The View from Across the Euphrates
This essay is about broadening the perspective from which we view the origins of Christianity. The vehicle is a gospel by now perhaps as familiar to students of the New Testament as the canonical four, the Gospel of Thomas. It is well known among specialists that the content of this gospel overlaps...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2011
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| In: |
Harvard theological review
Year: 2011, Volume: 104, Issue: 4, Pages: 411-431 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This essay is about broadening the perspective from which we view the origins of Christianity. The vehicle is a gospel by now perhaps as familiar to students of the New Testament as the canonical four, the Gospel of Thomas. It is well known among specialists that the content of this gospel overlaps with that of the synoptic tradition roughly by half. Also well known, perhaps, is that it presents this commonly-held content in a very different form, the sayings collection, and by consequence, under the supposition of a different theological paradigm: wisdom theology. So, here is a different gospel, a wisdom gospel, in which the words (λóγοι) of Jesus take center stage. Since Helmut Koester and James M. Robinson placed it within the context of Walter Bauer's theory about the diverse nature of earliest Christianity,1 the Gospel of Thomas has become a prime illustration of that diversity. It can help us see the potential of the Jesus tradition to develop in directions we could scarcely fathom before. But can it tell us more? |
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| ISSN: | 1475-4517 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Harvard theological review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0017816011000381 |