the kingdom is. Thomas has nothing to do with Christianity at all, nor any Jesus that we know: Thomas precedes all that too

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.

The Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas

The Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas, 2015

Seven years, and a bibliography of over 100 pages: that is what Detlev Koepke invested in researching the gospel of Thomas. Over 600 carefully worded pages disclose in great detail his intricate study and findings on Jesus in the gospel of Thomas as well as in the New Testament, and Q. Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist and James are discussed in a separate chapter each, and we are presented with a full translation from Coptic, and a commentary on the gospel of Thomas. The second half of this book focuses on the New Testament and history of Christianity: its historical background, Josephus, Paul, the Roman Empire and Christian persecution are some of the highlights. Detlev Koepke passed away in 2015, leaving behind a truly majestic piece of work on the gospel of Thomas, its relation to Christianity, and the historical Jesus. A most complete work on the combination of these topics. Detlev Koepke was fluent in 4 languages, and learned ancient Greek and Coptic specifically for and during his research. Most of his research was conducted utilising Harvard Divinity School library as well as his own extensive personal library: "no stone has been left unturned". 2021 edition, republished with permission from his son, David Koepke ______________________ +++Version Management+++ Includes Discussion content (92 pages) - see https://www.academia.edu/57161277/Publication\_List\_and\_Discussion\_Content\_access

The true words of Thomas (Interactive Coptic-English gospel of Thomas)

Literal Thomas, Part VII, 2020

This groundbreaking translation of the "gospel of Thomas" follows the Coptic to the letter and reveals dozens of new words and meanings, significantly changing its interpretation. 'The true words of Thomas' hyperlinks to the Coptic Dictionary Online for each word: everyone is only one click away from the meaning(s) and verification of every single word in this text. The translation is fully normalised and contains a full double index as well as concordance: both English-Coptic as well as Coptic-English. The translation is literal, without interpretation. It contains not a single emendation (and it will reveal that every other translation contains dozens that you never knew of); the entire context for the text is the content of the text itself: and it speaks volumes. ______________________ +++Version Management+++ V1.9.5 2023-07-15 - moved the English translation, which has been rendered fully legible, up front

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.

The Gospel of Thomas and the Synoptic Gospels

Oxford Handbook of the Synoptic Gospels, 2023

This article moves away from questions of dependence or autonomy to show that comparison of the texts' style and content is fruitful for understanding both Thomas and the Synoptic Gospels. When we read the Synoptics against Thomas, some of the central characteristics of Mark, Matthew, and Luke stand out in higher relief. Differences in theology, narrative structures, genre, and approaches to community formation combine to confirm that early gospel writers had a variety of choices about their modes of representation of the meaning(s) of Jesus. As part of its pattern of distance from Judaism, Thomas shows that it was possible to present Jesus as somehow removed from the thought world of Scripture, even as a source of revelatory or prophetic information.

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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