JSNT on Gospel of Thomas

The recent issue of Journal for the Study of the New Testament is dedicated to discussing the composition of the Gospel of Thomas e.g. did the author know and use the synoptic Gospels? (The theme is based on discussing the books by Simon Gathercole and Mark Goodacre).

I'm hesitant to say whether or not this will be the very final post for Source Theory ...

I plan on beginning a new blog very soon ...

Update: I decided to start it today ... 
it's called Bible Translation Theory in Practice

Gospel Writing and Canon
An interesting new book Francis Watson, Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective apparently deals with numerous issues including Gospel sources:

Table of Contents

• Part One: The Eclipse of the Fourfold Gospel
  • 1. Augustine’s Ambitious Legacy
  • 2. Dismantling the Canon: Lessing/Reimarus
• Part Two: Reframing Gospel Origins
  • 3. The Coincidences of Q
  • 4. Luke the Interpreter
  • 5. Thomas versus Q
  • 6. Interpreting a Johannine Source (Jn, GEger)
  • 7. Reinterpreting in Parallel (Jn, GTh, GPet)
• Part Three: The Canonical Construct
• 8. The East: Limiting Plurality
• 9. The West: Towards Consensus
• 10. Origen: Canonical Hermeneutics
• 11. Image, Symbol, Liturgy
• In lieu of a Conclusion: Seven Theses on Jesus and the Canonical Gospel

 It seems Watson accepts the Farrer-Goodacre 'no-Q' stance as Q “entails a radical reconstruction of Christian origins” (p118). But how a theory has been used by some scholars need not be confused with what the theory entails.

Gospel of Thomas

On one of the email groups I subscribe to there was a question concerning the direction of dependence between GThomas and the synoptics. Here is a copy of my response:

GThomas has two characteristics which immediately come to my mind:
(1) the sort of content seems to overlap quite a lot with the Mt-Lk 'Q' material,
(2) there is some indication of redactional elements from Mt & Lk present in Thomas.

I guess the combination of these two points is why the final version of Thomas is often believed to also have existed in an earlier (pre Mt Mk LK?) form (hence I suppose the whole directionality debate). There appears to be two camps if I recall:

(1) Thomas is early (say 50s)
(2) Thomas is late (say 150s)

I guess I was influenced by Christopher Tuckett, "Thomas and the Synoptics," NovT XXX, 2 (1988), 132-157, who demonstrated knowledge of Lukan redaction, e.g.:

Th 5 "there is nothing hidden that will not be manifest" which Tuckett argues agrees with Lk's redaction of Mk's version of the saying.
Th 16 "divisions" = Lukan redaction
Th 55 "not worthy of me" = Mathean redaction
Th 20 Markan elements of mustard seed parable in Mk (as against 'Q' version) (i.e. "smaller than all the seeds"; "earth"; "branch"; "shelter")
Th 9 Markan feature of duality (double "on account of not having").

Recently Mark Goodacre has mentioned his arguement that Thomas 79 must be dependent on Lk 11:27-28 given that Lk has composed this passage.

UPDATE: For some reason blogger is displaying an incorrect date. The above post should be dated 10:15 am April 7, 2007.

Eight Steps to Solving the Synoptic Problem?

Mark Goodacre has had the sudden urge to simplify the synoptic problem in eight steps over at his weblog.