[HN Gopher] The Infancy Gospel of Thomas
___________________________________________________________________
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas
Author : graderjs
Score : 22 points
Date : 2023-04-29 11:54 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gnosis.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (gnosis.org)
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| This is a fabrication, as opposed to the real Gospel of Thomas,
| the gnostic one.
| Maursault wrote:
| > as opposed to the real Gospel of Thomas, _the gnostic one._
|
| This is a simplistic and superficially supportable description.
| Because of its discovery with the Nag Hammadi library, and the
| cryptic emphasis on "gnosis" in some of the sayings, it was
| widely thought that the document originated within a school of
| early Christians, proto-Gnostics. However, critics have
| questioned whether the description of Thomas as an entirely
| gnostic gospel is based solely upon the fact that it was found
| along with gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi.[1] Many
| scholars consider the Gospel of Thomas to be a gnostic text,
| since it was found in a library among others, it contains
| Gnostic themes, and perhaps presupposes a Gnostic worldview.
| Others reject this interpretation, because Thomas lacks the
| full-blown mythology of Gnosticism as described by Irenaeus of
| Lyons (c. 185), and because Gnostics frequently appropriated
| and used a large "range of scripture from Genesis to the Psalms
| to Homer, from the Synoptics to John to the letters of Paul."
| The mysticism of the Gospel of Thomas also lacks many themes
| found in second century Gnosticism. According to David W. Kim,
| the association of the Thomasines and Gnosticism is
| anachronistic and the book seems to predate the Gnostic
| movements.[2]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas#Importance_an...
| wwarner wrote:
| Biblical fan fic.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post shallow dismissals to HN. It's not what this
| site is for, and destroys what it is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| wwarner wrote:
| Certainly was not my intent.
| dang wrote:
| I believe you! But intent doesn't communicate itself--
| especially not in a short comment, and 10x so when the
| topic is default-divisive.
|
| Past explanations in case helpful:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&qu
| e...
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&qu
| e...
| jghn wrote:
| Isn't all of it pretty much fanfic?
| Brendinooo wrote:
| No.
| jghn wrote:
| The bible is not exactly a historical document. It's a
| collection of mythology with some loose basis in reality
| baremetal wrote:
| Can you back that statement up or is that just your
| opinion?
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| I think the onus is on those who want to claim the bible
| is factual, actually.
| crabkin wrote:
| It's a 4-D projection/Rubik's cube manual about personal
| development, the logos, and the formation, nurturing, and
| triumph of a society, despite going up against what seems
| to be impossible odds. Simply calling it mythology or
| tying it's value as history or any other ill-conceived
| standard of truth and guidance we have now is missing the
| point.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The Bible is a library, not a document. A collection of
| texts assembled over millennia. Some parts metaphors,
| some historic, some parts examples, etc.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Some of the Gospels were canonized, sure, but to claim this
| is fanfiction, while it appears to be contemporary or
| earlier than some of the others, I think is a bad take.
| It'd be like claiming that the Q document (if it is ever
| found) is fanfiction compared to the other gospels.
|
| Assuming it's real.
| ksaj wrote:
| There are arguments on both sides of the chronology. It
| isn't known whether this came before or after. Some argue
| that Luke added to the document. Others argue that
| Marcion removed parts of the story that they deemed
| contradictory to the OT version of God.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The early Christians assembled the New Testament over
| many decades in an environment where you would be nailed
| to trees by strong men for spreading the message of
| slaves being equal in dignity to Romans.
|
| In this environment they determined which texts would be
| incorporated as they interacted with eye witnesses of the
| time.
| baryphonic wrote:
| This is almost certainly a fabrication, written more than a
| century after Christ - possibly a century after the Gospel of
| John - without any clear connection to St Thomas the Apostle or
| any of the other apostles. Early Christian leaders denied its
| authority.
|
| The earliest New Testament books were St Paul's letters, dating
| within a decade or so of the crucifixion & resurrection, and the
| earliest Christian creed - quoted in 1 Corinthians - dates to
| likely within a year of Christ rising from the dead. The Gospels
| were written down within the next few decades: from Mark being
| penned within a couple decades to John being penned about 60
| years later.
| Maursault wrote:
| > The Gospels were written down within the next few decades:
| from Mark being penned within a couple decades to John being
| penned about 60 years later.
|
| Not contradicting you, but it is worth mentioning the earliest
| composition date for the Gospel of Thomas (60AD) predates the
| earliest composition date for the Gospel of Matthew (66AD).
| stambrose wrote:
| The Gospel of Marcion is possibly the earliest new testament
| gospel, either a primitive form of the Gospel of Luke, or
| sourced from the same text which the Gospel of Luke drew upon.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Marcion
|
| Indeed, St Paul's letters are the earliest recorded New
| Testament books. Marcion's cannon grouped most of the letters
| of Paul into a collection termed the Apostolikon, which was the
| centerpiece of his branch of early Christianity:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism
|
| "The premise of Marcionism is that many of the teachings of
| Christ are incompatible with the actions of the God of the Old
| Testament. Focusing on the Pauline traditions of the Gospel,
| Marcion felt that all other conceptions of the Gospel, and
| especially any association with the Old Testament religion, was
| opposed to, and a backsliding from, the truth. He further
| regarded the arguments of Paul regarding law and gospel, wrath
| and grace, works and faith, flesh and spirit, sin and
| righteousness, death and life, as the essence of religious
| truth. He ascribed these aspects and characteristics as two
| principles, the righteous and wrathful God of the Old
| Testament, who is at the same time identical with the creator
| of the world, and a second God of the Gospel who is only love
| and mercy.[11]
|
| Marcionites held that the God of the Hebrew Bible was
| inconsistent, jealous, wrathful and genocidal, and that the
| material world he created was defective, a place of suffering;
| the God who made such a world is a bungling or malicious
| demiurge."
|
| [...]
|
| "In Marcionite belief, Christ was not a Jewish Messiah, but a
| spiritual entity that was sent by the Monad to reveal the truth
| about existence, thus allowing humanity to escape the earthly
| trap of the demiurge. Marcion called God, the Stranger God, or
| the Alien God, in some translations, as this deity had not had
| any previous interactions with the world, and was wholly
| unknown. See also the Unknown God of Hellenism and the
| Areopagus sermon."
| graderjs wrote:
| Truly excellent scholarship. Are you a student of this
| subject?
| stambrose wrote:
| Not research per se, but I do read, as do most with an
| interest in early Christianity. The following are some
| suggested physical books for those interested:
| Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God, 1921, ISBN 1556357036
| Marcion: On the Restitution of Christianity, 1934, ISBN
| 149829359X The First New Testament: Marcion's
| Scriptural Canon, 2013, ISBN 1598151312
| graderjs wrote:
| Hehe :) Okay, thank you! ;p xx ;p
|
| Question if you don't mind: does the fellow mean alien as
| in extra-terrestrial?
| ksaj wrote:
| I just read the Wikipedia. It's not about extra-
| terrestrials. The 'alien' aspect suggests that the god
| that sent Jesus was a different god than that of the Old
| Testament, and was previously unknown to the people.
|
| Interesting stuff that somehow eluded me all these years.
| danieka wrote:
| The key emphasis here being that The Gospel of Marcion is
| _possibly_ the earliest gospel. The wiki article you link to
| clearly says that is a minority view not in line with early
| church tradition.
| legulere wrote:
| The earliest reference to the four canonical gospel comes
| from Irenaeus, who also references the at that time decades
| old Gospel of Marcion. The early church is not a reliable
| source about this, because it's strongly against Marcion.
| jfengel wrote:
| Note that Mark is generally thought to be recording an earlier,
| possibly oral, gospel dubbed Q. It would have been composed
| closer to the nominal date of the crucifixion, perhaps
| contemporary with the epistles.
|
| That doesn't make it an eyewitness account, and even if it were
| we can only infer its text from the copies in the synoptic
| gospels (which disagree with each other). But it does give us a
| chronology of the composition relative to the events that
| inspired it.
| Maursault wrote:
| > Note that Mark is generally thought to be recording an
| earlier, possibly oral, gospel dubbed Q.
|
| No one thinks Mark is based on Q.
|
| Q, or Q Source, for the German word Quelle, meaning "source,"
| is the material common to both Matthew and Luke which _does
| not_ appear in Mark.
| rwywgi wrote:
| [dead]
| graderjs wrote:
| And yet the first anecdote in it is mirrored in the Quran and
| early Jewish text: Jesus creates 12 live sparrows from clay
| models with his word; while predating those texts by centuries.
|
| On what basis did these Early Christian leaders (Nicea?) deign
| to dismiss this work out of hand? Clearly at the time it had
| currency, maybe their dismissal was expedient to their goal to
| create an organized religion: necessitating them subduing to
| the useful and the good the "rough edges" of Jesus' very messy
| real character?
|
| This just watched was interesting:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7JYGOhgnKc
|
| Also this alternate translation of the same:
| https://www.tonyburke.ca/infancy-gospel-of-thomas/the-childh...
| baryphonic wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| This crosses into religious flamewar. Please don't do that
| on HN.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Also, please edit swipes (e.g, like leading a comment with
| "Hoooh boy") out of your comments here. That's also in the
| guidelines.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _This crosses into religious flamewar._
|
| Disagree: This is an area to which I've devoted some
| study (amateur theologian, former professional "street-
| level historian," i.e., litigator). I can't speak to his
| comments about the Qur'an, but his comments about early
| Christian sources seem to be pretty much the consensus
| among scholars.
|
| (Self-cite: https://www.questioningchristian.org)
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| Early Christian leaders cherry-picked what they wanted based on
| what was beneficial to their personal agendas anyway.
| mcswell wrote:
| What was beneficial to them about saying the apostles all ran
| away on the night Jesus was betrayed, or that they were
| hiding in fear a few days after the crucifixion? Or by saying
| that Jesus told Peter (who was recognized as the early
| church's leader), "Get behind me, Satan"? The sense I get
| from the gospels is that the apostles had a lot of
| embarrassing things happen to them, and yet the apostles were
| held up by the early Christian leaders as the Twelve. If
| anything, it seems like the early Christian leaders had to
| keep what they were given in spite of all the negative things
| that happened.
| pddev wrote:
| [flagged]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-04-29 23:02 UTC)