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About this book

Treatise on the Resurrection

Letter to Rheginos

About this book

The Resurrection is Real

Chapter 8

There are some, however, who in the course of their investigation, wish to understand if one who is saved, when discarding the body, will be saved immediately. Let none doubt concerning this. [...] in fact, the visible limbs that are dead shall not be saved, for (in that case) the living [limbs] that exist in them would rise.⁠ Then, what is the resurrection? It is the continuing revelation of those who have risen. Because if you recall reading in the gospel that Elijah appeared, and Moses with him, do not think of the resurrection as an illusion. It is no illusion; instead it is a reality! In fact, it would be more accurate to say the world is an illusion than (to say) the resurrection which has come to pass through our Lord, the Savior, Jesus Christ (is an illusion).

Texts in conversation

Compare 2 Maccabees 7:11 and Gospel of Thomas 22 and Treatise on the Resurrection 8:3

Deuterocanon · Nag Hammadi

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Summary

In Second Maccabees, a man who loses his limbs hopes to receive them back. New limbs allow entry to the kingdom in the Gospel of Thomas, while the Treatise on the Resurrection describes limbs within the body, using the image for another kind of life.

Passages

2 Maccabees 7:11

Deuterocanon
10 After him, the third was made a victim of their mocking. When he was required, he quickly put out his tongue, and stretched out his hands courageously, 11 and nobly said, “I got these from heaven. For his laws’ sake I treat these with contempt. From him, I hope to receive these back again.” 12 As a result, the king himself and those who were with him were astonished at the young man’s soul, for he regarded the pains as nothing.
160–63 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Maccabees

Gospel of Thomas 22

Nag Hammadi
22 Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, “These little ones being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom.” They said to him, “Then shall we enter the kingdom as little ones?” Jesus said to them, “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same—so that the male will not be male and the female not be female—when you fashion eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom].” 23 Jesus said, “I shall choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousand, and they will stand as a single one.”
135–200 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Gospel of Thomas

Treatise on the Resurrection 8:3

Nag Hammadi · Letter to Rheginos
Let none doubt concerning this. [...] in fact, the visible limbs that are dead shall not be saved, for (in that case) the living [limbs] that exist in them would rise. Then, what is the resurrection? It is the continuing revelation of those who have risen.
170–200 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Treatise on the Resurrection

References

“... The references to eyes, hands and feet are resurrection imagery, though with reference to a new spiritual nature rather than to physical resurrection. [...] (3) Finally, the imagery here is also that of resurrection: in 2 Macc. 7.11, for example, the third brother declares that he will receive back his limbs from God. Closer is the theology of Odes of Solomon, where the saved individual has ‘members in which there is no sickness or affliction or suffering’ (21.4), and of the Treatise on the Resurrection, where there are ‘living members which are within’ in contrast to the dead external limbs (48.1–3). This thought comes to the fore in the next reference, to the ‘images’. ...”
Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Thomas: Introduction and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 308, 311–312.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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2 Maccabees 7:11 and Gospel of Thomas 22 and Treatise on the Resurrection 8:3

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