| | This will be the last entry in the series, covering the dating of the Gospel of Judas and an overview of the Gospel of Thomas. Hopefully I'll continue to post as frequently, with more interesting and less academic material =P.
The Gospel of Judas -- Dating and Reliability
Even though we have seen that the true message of the Gospel of Judas might indeed be quite hostile to Judas himself, one question to ask is whether it should be trusted in the first place. Judas could not have been written until late 2nd century AD, as it contains references to Gnostic theology which did not develop until then. It also assumes that the reader is familiar with the four canonical gospels found in the New Testament, which were written in the 1st century AD. Its first reference at all in history was by Irenaeus in his writings against heresies in the 2nd century AD, and it's not clear that this was the same document, as there may have been multiple independent manuscripts bearing the name "the Gospel of Judas" at the time. This puts it on a less trustworthy level than the four canonical gospels, which are all dated earlier, and thus closer to the events described.
The only copy of the Gospel of Judas that we have is in Codex Tchacos, which is a 4th century AD document written in Coptic. Proponents argue that it was perhaps written in the 2nd century AD in Greek by Gnostics. This immediately raises the question as to how they managed to get such detail of personal conversation between Judas and Jesus. The Gnostics were not eyewitnesses like Matthew and John were, and could not have consulted Judas in person or other people who were alive at the time, as Mark and Luke did. Further, in contrast to the canonical gospels, this would be a 100 year time gap at least between its original writing and the first existing manuscript. With the four canonical gospels, we have manuscripts of them dating to a few decades from their completion.
Overall, this means the historical record for the Gospel of Judas is much more fragile than the four canonical gospels. If Judas is to be considered anywhere close to trustworthy, the four canonical ones should be far and away considered so.
The Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings supposedly said by Jesus and recorded by Thomas the Apostle. Many of the sayings closely resemble verses found in the canonical New Testament, but slightly modified. In recent years, it has been suggested that this gospel was one that was censored and erased from the Bible during the time of the early church. Most of the proponents argue that it must have therefore been written sometime in the first century AD.
However, examining the text itself shows that it could not have been written so early in history. As mentioned before, it bears many similarities to canonical books of the Bible, especially the four canonical gospels. The parable of the sower found in all three synoptic gospels is mirrored (with some minor changes) in saying #9 of Thomas. Matthew, Luke and John all have material which is unique to their gospels, and Thomas references or alludes to passages found in each of these three sets. This brings up a problem with the dating, as there is no early Christian writing which references so much of the New Testament before 150 AD. To date Thomas to the first century would make it the sole exception to this trend. In response to those who would say that Thomas existed before the four canonical gospels, it should be noted that Thomas' references to material shared by multiple gospels is closer to the later ones. Since Mark was written first, and then Matthew and Luke were written after and polished and edited some of Mark's grammar, the presence of strong grammatical links to Matthew and Luke rather than Mark indicate Thomas was written after them, not before Mark.
Further, and more importantly, Thomas is strongly linked to the Syrian church and the Diatessaron, or the harmony of the four gospels, written in 175 AD. In the Diatessaron, the text of the four gospels was slightly altered to polish them and present a single cohesive document. The characteristics of several of these altered phrases in the Diatessaron appear in Thomas. It also seems that the writer of Thomas was familiar with the ordering of the Diatessaron. There are also further links to the Syrian church, which suggests a late date of writing. The name used for Thomas, Judas Thomas, is found only in the Syrian church. Since the Syrian church was an expansion of the original church formed in Jerusalem, it is strange that Thomas is called by this unique name if it were actually written by him. There are several other distinctive traits and emphases which point to Syrian origin, such as asceticism and mysticism. Finally, when translated into Syriac (from the Greek fragments found at Oxyrynchus or the Coptic at Nag Hammadi), we find 500 catchwords used as a mnemonic device embedded in the text.
All this evidence suggests that Thomas was written later, and thus could not have been written by the apostle himself. But it is also worth looking through the message and authority to understand its flaws. First, no ancient reference we have found has regarded it as canonical. Hippolytus and Origen (~230 AD) both denounced it as falsehood. Perhaps the most incendiary saying in the work is the last one, saying 114, which states that "women are not worthy of life" and that "every woman who makes herself male shall enter the kingdom of heaven". There is no such statement found at all in the canonical Bible.
There are further sayings which have a strongly unorthodox flavor. Saying 12 indicates that the earth was created for the sake of one "Jacob the Righteous". Various suggestions have been made that this refers to either the biblical Jacob or James, the half brother of Jesus. However, there is no such precedent in any other literature for such a statement. Saying 14 claims that fasting, praying and giving to the poor is actually sinful, in direct contrast to the four canonical gospels. On reading Thomas, it becomes clear that its thesis is that salvation comes from secret knowledge and the power within, as opposed to the orthodox view of salvation by grace through faith. No wonder, then, that Origen and Hippolytus wrote against it
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| | Posted 10/6/2008 11:10 PM - 30 Views - 2 eProps - 3 comments
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