The Portrayal of Joseph the Carpenter in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas
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5 The Portrayal of Joseph the Carpenter in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas Introduction Many scholars also believe the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (abbreviated in this study as IGThomas) was composed in approximately the same period, between c.150 and 225 CE.l Reasons for this conclusion vary but center primarily on two convictions, clearly summarized by Ehrman and Plde: first, that early Christians would have early generated stories about the childhood ofJesus in order to fill-in gaps about his life present in the canonic birth narratives in Matthew and Luke and, second, that the church father, Irenaeus, writing in the middle to late second century CE, appears to document the presence of a prominent story found in IGThomas.2 There is also significant, if not complete, consensus with respect to the original language of the text which most scholars believe was Greek.3 The provenance of this narrative, in contrast, is much harder to ascer tain. Opinions about this seem only united in the idea that it most likely 1 Most scholars believe IGThomas was written in this time range. See Hock, The Infancy Gospels, p. 91; Lienhard, St. joseph in Early Christianity, pp. 7 and 9-10; Tony Chartrand-Burke, 'The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: The Text, is Origins, and its Trans mission', PhD dissertation (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2001), p. 408; J.K. Elliott, A Synopsis cif the Apocryphal Nativity and Infancy Na"atives, p. xiii; Reidar Aasgaard, The Childhood cifjesus, p. 2; Ehrman and PleSe, The Apocryphal Gospels, p. 5. 2 Ehrman and PleSe, The Apocryphal Gospels, pp. 5-6. They believe that the story 'where the young Jesus confronts and confounds a potential teacher by explaining to him the mysteries of the alphabet (see ch. 14) - is attested already in the writings of Irenaus from around 180 CE (Adv. Haaer. 1.20.1) and in the Epistula Apostolorum (ch. 4), which dates possibly several decades earlier.' Additional support for these convictions can be found in the work of Hock, The Infancy Gospels, pp. 91-92 and Aasgaard, The Childhood cifjesus, pp. 14 and 167-68. 3 Hock, The Infancy Gospels, pp. 99-101; Ehrman and PleSe, The Apocryphal Gospels, pp.4-5. 5. The Portrayal cifJoseph in the Infancy Gospel cif Thomas 97 originated in a Christian community somewhere close to a rural prox imity in the 'Greek East of the Roman Empire'.4 However, the most problematic issue with regard to IGThomas cen ters around the shape and size of the text. For, as Ehrman and PleSe note, the extant 'Greek manuscripts that contain the account differ radically from one another, with entire chapters missing from some witnesses and present in others'. 5 Nonetheless, this problem did not inhibit the spread of much of this narrative. This is indicated, in part, by the fact that the IGThomas 'is found in a considerable number of manuscripts, both Greek and ver sional'.6 While there are only fourteen separate manuscripts of this in fancy gospel in Greek, the narrative is much more common 'as part of larger story collections', and it is through this kind of format that the IGThomas was often disseminated. 7 The number and diversity of the manuscripts in other languages is quite substantial and includes texts in Latin, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Georgian, Slavonic and sev eral other European and Slavic languages.s Aasgaard's discussion on the dissemination of the narrative is quite illuminating and highlights the fact that it would have been available and accessible to a wide variety of peoples in many different geographical locales. He writes: The diversity oflanguages into which the material was spread and the fairly high manuscript number in some versions attest to IGT's broad appeal. The quick and broad dissemination of the short form also supports this. Already in the third to fourth centuries it had spread from Greek to Latin \West) and Syriac (East), and was by the fifth to sixth centuries known in Armenian and Georgian (North-East) and Ethiopic (South). And it was well-known in reworked and combined forms in Irish and Arabic in the seventh to early eighth centuries.9 Certainly these numbers and the diversity of the texts confirms this narrative was both widely circulated and very popular. 10 Thus, Aasgaard 4 Hock (The Infancy Gospels, pp. 91-92) suggests the fonner and concludes the latter. With respect to Hock's suggestion that IGThomas emerged within a rural context, see especially Aasgaard, The Childhood of Jesus, pp. 187-91. In regard to his belief that this narrative was a creative product of eastern Christianity, see Aasgaard, The Childhood of Jesus, p. 181 and Ehnnan and PleSe, The Apocryphal Gospels, p. 5. 5 Ehnnan and PleSe, The Apocryphal Gospels, p. 3. 6 Aasgaard, The Childhood of Jesus, p. 180. Significant study of the manuscripts has been detailed in Chartrand-Burke, 'Infancy Gospel', pp. 101-33,245-64,277-88. 7 Aasgaard, The Childhood ofJesus, p. 181. 8 Aasgaard, The Childhood ofJesus, pp. 181-85. 9 Aasgaard, The Childhood ofJesus, pp. 184-85. 10 Aasgaard, The Childhood of Jesus, pp. 184-85. Ehnnan and PleSe, The Apocrpyhal Gospels, p. 3, also acknowledge its popularity. At the same time, the dissemination and popularity of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas with its foci that include significant attention to the nature of the relationship between Jesus and Joseph, may help explain later positive .