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In Tobit, a father tells his son not to do what he hates; in Matthew, Jesus says to do for others what one wants for oneself. The Gospel of Thomas has the rule about what to avoid, closer to the Jewish version in Tobit.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Tobit 4:15
Deuterocanon
14 Do not let the wages of any man, which shall work for you, stay with you, but render it to him out of hand: and if you serve God, recompense shall be made to you. Take heed to yourself, my child, in all your works, and be discreet in all your behaviour. 15 And what you yourself hate, do to no man. Do not drink wine to drunkenness, and do not let drunkenness go with you on your way. 16 Give of your bread to the hungry, and of your garments to them that are naked: of all your abundance give alms; and do not let your eye be grudging when you give alms.
Matthew 7:12
New Testament
11 If you then, although you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12 In everything, treat others as you would want them to treat you, for this fulfills the law and the prophets. 13 “Enter through the narrow gate because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
Gospel of Thomas 6
Nag Hammadi
5 Jesus said, “Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be revealed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.” 6 His disciples questioned him and said to him, “Do you want us to fast? How should we pray? Should we give alms? What diet should we observe?” Jesus said, “Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are disclosed before heaven. Nothing hidden will fail to be revealed, and nothing covered will remain undisclosed.” 7 Jesus said, “Blessed is the lion that the man will eat, so that the lion becomes a man. And cursed is the man whom a lion will eat, and the lion will become a man.”
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Notes and References
“... GOLDEN RULE. Since the 18th century the “Golden Rule” has commonly designated the ethical maxim, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” attributed to Jesus by Matthew (7:12) and Luke (6:31). [...] Within the Jewish tradition, various formulations of the Golden Rule are found from about 200 B.C. [...] Other commentators, however, compare the Golden Rule to Lev 19:18 and Deut 15:13, and find early Jewish formulations in Tob 4:15, “And what you hate, do not do to anyone,” and Sir 31:15, “Judge your neighbor’s feelings by your own.” [...] Some authors contrast Matthew and Luke’s positive formulation of Jesus’ saying with the negative formulation in much Jewish literature. [...] The positive formulation of the Jesuanic logion was echoed, in early Christianity, by 1 Clem. 13:2, which cites it as part of a catena of citations, and by Tertullian (Adv. Marc. 4.17), who argued that Jesus’ positively formulated utterance (= Luke 6:31) implied its negatively formulated counterpart. In contrast, the Didache, however, offered a negative formulation, without specifically ascribing it to Jesus [...]. Finally, a negative version of the logion, hardly different from the common Jewish formulation, is ascribed to Jesus by the Coptic Gospel of Thomas: “Do not do what you hate” (Gos. Thom. 6). ...”
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