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Mark's sower sees his good seed yield thirty, sixty and a hundred times over. In the Gospel of Thomas the harvest climbs to sixty and one hundred and twenty per measure, and worms as well as thorns destroy the seed.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Mark 4:8
New Testament
3 “Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. 6 When the sun came up it was scorched, and because it did not have sufficient root, it withered. 7 Other seed fell among the thorns, and they grew up and choked it, and it did not produce grain. 8 But other seed fell on good soil and produced grain, sprouting and growing; some yielded thirty times as much, some sixty, and some a hundred times.”
Gospel of Thomas 1:9
Nag Hammadi
8 And he said, “The human being is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of little fish. Among them the wise fisherman found a large, fine fish. He threw all the little fish back into the sea, and chose the large fish without difficulty. Whoever has ears to hear should hear.” 9 Jesus said, “Look, the sower went out, took a handful of seeds, and scattered them. Some fell on the road, and the birds came and gathered them. Others fell on rock and they did not take root in the soil and did not produce ears. Others fell among thorns, and they choked the seeds and worms ate them. And others fell on good soil, and it produced good fruit. It yielded sixty per measure and one hundred and twenty per measure.” 10 Jesus said, “I have cast fire upon the world, and look, I am guarding it until it blazes.”
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Notes and References
“... This is the second of Thomas’s parables (on these, see ad GTh 8). Versions of the sower parable are also found in Mk 4.3–8/Matt. 13.3–8/Lk. 8.5–8, and it is mentioned under the title ‘The Seed’ in Ap. Jas. 8,3, and Hippolytus reports a Naassene interpretation of it (Ref. 5.8.28–29). [...] 9.4 And others fell onto thorns. They choked the seed, and worms ate them. The worms are a distinctive feature of Thomas’s version of the parable, but it is hard to see any special significance in them. It is probably just an added colourful image. [...] 9.5 It brought sixty per measure and one hundred and twenty per measure. Blomberg’s statement that the number 120 is a perfect number in some forms of Gnosticism may not be correct. Although it is the number of years Noah preached before the flood (Concept 43,21–22), and the number of years in a grand old age (Concept 36,12), this may not be relevant to the number of measures of a crop. The 60 and 120 in Thomas may simply be natural variation, especially given the references to 30 and 60 in Mark, and 60 in Matthew (Mk 4.8; Matt. 13.8; cf. just 100 in Lk. 8.8); against this background, Thomas’s climactic 120 is quite logical. ...”
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