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The Gospel of Thomas a Fusion of Horizons by Jody L. Wood a Thesis

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The Gospel of Thomas a Fusion of Horizons by Jody L. Wood a Thesis The Gospel of Thomas A Fusion of Horizons By Jody L. Wood A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of Master of Arts in Theology and Religious Studies. February, 2018, Halifax, Nova Scotia © Jody L. Wood Examining committee Approved: Dr. Magi Abdul-Masih Supervisor Approved: Dr. Syed Adnan Hussain Examiner Approved: The Reverend Dr. David MacLachlan External Examiner February 28, 2018 Abstract The Gospel of Thomas A Fusion of Horizons By Jody L. Wood February 28, 2018 The ancient texts found at Nag Hammadi have been studied by the leading scholars in the field of textual analysis. Included in Nag Hammadi was The Gospel of Thomas, which has also undergone significant critical and historical analysis. Research focussing on how the text was meaningful within wider social structures and Christian communities is seemingly sparse. Therefore, I propose this study to undertake a hermeneutical analysis of The Gospel of Thomas for meaning by first constructing an analysis of a horizon of the ancient communities in which the text may have been read and a modern horizon. Using Hans-Georg Gadamer’s notion of the fusion of horizons, this study will ultimately fuse the horizons to find meaning. 2 Acknowledgement I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks my thesis supervisor, Dr. Magi Abdul- Masih, for sharing her wisdom and mentorship. The resulting thesis is a product of her persevering patience and enlightening discussions which has benefited me and this thesis, probably more than she will ever know. Thank you to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research for consideration in my receiving the Faculty of Graduate Studies & Research Fellowship and Award. This funding was a blessing. I would like to thank Dr. Syed Adnan Hussain and The Reverend Dr. David MacLachlan for their time, attention, and learned experience towards the successful defense of this thesis. I would also like thank Dr. Mary Hale, Graduate Coordinator, Department of Religious Studies, for her time and efforts keeping me on track through the program. And I would also like to thank Dr. Pamela Yates for her assistance in the writing process and your encouragement and friendship throughout. Finally, I could not have accomplished this project without the love, support, and encouragement of my husband. Thank you, John. I love you. 3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………6 a. Chapter One – Method............................................................................. 7 b. Chapter Two – Horizon of the Back of the Text…………………………….9 c. Chapter Three – The Text ………………………………………….…….10 d. Chapter Four – Horizon of the Front of the Text…………………………...12 e. Chapter Five – A Fusion of Horizons ……………………………………….14 2. Chapter One – Method………………………………………………………………...15 a. The Problem of Knowledge………………………………...………………...15 b. Hans - Georg Gadamer………………………………………………….……18 c. What is Horizon? ……………………………………………………………...22 d. Language……………………………………………………………………….25 3. Chapter Two - The Back of the Text – Gnostic Christian Communities in the years 100 to 150 CE ……………………………………………………………...……28 a. The Roman Empire……………………………………………………………30 i. Social Hierarchy of the Roman Empire…………………………….30 b. The Christian Community in Rome………………………………………….34 i. Early Christianity as Social Movement……………………………..34 ii. Persecution and Martyrdom…………………………………………37 iii. Diversity within the Community……………………………………..43 c. Christian Gnostic Community……………………………………………..…44 i. What is Gnosis?............................................................................45 ii. Gnostics and Christian Gnostics…………………………………....47 iii. Social Context of the Christian Gnostic Community…………..….50 1. Marcionites …………………………………………………..53 2. Valentinus and the Valentinian Community………………58 4. Chapter Three - The Text – The Gospel of Thomas……………………………….67 a. The History of the Text………………………………………………………..67 i. The Fragment Discovery…………………………………………….68 ii. The Nag Hammadi Discovery……………………………………….68 b. The Gospel of Thomas Research……………………………………………72 i. What kind of text is The Gospel of Thomas?................................73 ii. Is The Gospel of Thomas related to the Lost Gospel Q?..............75 iii. What is a Gnostic text?.................................................................79 c. Gnosticism within the Nag Hammadi library…………………………….….81 d. Is The Gospel of Thomas a gnostic gospel?............................................83 5. Chapter Four – The Front of the Text – Modern Voices…………………………...87 a. Canada………………………………………………………………………....87 b. The Structure of Modern Society………………………………………….…90 i. Individualism…………………………………………………………..90 ii. Commodification………………………………………………………95 iii. Fear…………………………………………………………………….98 c. Contemporary Christian Community……………………………………….100 i. Christian Community in an Individual Society……………………100 d. The Commodification of Spiritual Capital …………………………………102 e. Spiritual Capital in Popular Culture………………………………………...104 i. Stigmata……………………………………………………………...106 ii. The Celestine Prophecy……………………………………………109 iii. The Da Vinci Code………………………………………………….111 6. Chapter Five – A Fusion of Horizons - Finding Meaning…………………………115 a. The Valentinian Cosmology…………………………………………...……117 b. The Language of Metaphor…………………………………………………121 i. Feed The Birds……………………………………………………...122 c. Fusion of Horizons…………………………………………………………..127 i. Logion 2……………………………………………………………...127 ii. Logion 3………………………………………………………………131 iii. Logion 5……………………………………………………………...135 7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….141 8. Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………...145 5 Introduction Jesus said, “Now the sower went out, took a handful (of seeds), and scattered them. Some fell on the road; the birds came and gathered them up. Others fell on rock, did not take root in the soil, and did not produce ears. And others fell on thorns; they choked the seed(s) and worms ate them. And others fell on the good soil and it produced good fruit: it bore sixty per measure and a hundred and twenty per measure”.1 In an old bookshop, the kind where hardbound books sit in piles on the floor and dust hangs thick in the air, I came across Marvin Meyer’s essays on The Gospel of Mary and the findings in the Nag Hammadi library. Amongst the pages was a historical critique on the recent speculation of an ancient intimate relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus of Nazareth. I was interested in the historical potential of what may have been a great romance2 so I bought the little book and squirrelled it away home. Meyer argues that Mary illuminates Mary Magdalene from the shadows of early Christian traditions and speculates that she was Jesus intimate companion. Nestled deep into the book was a section on the The Gospel of Thomas. The real intrigue, I thought, was found in Thomas and the ‘hidden’ sayings. Hidden sayings? Secret relationships? What exactly was going on in this ancient culture? Meyers’ introduction to Thomas was brief, but it did provide a translation of the 114 sayings, many starting with ‘Jesus said’. I read each saying and understood none. That is the beauty of Thomas. There is no narrative, nor are there any parables or lessons and very few characters. That said, it does open with one of the greatest literary 1 The Gospel of Thomas. Logion 9. as found in Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures. Books that Did Not Make it into the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press. 2003), 21. 2 This is in reference to what I will discuss further in Chapter Four in the section about The Da Vinci Code. One of the plot lines in Brown’s novel concerned speculation that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were bound in a relationship that produced a child. I would argue that the impact of this plot line on readers and subsequent success of the novel is due in part to a welcome reimagining of Mary Magdalene. Brown has cast Mary Magdalene outside of the typical patriarchal roles for women, as either ‘mother’ or ‘prostitute’, by imagining her in the position of independent woman and intimate companion to Jesus. One who experienced a great romance. See Marvin Meyer, The Gospels of Mary, The Secret Traditions of Mary Magdalene. The Companion of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2004), vii-xxi. 6 hooks of all time…. “these are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke, and which Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down.”3 I wanted to know what the secret sayings meant. I wanted to understand these 114 logia and what they could mean to my own spiritual journey. Thomas, I initially thought, should be read like a puzzle. The sayings should fit together in a meaningful way. I reveled in the mystery. I imagined an interpretation from a different perspective than what is offered by Christian church tradition. Why? Thomas seemingly belongs to the Christian tradition yet does not play an active role in modern church traditions. Therefore, my initial scope for this project is to uncover the meaning of the sayings and invite a new relationship with the Christian tradition; however, the sayings in Thomas do not fit together into a concise narrative rather seemingly stand alone. Ancient Christian texts were written for a reason. The puzzle therefore, is to seek the meaning of each sayings by understanding why the text was written. What purpose was served by collecting these sayings into a text. What did the text provide for the ancient Christian communities into which it was read and what meaning may I discern into my own community?
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