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The Gospel of Thomas (New Testament Readings) file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Documents/resources/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_i.html Page i The Gospel of Thomas For the first time, this volume offers a detailed commentary of The Gospel of Thomas, a work which has previously been accessible only to theologians and scholars. Valantasis provides a fresh reading of the Coptic and Greek texts, with an illuminating commentary, examining the text line by line. He includes a general introduction outlining the debates of previous scholars and situating the Gospel in its historical and theological contexts. The Gospel of Thomas provides an insight into a previously inaccessible text and presents Thomas’ Gospel as an integral part of the library of early Christian writings, which can inform us further about the literature of the Judeo-Christian tradition and early Christianity. Richard Valantasis is Associate Professor of Early Christian Literature at Saint Louis University. His recent publications include Constructions of Power in Asceticism (Journal of the American Academy of Religion). Ordained as an Episcopal priest, he has served parishes and a women’s monastery. He conducts adult education and other retreats for the laity. file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Document...rces/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_i.html4/26/2009 6:13:16 PM file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Documents/resources/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_ii.html Page ii New Testament Readings Edited by John Court University of Kent at Canterbury JOHN’S GOSPEL Mark W.Stibbe EPHESIANS Martin Kitchen 2 THESSALONIANS Maarten J.J.Menken MARK’S GOSPEL John Painter MATTHEW’S GOSPEL David J.Graham GALATIANS Philip Esler JAMES Richard Bauckman READING THE NEW TESTAMENT John Court REVELATION A.J.P.Garrow LUKE’S GOSPEL Jonathan Knight file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Document...ces/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_ii.html4/26/2009 6:13:16 PM file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Documents/resources/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_iii.html Page iii The Gospel of Thomas Richard Valantasis London and New York file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Documents...ces/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_iii.html4/26/2009 6:13:16 PM file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Documents/resources/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_iv.html Page iv First published 1997 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 1997 Richard Valantasis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data The Gospel of Thomas/Richard Valantasis (New Testament readings). Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Gospel of Thomas— Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. II. Series. BS2860.T52V35 1997 229′.8–dc 21 96–6808 CIP ISBN 0-203-13147-9 Master e-book ISBN; ISBN 0-203-29509-9 (OEB Format) IBSN 0-415-11621-X (hbk) ISBN 0-415-11622-8 (pbk) file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Document...ces/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_iv.html4/26/2009 6:15:56 PM file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Documents/resources/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_v.html Page v for Edward T.Rewolinski linguist, scholar, friend, spiritual brother, and companion on the way file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Document...rces/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_v.html4/26/2009 6:13:16 PM file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Documents/resources/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_vi.html Page vi This page intentionally left blank. file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Document...ces/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_vi.html4/26/2009 6:13:16 PM file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Documents/resources/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_vii.html Page vii Contents Series editor’s preface ix Preface xi List of abbreviations xvi 1 Introduction 1 A description of the Gospel of Thomas 3 The theology of the Gospel of Thomas 6 The date of the Gospel of Thomas 12 The Gospel of Thomas and asceticism 21 My perspective on the Gospel of Thomas 24 2 A window on the Gospel of Thomas: the Greek fragment texts 29 3 The Coptic version of the Gospel of Thomas 49 Bibliography 197 Index 202 file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Document...es/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_vii.html4/26/2009 6:13:16 PM file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Documents/resources/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_viii.html Page viii This page intentionally left blank. file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Document...s/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_viii.html4/26/2009 6:13:16 PM file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Documents/resources/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_ix.html Page ix Series editor’s preface This volume has every right to stand on its own, as a signficant contribution to the study of the book of the New Testament with which it is concerned. But equally it is a volume in a series entitled New Testament Readings. Each volume in this series deals with an individual book among the early Christian writings within, or close to the borders of, the New Testament. The series is not another set of traditional commentaries, but designed as a group of individual interpretations or ‘readings’ of the texts, offering fresh and stimulating methods of approach. While the contributors may be provocative in their choice of a certain perspective, they also seek to do justice to a range of modern methods and provide a context for the study of each particular text. The collective object of the series is to share with the widest readership the extensive range of recent approaches to Scripture. There is no doubt that literary methods have presented what amounts to a ‘new look’ to the Bible in recent years. But we should not neglect to ask some historical questions or apply suitable methods of criticism from the Social Sciences. The origins of this series are in a practical research programme at the University of Kent, with an inclusive concern about ways of using the Bible. It is to be hoped that our series will offer fresh insights to all who, for any reason, study or use these books of the early Christians. John M.Court Series Editor file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Document...ces/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_ix.html4/26/2009 6:13:16 PM file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Documents/resources/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_x.html Page x This page intentionally left blank. file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Document...rces/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_x.html4/26/2009 6:13:17 PM file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/All%20Users/Documents/resources/downloads/netlibrarydownloader/0415116228/page_xi.html Page xi Preface This book actually began about fifteen years ago in a conversation with my academic mentor George MacRae, SJ. I had spoken to him about beginning studies toward a doctorate at Harvard and I wanted to work with the newly discovered documents from Nag Hammadi. Our conversation focused on the need to listen carefully and to construct even more articulately the theology of the texts discovered in that astonishing library. These texts, we concurred, represent the theological and religious artifacts of people for whom they were extremely important and they (both the people and their texts) demand the highest respect by modern scholars-the same respect due to every religious artifact. Most of our colleagues were busy placing these documents in their proper historical place among the known literature of early Christianity, formative Judaism, and the religions of the Greco-Roman world, and they were preoccupied with arguing about the texts’ heretical or orthodox status. Their interest rested primarily in how these documents enable modern scholars to reconfigure the world of the early Christians and to understand these early Christians’ interaction with groups that seemed to have been suppressed. Suppressed is the key word here, because these documents were believed to be a cache of heretical and rejected documents curiously preserved in the precincts of an orthodox Christian monastery at Chenoboskion in the Egyptian desert. That irony was lost on that first generation of modern scholars, because the literature found at Nag Hammadi seemed curious, strange, unfamiliar, and preserved in Coptic, a language not traditionally identified with Christian orthodoxy. My interest, as Fr. MacRae’s, was to treat these tractates as important theological witnesses to communities of people whose
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