Early Christian Writings Commentary
Title: Gospel of Thomas Commentary: Saying 106
Subheading: This page explores modern interpretations of the Gospel according to Thomas, an ancient text preserved in a Coptic translation at Nag Hammadi and Greek fragments at Oxyrhynchus. With no particular slant, this commentary gathers together quotations from various scholars in order to elucidate the meaning of the sayings, many of which are rightly described as “obscure.”
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From: Early Christian Writings
Related Link:
By:
Horst Balz. (T87)
Bentley Layton. (T68)
Harold W Attridge. (T34)
Jean Doresse. (T81)
Robert Funk. (T71)
Our Ref:
ECST: 014.10.000.T34
ECST: 014.10.000.T68
ECST: 014.10.000.T71
ECST: 014.10.000.T81
ECST: 014.10.000.T87
Nag Hammadi Coptic Text
BLATZ[1]4CM Translator ID: T87
(106) Jesus said: When you make the two one, you will become sons of man, and when you say: Mountain, move away, it will move away.
LAYTON[2]4CM Translator ID: T68
(106) Jesus said, “when you (plur.) make the two into one you will become sons of man, and when you say, ‘O mountain, go elsewhere!’ it will go elsewhere.”
DORESSE[3]4CM Translator ID: T81
110 [106]. Jesus says: “When you make the two one, you will become sons of Man and if you say: ‘Mountain, move!’, it will move.”
Scholarly Quotes
Bentley Layton writes of the phrase “sons of man”: “Perhaps extending to all Christians of either sex. ‘Son of man’ or ‘child of the human being’ was a traditional eschatological title applied to Jesus in some early Christian circles; the arrival of the heavenly ‘son of man’ would signal the arival of god’s kingdom.”
J. D. Crossan writes: “Turner has suggested that the ‘spirituality implid in the Gospel of Thomas is a type of unitive mysticism. The theme of unity runs through the document as a whole. In two sayings it replaces the synoptic “faith” as the force which removes mountains (Sayings 48 and 106). The second saying has a more distinctively gnostic ring than the first’ (Turner and Montefiore: 105). Quispel has even said that 106 has ‘targumized’ 48 by ‘hinting at the reunion of opposites, male and female, above and below, inner and outer’ (1958-1959:288). But it is probably also true that Thomas now reads 48 in light of 106 (Menard, 1976: 150), since there is already a thematic complex in 46-49 on this subject (see Turner and Montefiore: 80).”
References
