"You will not taste death: Jesus and Epicureanism" (Gospel of Thomas Thread)

I do not think I have heard of that. Please keep us posted on what you make of it.

Other than DeWitt's work, the only similar thing I am aware of - and it's not explicitly Epicurean but rather "materialism" - is the article from the early 1800's by Thomas Cooper "The Scripture Doctrine of Materialism" which gives his argument that a close reading of the bible supports the view that the human soul was viewed as a material thing in some of the biblical texts.

https://thomascoopermd.wordpress.com/the-scripture-…of-materialism/

I read most of the book and definitely have some observations.

He proposes that Epicurean philosophy not only influenced the development of early Christianity, but may even a primary influence on the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas. His thesis relies on several assumptions that I think are difficult to prove, that the Gospel of Thomas is an authentic representation of early Christianity, that the life of the Jesus of the Gospels can be adequately reconstructed, and that the Jesus of the Gospels was an Epicurean wise man.

He heavily relies on personal speculation to further his propositions.

Chronologically, the Gospel of Thomas was written sometime after Mark, Matthew, Luke, and the hypothesized "Q" Gospel from which Matthew and Luke both drew. Most scholars date Thomas closer to John (if not explicitly after it), sometime at the beginning of the 2nd-century along with other, apocryphal writings of Gnostics. Given this chronology, the Gnostic tone, and the later rejection of this gospel of Biblical canon, it seems unlikely that the Gospel of Thomas is a useful historical text from which to reconstruct a sketch of the allegedly historical figure called Jesus.

Hannah spends a significant chapter exploring "the paranormal" and speculates that Jesus may have been connected to ancient paranormal activity. He catalogues various accounts of "inexplicable" phenomena reported throughout the modern era to help substantiate his claim and further speculates that the "miracles" of Jesus were actual instances of extraordinary phenomena controlled by a wise man connected with "the paranormal". This chapter is a good example of Hannah's general approach, hand-picked evidence, a lack of peer review, and personal speculations.

The rest of the book is a commentary on each Jesus Saying in The Gospel of Thomas. The connections drawn between most of the sayings and Epicurean philosophy are tenuous (much like our recent discussions about Buddhism). While Hannah does find several interesting connections, the lack of an ability to definitively demonstrate Thomas as an Epicurean document, and Jesus as an Epicurean philosopher neutralizes the speculation.

I think De Witt makes the best argument for a connection between Epicurean philosophy and Christianity based on the historical tensions documented in the Pauline Epistles and Paul's appropriation of Epicurean vocabulary and techniques to evangelize a non-Christian, Greek audience. Beyond Paul, I don't think we'll find any Epicurean connections with the character of Jesus from the Gospels. There are obvious connections with Philo's Neo-Platonic Judaism, with the eschatological John the Baptist and the community of the Essenes, with the anti-imperialism of the Zealots, and, most of all given the likely historical context, as one (of many) 1st-century Jewish Messiah-claimants.

Personally, I believe that any investigation of "the historical figure of Jesus" needs to begin with an honest attempt to authenticate his historicity as a verifiable individual, and not just the amalgamation of similar stories of Jewish guys named "Josh" who claimed to be the Messiah and were executed by the Roman empire. Besides several very brief anecdotes from Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, and Pliny, we lack the evidence to authenticate his identity. It seems odd to me that someone writing from an Epicurean perspective would jump straight to the claim that "Not only did Jesus exist ... but also he harnessed psychic energy to heal people with Epicurean magic."

I think Hannah set out to try to prove a highly imaginative fiction. He paints a colorful picture that would be the perfect topic for late night on the History Channel, but not something constructive to our study as Epicureans.

Given the quality of his posts I suspect Nate has retired and gone into full-time Epicurean commentary. Another great post.

Last time I did not bother to look up that book. Here's a link or two:

So it's fairly recent: https://www.amazon.com/You-will-not-t…h/dp/B0006FANBK

You Will Not Taste Death

A fine softcover copy. Indexed. Light shelf wear. Tight binding. Clean, unmarked pages. Not ex-library. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilogram....

www.goodreads.com

I can't find much else as to who Hannah is or his views.

I had forgotten about this so thanks for the update. Is this guy an absolute kook or someone trying to make money on esoteric speculation or what? It doesn't sound like a promising time investment for a Christiwn or an Epicurean or anyone else unless he's got *some* kind of textual basis for his ideas.

But if he was able to keep Twentier and Titus reading for so long he must be a good writer?

I have not read that book, but just reflecting...as I was raised Christian so the statement "you will not taste death" meant that the soul does not die when the body dies, because the soul is eternal.

For Epicureans the opposite is believed...in De Rerum Natura, Book 3, the nature of the soul is mortal...it will die when the body dies.

Yeah, I'm probably not going to read the book. However, "not taste of death" only seems to occur in the three canonical synoptic gospels: Mark, Matthew, and Luke (in that chronological order):

Genesis 1:1 (KJV)

"Not" AND "taste" AND "death" primary search results are listed below along with dictionary aides, FAQs, and Lexiconc.

www.blueletterbible.org

It's Jesus failed prophecy that the end of the world was coming before some in his audience died. That didn't happen. Bart Ehrman had a great podcast episode on this failed apocalyptic prophecy recently:

The Gospel of Thomas uses the phrase, but it's so cryptic that anyone can say it means almost anything. The only full manuscript we have of Thomas is much younger than the canonical and in Coptic. There are earlier Greek fragments, but only fragments.

The "death taste" occurs in Logion 1, 18, 19, and 85, and is again so cryptic that it's like a Rohrschach inkblot: "What do you see?"

So, from the description, I'd agree with Titus that Hannah was...creative, maybe bordering on speculative fiction.

Additional resources:

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

This groundbreaking translation of the "gospel of Thomas" follows the Coptic to the letter and reveals dozens of new words and meanings,…

www.academia.edu

The Gospel of Thomas Collection - Translations and Resources

Gospel of Thomas - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Good to hear from you Titus. Yes it is amazing how AI can talk! It can provide options, but as to judgement or the wisdom of doing such a thing I suspect it will always fall short.

Quote from Titus

speculative transformative sect of Epicureanism—one that opens gates to the heavens and allows eidola to persist and manifest in a metaphysical realm

This is quite close to Platonism, where your spirit gets to go live in the star god made for you (so long as you understand your geometry):

"[Plato, Timaeus, 41d fin.] And when He had compounded the whole He divided it into souls equal in number to the stars, and each several soul He assigned to one star, [41e] and setting them each as it were in a chariot He showed them the nature of the Universe, and declared unto them the laws of destiny,—namely, how that the first birth should be one and the same ordained for all, in order that none might be slighted by Him; and how it was needful that they, when sown each into his own proper organ of time, should grow into the most god-fearing of living creatures."

"[42b fin.] And if they shall master these they will live justly, but if they are mastered, unjustly. And he that has lived his appointed time well shall return again to his abode in his native star, and shall gain a life that is blessed and congenial but whoso has failed therein shall be changed into woman's nature at the second birth; and if, in that shape, he still refraineth not from wickedness [42c] he shall be changed every time, according to the nature of his wickedness, into some bestial form..."

To step away from Plato, and into Epíkouros' physics: the eidola do persist over time, and can certainly persist and manifest beyond our lifetime. Nevertheless, we do not experience what our eidola "experience" [i.e., how they are impacted], nor can our eidola (or anything else) manifest in a "metaphysical realm."

Thanks for sharing!

In an attempt to ascertain whether the text of Thomas matches with Epicurean ideas, I will present what is in it.
At the current point, Thomas is unrelated to Epicurean thought at large. In addition to that, it started as a hobby of mine, so posting it here seems the least intrusive thing to do. Granted, not posting anything at all is even far less intrusive

The earliest Thomas translations, those in 1958-1960 by Germans and Scandinavians, are most precise. Guillaumont has a very precise one although already harmonised with orthodoxy, and the translation by Detlev Koepke is most precise. Lambdin, Layton, Brakke, Meyer, and so forth: they strongly harmonise all of Thomas with the Christian canonicals, changing explicit singulars into plurals, provding words that aren't supported by any dictionary or lexicon, and 'emending' without comment whatever they Need to see emended

My Translation ("the true words of Thomas") provides dictionary links for every single lemma and will enable everyone to verify any translation. Never take anyone's word for anything, and solely judge for yourself

A. Coptic - the Vorlage of Thomas

The full text, lacunose only at a few places, is in Coptic.
Coptic gets subdivided in any kind of classes but basically the Egyptians, when Alexander rolled up their country as well, were particularly enamoured by the idea to use the Greek alphabet. Until that time, hieroglyphs were sacred and reserved for the upper elite, and the plebs had to do with whatever they cooked up, among which Hieratic and "demotic" that typically sketches the problem and solution: the "demos" itself was inventing a language here, left entirely to its own. And that shows. Hieroglyphs are sounds, and so is Coptic, and we find all pretty as well as petty linguistic obscenities: R for L, EI for AI (the e is an extremely weak vowel and EI is considered to be identical to I), and we find a free exchange of labials, gutturals, and contraction and metathesis is very common. If I could be blunt (and I can, to be frank), Coptic is a bit of a creole language really. A true blessing compared to Greek, such is for sure!

A1.

Not surprisingly, Coptic is replete with Greek loanwords.
Most surprisingly, Thomas uses these next to native Greek words, frequently in one and the same sentence:

Greek-Coptic word twins in GoT express various shades of meaning

The Greek twin always has a higher metaphysical meaning, for instance in the so very biting anti-Judaic Logion 53:

Quote

53. his Disciples said to him: is the circumcision Useful (ⲱⲫⲉⲗⲉⲓ) Or no? he said to them: were he Useful, their father would beget them from their mother circumcised. Rather, the true circumcision in Spirit found all usefulness (ϩⲏⲩ)

Where we could annotate the Greek with "how does it help / assist", the Coptic primarily means profitable - and do observe that the last phrase is in the past!

B. Coptic dialects

Given the history of Coptic, we find countless dialects and as such different forms of one and the same noun declension (Coptic is a breeze compared to Greek and knows only 4 different verb forms, which however can't be compared to regular verb declension).
What is striking in Thomas is that he uses a mix of dialects, and pretty much all of them appear - and that also is a sign of the text being very early, although Thomas certainly stresses its use

B1.

The predominant dialects in Thomas are Sahidic, Akhmimic and Subakhmimic, but we also find Lycopolitan, Fayyumic and Bohairic, and even dialect forms that are unattested in the main and authoritative dictionary of Coptic, the one by Crum

Thomas abuses this in order to embed ambivalence in his text: 'beginning' and 'path' both are (the feminine) ϩⲓⲏ in the text, while (the masculine) 'death' and (feminine) 'mother' both exist as ⲙⲟⲩ, among others - and the first decision on these has to be made in Logion 3, where the kingdom is 'of your inside' and 'of your eye / outside': ⲃⲁⲗ can indeed be a dialect variant of ⲃⲟⲗ

C. Coptic is really very uncomplicated

In Coptic nouns and verbs often are identical, and words are short. Frequently only the gender of a noun distinguishes between meanings, and Thomas frequently uses nouns anarthrously next to using them with the definite article

C1.

That is how 'taking taste of the death' can mean only one thing, whereas 'taking taste of mother' is grammatically possible

D. Scriptio continua, a puzzle even before one starts

Last but not least, the text is written in Scriptio continua, one long consecutive string of letters without any interpunction whatsoever. It is very well possible to lemmatise a sentence in a few different ways

D1.

The infamous corner stone Logion, 66, is a splendid example: the word stone, ⲱⲱⲛⲉ, even is unattested:

Quote

ⲛ̅ⲧⲟϥ ⲡⲉ ⲡⲱⲱⲛⲉ ⲛ̅ ⲕⲱϩ - he is turnaround of envy
ⲛ̅ⲧⲟϥ ⲡⲉ ⲡ ⲱⲱⲛⲉ ⲛ̅ ⲕⲱϩ - he is the stone of corner

Yes, that last word becomes a homonym via its anarthrous use!

+++++ +++++

I hear you - but after 80 years of everyone utterly failing to make sense of Thomas, the simplest conclusion is that no one has found the correct pathway in, and that we have to dig deeper.
And obviously the result of this "tinkering" determines its feasibility, hence why I have gone to incredibly great lengths to make my Thomas translation fully traceable and verifiable. None of this is interpretation, all of this is grammatically viable variation

And this doesn't come from nowhere: in logion 74 for instance we find the words 'separation' and 'sickness', both of which always get obscured without comment: for a plain Christian text, even peri-Christian ones, Thomas contains some really bizarre and crazy elements

No peer reviews? On the contrary, this Translation has been pulbished some 20 times now in the past 5 years, and this is the final version. It demonstrates how peer review has failed hard across all other translations for Logion 74 and 96 ('leaven' is not an option at all, only 'colostrum'), for example.
The dictionary always prevails over the opinions of peer reviewers

Next: I come to the point

Epicurus, and Thomas

I am going to start a new post on this, in order to try and keep it manageable

##### #####

I will be going through Thomas up until 19, tasting death/mother, and try to summarise it in as few words as possible, including all logia in between parentheses.

I will Capitalise all Greek loanwords, as is customary for me in this context. When they're at the start of a sentence I will surround them with single quotes ('). The singular exception is Father, which is a native Coptic noun in Thomas

Thomas invites the reader to find the Interpretation, ἑρμηνεία (1): this is between the text and the reader, no gurus invited. No peers, no nothing. Death is not to be taken literally, as Thomas rejects any and all reincarnation and afterlife. Logion (2) describes an Awakening, and stresses that we may seek and even find, but that there is no relation between either. Personally I have found (pun) that only things having been in prior possession can be found - all else is pure discovery.
Thomas teaches us the typical gnoti seauton (3) and that those who go before / persuade us (3) variably invent where they can hang the proverbial carrot. I interpret heaven as the religious section, and Sea (θάλασσα) as typical schools of thought. The kingdom is on the inside, and Thomas will reject everything on the outside. Merely reject, of course: asceticism is a perfect example of misunderstanding how to value the inside and reject the outside, as it wastes an incredible amount of energy and time on that very outside

When we grow up, we die: spiritually. So Thomas expresses the stealth wish that growing up is ceased (4), because of the Place (τόπος) of life, so that the 7-day old child will live.
We die because we split (5): while we originally derive from the Father (who went into hiding when we split), we will become Ego ("he-who in the facade of your face" and "he-who covering") and Self (a diluted form of our Selves). Yet if we persevere, the Ego will be uncovered and the Father revealed.
Anti-Judaism is a great distraction in Thomas. It does serve to illuminate some of his points, but it borders on (if not exceeds) hate. Whatever the dumb disciples ruminate from their peers is ruthlessly rejected, so (6): fasting as well as praying and giving Alms (ἐλεημοσύνη, one of countless hapax legomena in the NT) equates to lying and doing what you hate, and they will be uncovered (!) in the presence of the singular heaven.
Thomas reserves the plural heavens for the real deal, and of the 10 'kingdom of' in his text 3 are of the plural heavens (identical to Matthew), and 7 of the (once in 65 'my') Father

How to find truth in life, what to pursue?!
The proverbial good great fish (8) is an illusion, and only good on discovery. You can choose it, but that will be Separate-from (χωρίς) toil. Toiling is quintessential in Thomas, and lack thereof indicative of worthlessness. My interpretation is that choosing the great (and no longer good!) fish equates to realising that this proverbial pot of gold simply doesn't exist - after all, the Sea was filled with only small fish alone (sic).
The sower is where the real deal starts: explicitly singular nouns point to repetitive processes in Thomas, and (9) is all about what we ought to do: reach deep inside, where the kingdom is, and ejaculate (cf. the creation story of Atum) our seeds in order to see where they land. Where they produce, they have found fertile soil - and locating that is the entire goal of it all, as we subsequently must work (20) that, and eventually will receive Fruit and the harvest itself.
The proverbial path leads to nothing, and merely to the proverbial birds of the singular heaven; note that the verb 'gather' is reserved for the context of collecting foods and wood: stockpiling, cattling and gating the sheeple.
The Rock points to Yahweh and is described as dry and shallow, whereas the Acacias nilotica (one of 10 possible choices for the word 'thorn'!) points to the multi-deities of Egypt, and the singular worm to Apophis who indeed eats them every night when Ra travels through the sky with all other deities.
'he came to sixty per arrow+, and hundred twenty per arrow+' - in the hexagesimal system one can count to 60 on one hand, and in this logion the 'sower' starts with empty hands, and ends with three full ones. Not bad hey?

Points of view regarding the things around us.
The World (10) must burn, and be utterly destroyed. It is a mere Decoration, an attempt to Order, and above all it resides on the outside.
We made the two ourselves (11) although we were coerced in the process. We sadly are indeed the children of the living father...
(12) points to the Jacob of Genesis and Jacob's ladder, and is very hyperbolic, and a distraction.
In (13), Thomas is told to write his own life story when his projection-free answer hits home. The boiling Fount is a typical example of the ferocity of this text, translated correctly only once by H-M Schenke back in 1959, at the very beginning. C&C has rigidly taken over ever since!
(14) again repeats the anti-Judaism which also is not only a common example of the main religion of Thomas' context, but observe that all that gets rejected are outside manifestations: Thomas rejects all of religion BECAUSE it busies itself only with outside manifestations. Outside is worthless, useless, and it's where the proverbial paths are (64).
(14) also is filled with Platonic words such as χώρα, παραδέχομαι, as well as κατακρίνω and κακός. I have a special file that hyperlinks into all of Perseus' Plato for each of the 123 words in Thomas, when interested.
The Father is not a person, such is for sure (15) - but do pay very close attention to the fact that it is YOUR Father, it is something personal, and not some deity.
The number 5 is mentioned in (16) and we learn that the child is indeed two, (Ego and Self), and knowledge of the existence of the Father makes three. The masculine fire (the feminine is reserved for 82) goes hand in hand with the sword, and War is an interesting Greek loanword out of necessity: Egyptian doesn't have a word for that (and evidently also loans for Peace).
Eyes, ears, hands and heart/mind: we view and see through the myopic eye of the Ego, we hear through his ears, we are fed with the spiritual hands of Ego and Self, and all that ends up in our own heart/mind (the word indeed means both in Egyptian). How could we possibly experience anything real without the severest of distortions?
18 and 19 are brilliant, juxtaposing the Greek Beginning to the native Coptic beginning. We Begin when we split, we become someone(s!) else entirely - yet we don't know, and the disciples once again ruminate their Judaic mantra, oblivious of that what is REALLY important. Harsh as always is his critique when he posits to his disciples the possibility of them becoming such to him. Listening to words naturally will not achieve anything, only knowing and understanding does so. Sarcastically, he baits them with the proposition that stones (who are devoid of eyes, ears, hands as well as heart/mind) would actually Serve (διακονέω!) them.
Here comes the last sentence:

Quote

you Indeed have inthere the five trees in Paradise; they move not, within summer, within winter, and not usually their leaves fall outward. he who will know them, will not take taste of mother+

This is really what the text says: it is the disciples that cherish this image. Five points IMO to the divisive number in logion 16, not to the five (Epicurean?) senses.
Think about it for 5 seconds and then answer the question straight away: trees that don't move all year around, and never shed a single leaf - what specific type of tree are they?
Know to recognise a fable, an illusion, and you indeed will not taste death - or rather, be corrupted by mother's education, as that is full of fables and old tales, ideas and illusions. For the epitome of that all, Logion 47 is the centerpiece of our psychological Becoming (as well as a direct link to Plato’s charioteer of Phaedrus 253d and its white horse (τιμῆς ἐραστὴς, ‘of-honour lover’) versus its black horse in 253e (ὕβρεως, hubristic)

+++++ +++++

I could go on indefinitely, and it's impossible for me to be more concise than this, I see. So I'll stop here.

Pros:

1. Rejection of religion
2. Rejection of the proverbial pot of gold
3. Indifference to gods
4. A stress on (autonomous!) movement and action
5. Rejection of everything outside, and sole focus on the inside
6. Rejection of reincarnation (e.g. 27, 89, 112)
7. Rejection of leaders, status

Cons:

A. Not a single mention of pleasure, and only one mention of 'my soul gave pain' in (28)
B. Thomas doesn't bother at all with any cosmogony of any kind, which fits with rejecting anything on the outside. I find the Epictetus idea of only caring for that which is in your control particularly strong in Thomas. Let's be honest, all ideas about any cosmogony are mere opinions.
C. Desire is a twin pair: desire ⲟⲩⲱϣ Noun masculine 99, Desire ⲉⲡⲓⲑⲩⲙⲉⲓ Verb 38, 47. I can't evaluate it in an Epicurean sense.
D. Nowt about friendship. Thomas' Quest is a lonely, utterly solitary one where it is even strongly recommended to avoid everyone (64, 65).
E. Knowledge comes from empiricism by oneself about oneself inside oneself. It's the only knowledge of use, and when devoid of it you are doomed, and dead

1. Nothing Can Be Created From Nothing.
2. The Universe Is Infinite In Size And Eternal In Time And Has No Gods Over It.
3. The Nature of Gods Contains Nothing That Is Inconsistent With Incorruption And Blessedness.
4. Death Is Nothing To Us.
5. There Is No Necessity To Live Under The Control Of Necessity.
6. He Who Says "Nothing Can Be Known" Knows Nothing.
7. All Sensations Are "True."
8. Virtue Is Not Absolute Or An End In Itself - All Good And Evil Consists In Sensation.
9. Pleasure is The Guide of Life.
10. By "Pleasure" We Mean All Experience That Is Not Painful
11. Life Is Desirable, But Unlimited Time Contains No Greater Pleasure Than Limited Time.

The above are all left unaddressed by Thomas. I get the impression (and cherish the stealth desire LOL) that most of these are reactions by Epicurus. If I'm correct that the Sea represents all schools of thought, Thomas simple wipes the entire table clean. He is a radical revolutionary interested in nothing but his own empiricism about himself - and as such hardly can be compared to full Epicureanism, I reckon.
Still: there are parallels, and Thomas most definitely is no signboard for anything in particular

A last one: Thomas shows us how to become Son of Man, Child of the Human (106) - it is the closest to the father that we will ever come. Free of our 'garments', free from the yoke of Ego and Self, free from that hobble that limited our movement (23). Free from shame and fear. Free from our slaveowner the Ego. No rules, no plans, no paths. No worries, no virtues, no higher goals

This is my first thread. Feel free to use the red pen and I will happily comply! I've gone by most of the introductory material in all kinds of aspects, but you never know...

This is it. I'll eagerly await any reactions. So far I haven't been able to link Thomas to anything in particular

(ADMIN NOTE) -- I moved two new posts over into this thread. For the time being let's keep the discussion of the Gospel of Thomas here in one place where people can best follow it. There is clearly some interest in this topic, but it's hard to assess the direction it will go, and we don't want a deep dive into this to disrupt the rest of the forum. This way, if some people want to simply "ignore" this thread, they can use the forium settings to do so.

This is an awesome contribution of material. thank you for sharing your work!

Quote from mlinssen

Never take anyone's word for anything, and solely judge for yourself

I've come to the same conclusion with regards to translations. I've found that many of our translation of classical texts come from stuffy British lords in the late 19th-century, whose contributions are excellent, reliable, and educational, yet still inject their own linguistic limitations.

... if I read ONE more translation with "in this wise", BY ZEUS ...

Not that they are wrong, just incomplete, or in need of an update for modern ears, or in need of a review by people (100+ years later) who benefit from a vast repository of educational resources.

In that regard, I really appreciate your angle. (Also, great style. You have a strong literary voice).

Quote from mlinssen

Pros:

1. Rejection of religion
2. Rejection of the proverbial pot of gold
3. Indifference to gods
4. A stress on (autonomous!) movement and action
5. Rejection of everything outside, and sole focus on the inside
6. Rejection of reincarnation (e.g. 27, 89, 112)
7. Rejection of leaders, status

Cons:

A. Not a single mention of pleasure, and only one mention of 'my soul gave pain' in (28)
B. Thomas doesn't bother at all with any cosmogony of any kind, which fits with rejecting anything on the outside. I find the Epictetus idea of only caring for that which is in your control particularly strong in Thomas. Let's be honest, all ideas about any cosmogony are mere opinions.
C. Desire is a twin pair: desire ⲟⲩⲱϣ Noun masculine 99, Desire ⲉⲡⲓⲑⲩⲙⲉⲓ Verb 38, 47. I can't evaluate it in an Epicurean sense.
D. Nowt about friendship. Thomas' Quest is a lonely, utterly solitary one where it is even strongly recommended to avoid everyone (64, 65).
E. Knowledge comes from empiricism by oneself about oneself inside oneself. It's the only knowledge of use, and when devoid of it you are doomed, and dead

Display More

I think this is a fair summation, with perhaps one tweak on point (3)., which corresponds with an earlier observation on prayer: while the forms of the gods are indifferent to the human drama, we are encouraged to practice piety, and engage in prayer (so long as it isn't about wish fulfillment).

I do see similarities, perhaps more so than with logocentric John, or the synoptic gospels.

Out of curiosity, have you found any relationship between the propositions in Thomas and the Apikorsim tradition in Judaism? I've loosely understood Thomas to be a mystical document that emerged from post-Second Temple Messianic Judaism, so in the regard of setting a contrast against other sects, I wonder if they were sympathetic to Apikorsim (less so ideologically, but perhaps more so in an "enemy of my enemy" kind of way).

Tonally, I observe a contrast against Epicurean texts. Thomas relies heavily on (what I think Epíkouros would agree to refer to as) "the mythic drama of tragic poets", in this case, the narratives provided from ancient Hebrew texts, like Genesis and Jacob. Epíkouros suggests that only a wise person can interface with art and metaphor in a helpful manner, so using fables and metaphors as teaching tools for students is seen as obfuscating (compared with parresia, "frank speech").

That doesn't necessarily mean that the content of those metaphors is anti-thetical. I think, maybe, speaking for myself, as an Epicurean, I want to skip metaphors and ask for a frank description, because I feel like I can never truly be sure what someone wielding metaphor really means. At the same time, it isn't pure grey—like you indicate, all translations benefit from review, and I am sure that there are more authentic, versus less authentic translations, each being the consequence of the educational resources available to the translator. Inter-disciplinary study is very helpful.

I'm also curious on your thoughts on the influence the author of Thomas might have had against mystical currents that would later develop into christian "heretics" and Persian mystical sects that are sometimes loosely referred to as "Gnostic" (or, at that, if "Gnostic" is even a useful identifier).

Overall, great job. I'm going to continue reviewing because I am unfamiliar with much of this.

Quote from mlinssen

Thomas rejects any and all reincarnation and afterlife.

Ok so that's a big one. So there is no eternal soul?

Quote from mlinssen

Anti-Judaism is a great distraction in Thomas.

Without being graphic, what's the general basis of this criticism. We know that Diogenes of Oinoanda is critical as well based on what appears to be general ethics, but what's the general basis of this criticism?

Quote from mlinssen

The Rock points to Yahweh and is described as dry and shallow, whereas the Acacias nilotica (one of 10 possible choices for the word 'thorn'!) points to the multi-deities of Egypt, and the singular worm to Apophis who indeed eats them every night when Ra travels through the sky with all other deities

So are the deities of Thomas the creators of the universe? Are they active in human affairs at all?

Quote from mlinssen

1. Rejection of religion
2. Rejection of the proverbial pot of gold
3. Indifference to gods
4. A stress on (autonomous!) movement and action
5. Rejection of everything outside, and sole focus on the inside
6. Rejection of reincarnation (e.g. 27, 89, 112)
7. Rejection of leaders, status

Display More

Most of that sounds parallel but the references to "outside" and "inside" seem a little unclear (?)

Quote from mlinssen

I find the Epictetus idea of only caring for that which is in your control particularly strong in Thomas. Let's be honest, all ideas about any cosmogony are mere opinions.

As for that last part I would say that Epicurus would strongly disagree, so this would be a major point of difference.

Quote from mlinssen

Now about friendship. Thomas' Quest is a lonely, utterly solitary one where it is even strongly recommended to avoid everyone (64, 65).

Yes that sounds highly incompatible, and indicates something much more "dark" than I would say Epicurus would approve of. But to understand that would require more definition of whatever positive side Thomas was promoting, and I am not clear on his positive teaching at this point.

Quote from mlinssen

A last one: Thomas shows us how to become Son of Man, Child of the Human (106) - it is the closest to the father that we will ever come. Free of our 'garments', free from the yoke of Ego and Self, free from that hobble that limited our movement (23). Free from shame and fear. Free from our slaveowner the Ego. No rules, no plans, no paths. No worries, no virtues, no higher goals

This sounds like it's going in an eastern "nihilist" / ascetic direction that I'd say Epicurus would strongly disapprove of, because Epicurus is clearly promoting something that he believes qualifies as "happiness." What did Thomas promote?