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In both John and the Gospel of Thomas, people ask Jesus who he is, and he answers that what he says to them shows who he is. Thomas likens his disciples to the Jews, the questioners in John, possibly a sign that John shaped the saying.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
John 8:25
New Testament
24 Thus I told you that you will die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.” 25 So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus replied, “What I have told you from the beginning. 26 I have many things to say and to judge about you, but the Father who sent me is truthful, and the things I have heard from him I speak to the world.”
Gospel of Thomas 1:43
Nag Hammadi
42 Jesus said, “Be passersby.” 43 His disciples said to him, “Who are you to say these things to us?” “You do not realize who I am from what I say to you. Yet you have become like the Jews: they love the tree but hate its fruit, or they love the fruit but hate the tree.” 44 Jesus said, “Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the Son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, neither on earth nor in heaven.”
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Notes and References
“... The verbal and thematic overlap between these pericopae—the question ‘Who are you?,’ Jesus’ response which indicates that his identity is revealed by the ‘things that I say,’ the fact that they ‘did not know,’ and the negative characterization of the Jews—suggests that the misunderstanding of the Jews [...] in John 8:25–27 may have been applied to the disciples in §43. The mention of ‘the Jews’ in §43.3 is somewhat surprising—the term [...] is rare in the NHL (Tri. Tract. 112.21; Gos. Phil. 75.33), and their negative characterization in the Gos. Thom. coincides with their typology in the FG (John 6:41, 52; 8:48, 52–53). Koester contends that John 8:12–59 is dependent on a controversy source (preserved in the EG or a similar written source), and a traditional sayings source that was also used by Gos. Thom., Dial. Sav., and Ap. Jas. Koester attributes John 8:25–26a to the traditional sayings sources instead of the controversy source in order to preserve his thesis, but this is surely [...] incorrect—John 8:25–27 clearly relates to the controversy with the Jews. Instead of arguing that both works were dependent on a common source, it is more plausible that §43 was influenced by John 8:25–27 since the FG appears to be the earliest Christian work to consistently employ a negative characterization of the Jews. ...”
Zelyck, Lorne R.
John among the Other Gospels: The Reception of the Fourth Gospel in the Extra-Canonical Gospels
(pp. 96-97) Mohr Siebeck, 2013
* 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.
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