Texts in Conversation
In Luke, Jesus says no one will point to the kingdom here or there, because it is already in their midst. The Gospel of Thomas builds on that pattern, ruling out the sky and the sea before placing the kingdom both inside and outside the disciples.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Luke 17:21
New Testament
20 Now at one point the Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God was coming, so he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is in your midst.” 22 Then he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.
Gospel of Thomas 1:3
Nag Hammadi
2 Jesus said, “Let the seeker keep seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will be troubled. When he is troubled, he will be astonished, and he will reign over the All. And once he has reigned, he will rest.” 3 Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and you are that poverty.” 4 Jesus said, “The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become one and the same.”
Search:
Notes and References
“... The third Coptic saying reads as follows: 'Jesus said, "[...] those who draw you on say to you, 'Behold, the kingdom is in [...]', then the birds of the heaven shall be (there) [...] you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea (thalassa)', then the fishes will be (there) before you. But [...] the kingdom is within you and outside of you. [...] But in neither case is the sense clear. Who are those who 'draw you on' or 'go before you'? It is now impossible to explain this word by appealing to Jn 6:44 or 12:32, as was done by the first editors and many commentators since then. They appear to be opponents of Jesus, whose teachings he is refuting by reducing them to absurdity before he affirms that the kingdom is within and without. [...] I have preferred to restore tou theou, because this saying is obviously a development of Lk 17:21, idou gar he basileia tou theou entos [...] estin. Moreover, in Oxy P I: 7-8 we find the expression ten basileian tou theou, which is rendered in the Coptic (86:18-19) simply by tmentero, 'the kingdom' (absolutely), just as we find it here. ...”
Fitzmyer, Joseph A.
Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament
(pp. 374-377) Scholars Press, 1971
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.
User Comments
,