This yahoo group (Wisdom Reading) is peopled by a number of Bible scholars including yours truly. And not just the Bible, but the Gospel of Thomas and some Eastern scriptures. The founder of the group has followed a distinctive, perhaps unique Way. (I suppose that could be said of all our Ways.)
We have lots of fun, but we need a few more incisive minds. Do join.
2 comments:
You can count on me, Chick, and I appreciate very much your confidence.
There are many answers to the "Mary like a man thing":
1. In the eternal realm gender is no longer a factor. "For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven" (Matt. 22:30).
2. This one I like: Jesus was a joker, and capable of being facetious; for example the "mote and the beam" (Matt. 7:3)
3. In the language of mythology (or some way) the sky is masculine and represents the eternal and the earth is feminine and represents the temporal. Of course this is closely related to the suburdinate position in which cultures for the last two millenia have put women; it was the kind of culture Jesus lived in.
Uniting Heaven and Earth, by Sukie Colegrave gave an excellent account of how this happened, beginning with earlier epoches which were primarily matriarchal, leading to the 'masculine movement', the end of which we may be approaching. She has written a good bit of other stuff on the questions of gender.
4. Simon Peter very likely misunderstood Jesus' words and gave a distorted report to the others.
Many others, I'm sure.
The thing about Thomas is that it's open ended. It isn't necessarily supposed to mean any particlar thing, but to evoke in the hearer 'that of God' in him.
What is your slant on Thomas 114 (Simon Peter quoting Jesus re Mary?
Nice to find someone else interested in Thomas.
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Hey, thanks for the plug, Larry! And thanks for your wonderful contributions of yourself to the group.
Xianchick, I definitely feel you on 114. I rejected Thomas out-of-hand for years because of that one verse. It's out-of-place, because it's one of very few truly Gnostic verses in Thomas. I believe female represents the soul, male represents the spirit. Jesus is saying that he can make any soul into the likeness of the spirit of God, even those the disciples looked down on.
Even if that's not it, it's just one verse... ignore it if that's the best for you right now.
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