Texts in Conversation
Matthew and Luke both have Jesus fault his hearers for reading the sky but not the times. The Gospel of Thomas agrees with Luke where Matthew differs: it has the earth along with the sky, and this time in place of the signs of the times.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Matthew 16:3
New Testament
1 Now when the Pharisees and Sadducees came to test Jesus, they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 2 He said, “When evening comes you say, ‘It will be fair weather because the sky is red,’ 3 and in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today because the sky is red and darkening.’ You know how to judge correctly the appearance of the sky, but you cannot evaluate the signs of the times.
Luke 12:56
New Testament
54 Jesus also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A rainstorm is coming,’ and it does. 55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and there is. 56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky, but how can you not know how to interpret the present time?
Gospel of Thomas 1:91
Nag Hammadi
90 Jesus said, “Come to me, for my yoke is easy and my lordship is gentle, and you will find rest for yourselves.” 91 They said to him, “Tell us who you are so that we may believe in you.” He said to them, “You examine the face of heaven and earth, but you do not recognize the one who is before you, and you do not know how to examine this moment.” 92 Jesus said, “Seek and you will find. In the past I did not tell you the things about which you asked me then. Now I am willing to tell them, but you do not seek them.”
Search:
Notes and References
“... In all instances in which the Q parallels in the Gospel of Thomas agree with either Matthew or Luke, one must assume that such agreements represent the wording of the more original versions of those sayings and thus the text of Q. It is, of course, possible that the transmission of the text of the Gospel of Thomas and/or its Coptic translation was influenced by the text of the canonical gospels. In the following, I will present a number of instances in which parallels between Q and the Gospel of Thomas suggest reconstructions of Q. These reconstructions either diverge from the most probable Q text that has been presented by Kloppenborg, Q Parallels, and by others or address previous uncertainties that have existed in the reconstruction of Q. [...] You judge earth and sky 16:3 12:56 91 GThom 91 supports the inclusion of [...] (“of the earth,” only Luke) and the reading [...] (“this time,” Luke; Matthew: [...] [“the signs of the times”], for Q 12:56. ...”
Koester, Helmut
"Q and Its Relatives" in Goehring, James E., Charles W. Hedrick, and Jack T. Sanders, with Hans Dieter Betz (eds.) Gospel Origins & Christian Beginnings: In Honor of James M. Robinson
(pp. 61-62) Polebridge Press, 1990
* 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
,