The Rhetoric of Marginality: Apocalypticism, Gnosticism, and Sayings Gospels

Abstract

Of a total of twelve parables or similitudes appearing in Q, fully half are paralleled in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas . The two writings share approximately forty separate sayings. The similarity between these collections extends beyond considerable shared content, however, to embrace a common genre, a common predilection for aphoristic and proverbial forms, a common concern with both practical and speculative wisdom, and a surprising lack of interest in the death and resurrection of Jesus. As the similarities between Q and the Gospel of Thomas are necessarily of a literary variety, attempts to explain them have naturally tended to favor documentary hypotheses. This is certainly true of the conservative claim that the Gospel of Thomas is dependent for its traditions on the synoptic gospels. The trend toward denying any such dependence, however, has hardly diminished the tendency to explain the two writings' common content, formal features, and theological motifs in terms of essentially literary connections. Helmut Koester, who is largely responsible for the status the Gospel of Thomas now enjoys as an early and valuable document, has argued that, if the Gospel of Thomas is not actually dependent on an earlier recension of Q, which it very well may be, it at least shares common sources with it.