Thomas Book
The Thomas Guide (also known as book of the athlete Thomas ), usually with LibTh abbreviated, is a Gnostic text. It is only known in a manuscript as part of the Nag Hammadi writings (NHC II, 7 138.1-145.19 + Colophon 145.20-23).
Content and classification
At first glance, the text looks like a dialogue of the Savior. After the resurrection , Jesus speaks to the apostle Thomas . The conversation is heard and written down by Mathaias (= Matthew ). Towards the end, the dialogue takes on the form of a monologue , and Jesus no longer addresses Thomas, but instead addresses an unknown number of listeners.
The text concludes with the subscription:
- The book of Thomas the Athlete Who Writes to the Perfect.
The common title “Book of the Athlete Thomas” results from this phrase. An alternative reading of the closing title reads:
- The book of Thomas.
- The athlete writes to the perfect.
This double title supports the assumption that the book of Thomas in its traditional form is the Christian- Gnostic revision of a Jewish - Hellenistic wisdom text . If one removes the general plot and the questions that do not really correspond to the answers, a speech warning about asceticism (especially sexual abstinence) remains without any special Christian or Gnostic elements.
Another theory is based on the transition from dialogue to the collection of sayings in the last third of the text and says that it is a combination of two originally independent texts (a dialogue with a collection of sayings).
As for origin and time, one can only guess. If one classifies the Thomas book in accordance with the Thomas tradition according to the dialogue frame, this points to Eastern Syria; if one neglects the dialogue frame as a later ingredient, the content of the thus reduced script points to Alexandria and the periphery of a Hellenized Judaism.
literature
- Hans Martin Schenke, Das Buch des Thomas , in: Wilhelm Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha in German translation , 6th edition, Tübingen 1990, pp. 192–204 (German translation, list of literature)
- B. Layton (Ed.): Nag Hammadi Codex II, 2-7: Together with XIII, 2 *, BRIT. LIB. OR.4926 (1), and P. OXY. 1, 654, 655. - Vol. II. On the Origin of the World, Expository Treatise on the Soul, Book of Thomas the Contender. NHS ( Nag Hamadi Studies ) XXI. Leiden: Brill, 1989. (Original text, English translation)
- James M. Robinson (Ed.): The Nag Hammadi Library in English , San Francisco 1977, pp. 188-194. (English translation)
- Gerd Lüdemann, Martina Janßen: The Bible of the Heretics , Stuttgart 1997, pp. 221–229. (German translation)