Greek word of the day: συντάσσω. Some definitions for this word are "to put in order together, to draw up, to put in array" (LSJ).
See Herodotus, "The Histories" 7.78.
BDAG Entry:
συντάσσω ⟦suntássō⟧ fut. 3sg. συντάξει LXX; 1 aor. συνέταξα, mid. συνεταξάμην (Sus 14 Theod.; Papias [2:16]); pf. συντέταχα Job 38:12. Pass.: 2 aor. ptc. gen. συνταγέντος Da 11:23; pf. 3 sg. συντέτακται LXX (Hdt. et al.; TestSol 22:11 B; TestAbr B 5 p. 109, 19f [Stone p. 66]; Jos., Ant. 3, 213; 7, 305 al.; Just., Tat.) 1 to direct that someth. be done in an explicit fashion, order, direct, prescribe (X., Cyr. 8, 6, 8; Polyb. 3, 50, 9; ins [e.g. IAndrosIsis, Kyme 14 of origins of paths for sun and moon], pap, LXX) τινί ( for) someone (PEdg 10 [=Sb 6716], 2 [258/257 b.c.] Ἀμύντου μοι συντάσσοντος) Mt 21:6 (προστάσσω v.l., cp. 1:24); 26:19; 27:10 (cp. Ex 37:20; 40:19; Num 27:11 al.; RPesch, Eine ATliche Ausführungsformel im Mt, BZ 10, ’66, 220–45). 2 to arrange various parts in an organized manner, organize Ματθαῖος … Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ τὰ λογία συνετάξατο M … . organized the sayings in Hebrew (i.e., some form of Aramaic) Papias (2:16).—M-M.
99 comments:
see also: https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/syntasso
Thanks. I like how Lounge deals with Greek morphology and semantics
Mounce, not Lounge
Mounce is always a good one to refer too - I like his approach to things, have you ever read any of his books?
How many times used in the LXX Exodus, Leviticus & Numbers?
https://vocab.perseus.org/lemma/80877/?filter=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0527.tlg003.opp-grc2
Only used in this NT gospel?
"The emphasis on Jesus' Jewish roots and the insistence that his life was a fulfillment of prophecy can be traced from the genealogy to the birth narrative and through the rest of the Gospel. Matthew uses "fulfillment citations" to prove that Jesus was the Jewish messiah. Matthew further emphasizes Jesus' importance to Judaism by modeling his birth and ministry on Moses' birth and mission: Jesus is the new Moses who has been appointed by God to free his people from bondage and to give the (new) law. According to Matthew, people do not need to choose between Jesus and Moses, nor must they choose between Jesus' law and Moses' law. Jesus is, for this author, the final interpreter of Mosaic Law."
https://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/0195161238/studentresources/chapter6/
Yes I have read Mounce: own 3 of his books and use his internet materials
Duncan, yes, the verb occurs in Matthew's Gospel only for the NT. Looks like you found all the LXX occurrences
Duncan, I agree with that quote to an extent. While Jesus "interprets" the Law of Moses and may be its final interpreter, it's clear that he went beyond the surface meaning of the Law in his sayings. For instance, the SOM. He himself said that he fulfilled the Law.
For καταλῦσαι compare Acts 5:39 & Luke 19:7.
I would find it highly questionable that it means "abolish", he had not come to move it from its position. Therefor, as per the whole chapter at the front of the Jewish New Testament on this, I see no reason to think that "fulfill" means anything other than to expound its definitive meaning in this Gospel.
He did not come to move the Law "from its position? I would have to see proof for that denotation/sense of the word, especially in light of Matt. 26:61.
The verses in Luke-Acts appear to have slightly different meanings, but Acts 5:39 has been rendered with the verb "overthrow."
Brill Dictionary Greek: "to abolish, annul, of laws or customs Gorg. B na.17 Pol. 3.8.2 NT Matt. 5.17 etc"
A lot of word studies have been done on Matthew 5:17, and they've yielded three major interpretations of the verse. See Word Biblical Commentary for these interpretations: the author favors the view you espouse. As for me, I'm not dogmatic about what Jesus likely meant, but fulfilling the Law by expounding its definitive meaning? I would have to study the Greek of the passage a little more before assenting to that position.
Compare Matthew 3:15.
Why would you interpret using 26:61?
What about Matthew 5:18 heaven and earth, what is this talking about.
The temple is not the Torah.
It's common practice to look at verses that use the same word when one is trying to determine the semantic range of a word.
The part about heaven and earth is likely hyperbole. See Matthew 24:35 and other verses where Jesus uses this expression.
Yeah, I know temple is not Torah, but the same verb can be used for two different things and have the same meaning.
Brill also understands Matthew 5:17 to mean destroy or abolish. BDAG and other lexical probably say the same
https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/2062/
IMHO many lexicons just parrot an established understanding of a term used in well known texts/translations, so I don't put to much store by them, other than to tell me where all occurrences of a term may be found.other than that they can just be reinforcing a bias by not stating the alternative possibilities.
There is a lot of work that goes into putting a lexicon together. If you compare Louw-Nida with BDAG, you'll see numerous differences between the two works. Same with comparing LSJ and Cambridge Greek lexicon.
I've never said that lexica should be followed slavishly or uncritically, but I don't see how we can do without them. Moreover, how do you know what a term possibly means if you don't have help to discern its meaning? We cannot just create definitions willy-nilly.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329613156_The_fulfilment_of_the_law_according_to_Matthew_517_A_dialectical_approach
But we can get others to do it for us?
https://torahresource.com/matthew-517-20-yeshuas-view-law/
This abolishment use comes from another gospel, not this one.
Denotations normally issue from linguistic communities, not from isolated individuals. We know the meanings of English terms due to our respective linguistic communities. Neither you nor I determine the meaning of English words. Are we thus the determiners of what Greek or Hebrew words mean? Would this not take someone with the requisite expertise like a seasoned lexicographer or philologist?
From the link you cited:
It seems clear that for Matthew the term καταλύω (kataluo) means “to tear down,” “demolish,” “do away with” and is used in the 1st century C.E. of the demolition of buildings as well as the nullifying or replacing of laws and constitutions
https://www.jstor.org/stable/455422
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/456749/summary
"“καταλύω [kataluo /kat·al·oo·o/] v. From 2596 and 3089; TDNT 4:338; TDNTA 543; GK 2907; 17 occurrences; AV translates as “destroy” nine times, “throw down” three times, “lodge” once, “guest” once, “come to nought” once, “overthrow” once, and “dissolve” once. 1 to dissolve, disunite. 1A (what has been joined together), to destroy, demolish. 1B metaph. to overthrow i.e. render vain, deprive of success, bring to naught. 1B1 to subvert, overthrow. 1B1A of institutions, forms of government, laws, etc., to deprive of force, annul, abrogate, discard. 1C of travelers, to halt on a journey, to put up, lodge (the figurative expression originating in the circumstance that, to put up for the night, the straps and packs of the beasts of burden are unbound and taken off; or, more correctly from the fact that the traveler’s garments, tied up when he is on the journey, are unloosed at it end).”‘"
https://www.trismegistos.org/words/detail.php?lemma=%CE%BF%E1%BC%B0%CE%BA%CE%BF%CE%B4%CE%BF%CE%BC%CE%AD%CF%89&morph_type=verb
Duncan, dictionaries are not perfect and have their limitations, but it still takes linguistic communities to coin languages. You might be able to coin some new words and maybe contrive your own form of communication for yourself or family, but a language like English was made by a community of phatic agents. Yeah, it's imperfect and it morphs over time. Nevertheless, as English speakers, we were taught the language and it's denotations.
https://books.google.com/books?id=NtnbEAAAQBAJ&dq=%CE%BA%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B1%CE%BB%CF%8D%CF%89+exegesis+gospel+Matthew&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Cambridge Greek Lexicon:
κατα-λΰω vb. 1 untie, unyoke —horses (fr. a chariot) Od.; cut
down —a suspended corpse Hdt.
2 dismantle —tents Plb. || pass, (of tents) be dismantled Plu.
3 disband, break up —an army, a society, fleet, gathering
Hdt. Th. X. D. Plb. Plu. || pass, (of an army, fleet, group) be
disbanded Lys. D. Plb. Plu.
4 resolve, settle —complaints Th.; write off or make
amends for —one’s earlier wrongdoings Th.
5 (act. and mid.) resolve, bring to an end —hostilities, a war
Hdt. Th. And. Ar. X. +; (intr.) end hostilities, make peace Hdt.
Th. —w.dat. or πρός + acc. w. a people Hdt. Th. || pass, (of
wars) be brought to an end Th. X. Plu.
6 (gener.) bring to an end —one’s life, troubles E.(also mid.)
X. Plu. —a speech, an activity Att.orats. Pl. X.
7 give up —an activity Isoc. X. D. Plb. Plu.
8 stop (before the proper time), curtail —sentry duty Ar. Pl.
—guarding the state (compared to sentry duty) Arist.
9 abolish —laws, practices, institutions, or sim. Hdt. Th.
Att.orats. X. +; cancel —aprocession Plu. || pass, (of laws,
practices, offices) be abolished Th. Att.orats. Arist. Plu.
10 (of gods, persons, natural forces) bring down, destroy
—cities, temples II. E. NT. || pass, (of buildings) be brought
down NT. Plu.
11 (of persons, things, situations) bring down, ruin
—persons, empires, prosperity, or sim. Hdt. Th. Ar. Att.orats.
X. + || PASS, (of persons, things) be ruined Att.orats. Pl. X. +;
(of people’s vigour, in old age) Arist.
12 (specif.) depose —rulers, officials Th. Att.orats. Pl. Arist.
Plu. —(w.gen. fr. their rule) X.; (fig.) —theprophets NT.;
overthrow —a regime Hdt. Th. Ar. Att.orats. Pl. + || pass, (of
rulers, officials) be deposed Hdt. Th. X. Aeschin. Plu. —W.GEN.
fr. their rule Hdt. Arist.; (of regimes) be overthrown Th.
Att.orats. Pl. +
13 || mid. take one’s rest —w.dat. in death E.
14 (of commanders, armies, travellers) come to a halt,
make a stop (at a place) Pl. X. Plb. Plu.
15 take up lodgings (oft. w. παρά + dat. w. someone) Th. Pl.
Aeschin. D. Thphr. Men. +
https://core.ac.uk/display/429731582?source=2
According to google this is on page 82 of the book version -
... πληρῶσαι (i.e., do and teach proper Torah observance; Matt 5:17). He
then assures the lasting validity of every aspect of the Torah (Matt 5:18),
warns teachers not to annul ()iOon) even the least significant of the
commandments (Matt 5 ...
I am not going to pay £87 for the privileged of reading the rest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JN-m5RBy7k
I won't belabor the point, which was really about how we know what Hebrew or Greek words mean.
I'm pretty confident that you didn't teach yourself English and just as confident that neither of us can know the meaning of Hebrew or Greek without help
I did not learn English from a lexicon either, and dependent of which area I go to the language changes. If I go to the east coast I get a Saxon slant, Cornwall and Wales are Gaelic flavors etc. These are living languages that Oxford English, London (Stratford) English do not align. Lexicons of ancient languages can impose meanings that are already in circulation (possibly because of the long term influence of the KJV). What I am saying is that Hebrew/Greek do not directly align with English meanings. Why say destroy as oppose to loosen, decay or even separate? There are other valid words based on usage that can still fit the sentence and its context. I can come back to my earthquake or theft. You say that earthquake is a common apocalyptic Hebrew idea but in a context that deals with wars and reports of wars, theft is also a common issue as documented in Roman texts, so it all depends on which side of the fence you sit but I say that they can BOTH be correct because we do not have the tools to prove one as incorrect. So a Lexicon gives a list of locations for a word and say it means this here and that their, this is just plainly misleading & stops people examining the text overall. It needs weighting, so that in the authors OPINION the word has a percentage possibility that it coincides with a given English term and other terms.
You might think that there is too much work in this, but to do without is misleading and just hides opinion.
I have a different view of lexicons than you do, but just a couple of things here.
Lexicographers usually know there is not a 1:1 correspondence between the source and target language. Secondly, I don't think lexicons stop people from searching. Lastly, some meanings are disputable, others less so.
https://effectiviology.com/appeal-to-definition/
Of course, I don't think it's necessarily fallacious to quote BDAG or Louw-Nida and the website you referenced is not saying that it's wrong to make appeals to lexica. We just have to use them responsibly. And I'm still waiting for an explanation as to how we can know what ancient words mean without help. What knowledge do we have that has not been received? 1 Corinthians 4:7.
https://lifepacific.libguides.com/c.php?g=207374&p=1368370
"Lexicons are dictionaries of foreign languages. For biblical studies it is essential to have access to lexicons of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. The cultural background of the Bible and its interpreters also makes it important to have lexicons of languages related to the Bible, e.g. Ugaritic and Latin."
https://www.logos.com/grow/easy-way-responsible-bible-word-study/
Getting back to our point about kataluo, yes, other words besides destroy could be used for glosses or definitions of this Greek word, but I think destroy or some synonym captures what Jesus possibly meant in this context. Additionally, he said that he was not here to destroy Torah.
What about the particle between law/prophets? And where does the translation "fulfill" come from, does it not say fill?
For ἢ, see https://dcc.dickinson.edu/grammar/monro/%E1%BC%A0%CE%AD-%E1%BC%A4
This reminds me of how logic expresses disjunction with the "wedge" (v), which comes from the Latin vel. You probably also know that "or" can be exclusive or inclusive.
As for πληρῶσαι, we have to consider similar uses of a word and the context in which it's employed. I mentioned Matthew 3:15 earlier: it more likely means "fulfill" there rather than "to fill. See also Matthew 1:22; 2:15-17.
Bill Mounce writes: "to fulfill, make full; (pass.) to be filled, full, complete (often used with reference to the fulfillment of the OT Scriptures)"
https://www.jpanafrican.org/docs/vol12no5/12.5-9-Sewakpo.pdf
See pages 112-113.
From the WB Commentary, Matthew 1-13, by D.A. Hagner (page 105):
The precise meaning of rrAT}pWaaL, "to fulfill," is a difficult question that has produced much debate. The verb means literally "to fill to the full" (from Aramaic t1170, milii', "fulfill," rather than I:np, qum, "establish," which is never translated by rrAT}pOVII in the LXX). From this basic meaning comes such derivative meanings as "accomplish," "complete," "bring to its end," "finish." "Fulfill" here hardly means "to do," although Jesus in his conduct is faithful to the true meaning of the Torah. "Complete" is congruent with the stress on fulfillment in and through
Jesus but wrongly connotes that Jesus has come simply to add something to the law. The meaning in this instance cannot be determined by word study alone but must be established from the context and in particular must be consonant with the statement of [verse] 18.
To be filled with spirit does not fulfill spirit.
I agree, but the point being made is that the Greek word not only means to fill, but to fulfill like the examples of prophecies being fulfilled. We have to look at how the word is used contextually
Fulfill the prophets but is the law prophecy? The term fullfill presumably came from to fill-full. Why are jesus modes of miracles so like Elisha an Elijah? I don't see anything here to indicate completion.
Matthew speaks of the prophets being fulfilled, but we also read that righteousness is fulfilled too (Matthew 3:15), so it's not merely prophecy that is fulfilled.
Is law prophecy? It depends on how one defines prophecy; see the Insight entry for prophecy. First and foremost, prophecy is not just foretelling the future but it's speaking the words/dictates of God. However, Judaism traditionally distinguished between "Law" (Torah) and the prophets as even Matthew seems to do. But as already stated, X does not have to be prophecy to be fulfilled just as one can fulfill an assignment in the ecclesia today or fulfill a promise.
Jesus said that he came to complete his Father's will and upon dying, he exclaimed, it is accomplished. It likewise seems clear that Jesus fulfills an Elijah role and Elisha role.
https://www.ajol.info/index.php/hts/article/view/142311
Mat 27:50 does not say the same as John 19:30 and I had hoped that you would have known better than to throw that at me.
If Mat was so intent on pointing out fulfillment then why does he not say it in that account?
I am not talking about other gospels, which I had already made clear.
Anyway, many associate John exclamation with creation narrative.
What evidence is there for "communities", its one of those phrases that gets banded about but I have yet to see evidence of them?
Like how you put words in my mouth. I never said Mt 27:50 expresses the same sentiment as John 19:30. Duncan, I can read and it's been that way since I was four :-)
I know those 2 verses don't say the same thing, but I accept them both as factual.
The whole Gospel of Matthew points toward fulfillment of Bible prophecy and arguably, Torah. I wasn't talking about other Gospels either per se, but I think both Gospels indicate that Jesus came to fulfill God's will, etc.
I don't think 19:30 is strictly about creation. Maybe the language is similar but not the lingual intent or sense.
Personally, I don't advocate the notion of communities; it's a scholarly construct, but I don't espouse the idea. I posted the link for other reasons than to advocate a Matthean community.
See Matthew 11:13; 26:54, 56; 28:18.
NO it does not work that way and there is no reason to think it does. You are putting words in to the mouth of the author of Matthew. You show me where Matthew says "upon dying, he exclaimed, it is accomplished.", or some such? You are conflating without justification.
What does Mat 28:18 have to do with abolishing Torah or even replacing it with a new one?
This is all fabrication.
Maybe communication is breaking down here, but I never ever said Matthew had any intention of mirroring the words written by John. So any conflating perceived here is imaginary. When I quoted John 19:30, I was just making a comparison, not claiming that Matthew said the same thing or anything close to it. However, I do think that Matthew thought Jesus completed/accomplished Torah in some form/fashion and the Son of God accomplished his Father's will. That is all I was trying to say.
Who said anything about abolishing Torah or replacing it with a new one? Not me. Mt 5:17 states that the Son of God did not come to kataluo Torah. Hence, why would you think I'm putting those words in Matthew's mouth? Please show me where I said any such thing in this thread.
Fabrication, yeah, by whom? :-)
Hate to quote myself, but I said earlier:
Additionally, he [Jesus] said that he was not here to destroy Torah.
And as I have maintained, Mat 5 & 6 is where he fills, he did not come to dismantle the connection between the teaching and the prophet's.
So the "law of the Christ" is the same thing?
Mat 19:16-22.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0142064X8400602003
I still like "fulfill" better within this context, but I won't quibble. And to talk about the "law of the Christ" would require going beyond Matthew, correct? The only time I know that phrase appears is in Galatians.
With regard to Matt 19, we have to keep in mind that the Law of Moses was still in effect when Jesus spoke those words. Regardless of how one understands Matthew, something changed with the advent of Christianity. The early followers of Jesus no longer felt animal sacrifices were necessary or circumcision.
I'm not trying to forge ahead into another topic, but just trying to account for why Jesus urges the man to keep the commandments, etc. On the other hand, we too would benefit from keeping the Decalogue. However, I don't feel obligated to observe Sabbath on the 7th day of the week.
I agree that he did not want to break down the connection between Torah/Law and the Prophets.
https://www.academia.edu/10487234/_Ignatius_the_Gospel_and_the_Gospels_page_proofs_
But this was a where everything seems backwards. Galatians being authored well before Matthew. To me it seems like Matthew is a rebuttal. I am not taking sides as to who is correct but I don't think they are harmonious.
I agree that Galatians was probably written well before Matthew, at least as to its final form, but form-Geschichte informs us that the Gospels circulated orally before being written down. That would go along with what Luke writes in the first chapter of his Gospel. Additionally, I believe that Matthew deals with the situation prevailing when the Lord walked the earth versus Paul's account post-resurrection.
One thing that seems to not be in doubt is the "parting of ways" respecting Judaism and Christianity. As James Dunn once wrote, the Venn diagram for Judaism and Christianity in the first century looked much different from that same diagram in 120 CE. He says something to that effect but the point is that Christianity kept forging its own identity until becoming virtually distinct from Judaism.
You know of Theophilus of Antioch.
The saying circulated, where is the evidence that the gospels circulated. One thing that I find puzzling is the gospel of Thomas, why it lacks miracles?
Yes, I've read Theophilus.
I still see evidence of the Gospels circulating in the early fathers
As for the Gospel of Thomas, it appears to be Gnostic for one thing. Secondly, consider the work's genre.
The Bible of Theophilus: https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/jbl/1947_grant.pdf
Early Greek commentators on Matthew: https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/jts/012_099.pdf
As far as I can tell Thomas only uses the term 'gnosis" once and I remember that Paul uses it 9 times in one of his letters.
In any case "gnostic" is meaningless when you read the breadth of the writings.
Gnosticism was a religio-philosophy that the early church rejected and it died out in the middle ages. Sure Paul used ghosts and some say he employed epignosis as a terminus technicus. However, I'm 100% certain he didn't buy into Gnostic philosophy. Cf. Clement of Alexandria.
It's not so much the frequency of word choice but how the philosophy is expressed
ghosts should be gnosis.
What defines gnosis in GThomas? Is it what is there or what isn't?
The introduction to the naghammadi scriptures goes into all the varied supposed philosophies of the writings, and I am aware of the fact that a number of the oldest orthodox texts are basically found in the same geographical locations.
"Paterson Brown, for example, has argued forcefully that the three Coptic Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth are demonstrably not Gnostic writings, since all three explicitly affirm the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life, which Gnosticism by definition considers illusory and evil."
See https://blog.bibleodyssey.org/articles/was-the-gospel-of-thomas-gnostic/
"Even more remarkably, the Gospel of Thomas’ Jesus seems to suggest that a reader who gains proper gnosis can actually become not a Christian but a Christ." - remarkable, really?
1 Corinthians 12:27
1 John 2:20
We've been through that before and it seems simple to me. There is one Christ or Messiah, according to the NT, and he is Jesus, the Son of God. Others become Christians or they become part of Christ's congregation, but they're not messiahs like God's son is: metaphorically, they constitute his bride.
Another consideration is that Gnosticism used gnosis differently than early Christians did and followers of Christ did not think salvation came from special gnosis.
Who is the holy one who gives them anointing?
(108) Jesus said, "He who will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him."
John 17:21
1 Corinthians 2:6-16
In any case, GThomas is not gnostic so that argument falls flat.
More than likely, God the Father does the anointing through his Son.
It's up first debate whether the Gospel of Thomas is Gnostic. That appears to be the prevailing view, that it could be.
Where do the canonical Gospels ever say Jesus will become the one who drinks from his mouth. That is not what John states. Read it again.
There are other problematic passages in that pseudo-Gospel
It's not a pseudo gospel. It's time line is comparable to the gospels and it is not a gospel but a list of sayings. Most of that which is spouted about it is in error, for a reason.
And we already know how translation to "he" and "it" are problematic.
I have seen similar with English western translations of the rigveda. How they translate in such a way to make the text look as nonsensical as possible.
http://gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl_thomas.htm
You quoted Wikipedia earlier and that source tells us, "The Gospel of Thomas is an extra-canonical sayings gospel."
Brittanica: "Gospel of Thomas, apocryphal (noncanonical) gospel containing 114 sayings attributed to the resurrected Jesus, written in the mid-2nd century. Traditionally ascribed to St. Thomas the Apostle, the Gospel of Thomas does not include any extended mythic narrative and consists entirely of a series of secret sayings ascribed to Jesus, several of which have close parallels in the New Testament Gospels. Although scholars are divided on the issue, some contend that certain elements of the Gospel of Thomas are among the oldest witnesses to Jesus’ words.
The Gospel of Thomas is grounded in gnosticism [sic], the philosophical and religious movement of the 2nd century CE that stressed the redemptive power of esoteric knowledge acquired by divine revelation. Indeed, warnings against it as heretical were made by the Church Fathers in the 2nd–4th century."
Elaine Pagels: In this gospel, and this is also the case in the Gospel of Luke, the Kingdom of God is not an event that's going to be catastrophically shattering the world as we know it and ushering in a new millennium. Here, as in Luke 17:20, the Kingdom of God is said to be an interior state; "It's within you," Luke says. And here it says, "It's inside you but it's also outside of you." It's like a state of consciousness. It's hard to describe. But the Kingdom of God here is something that you can enter when you attain gnosis, which means knowledge. But it doesn't mean intellectual knowledge. The Greeks had two words for knowledge. One is intellectual knowledge, like the knowledge of physics or something like that. But this gnosis is personal, like "I know that person, or do you know so and so." So this gnosis is self-knowledge; you could call it insight. It's a question of knowing who you really are, not at the ordinary level of your name and your social class or your position. But knowing yourself at a deep level.
Gospel of Thomas 114: (114) Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."
https://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/firstqueen.htm
https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/articles/2022/6/hatshepsut-gender-representation
https://redeeminggod.com/four-gospels-caesar-gospels/#:~:text=Many%20people%20do%20not%20realize,are%20called%20the%20Caesar%20Gospels.
"Thomas is not a gospel in the traditional sense but consists of 114 independent sayings, most of which are attributed to Jesus and nearly half of which were unknown prior to its discovery. The gospel appears to have no overarching structure, and many of its sayings are intentionally mysterious or perplexing."
If it is not a gospel then it is not a gospel. See how confused the commentators get. I think I can explain many of the saying that seem perplexing.
https://williamgduffy.com/making-sense-of-logion-114-in-the-gospel-of-thomas/
Galatians 3:28
http://jgrchj.net/volume1/JGRChJ1-5_Evans.pdf
Something can be F in one sense, but not in another sense: it's not always exclusive, that something is either this or that. We also have true examples of things versus some that are false. Either way, I think one can call Thomas a "gospel" based on what that word means etymologically and in terms of the genre, but I don't believe God inspired the Gospel of Thomas nor do I believe it accurately recounts the life of Jesus or preserves his teachings.
People can attempt to explain some of the sayings in Thomas. However, some seem contrived. Like many other things, there is no unanimous agreement on what Logion 114 truly means, but I think some bend over backwards to make it say something it does not.
In Galatians 3:28, Paul writes that there is neither male nor female, but all are one in Christ. How is that akin to everybody needs to become a male? If there is neither male nor female in Christ's body, then Paul was surely not touting the same idea expressed in the Gospel of Thomas.
http://gospel-thomas.net/x_facs.htm
See page 1 and page 20 and notes on pagination.
Also note the divisions of writings on those pages.
Did you even read what was said about saying 114 in light of 22?
I think different points are being made in the two logia. In any event, it does not seem like Christian teaching to me.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas/gospelthomas114.html
https://earlychristiantexts.com/gospel-of-thomas-and-gender-constructions/
I have to wonder if some of these scholars ever looked at the nag hammadi manuscript. There was definitely some copyist issue on 114. It's seems to have been squeezed in after the copyist had already begun the next work.
As for giving birth to one's self how is that so different from being born again - I have to wonder why they make no comment on this and a possible connection, even to discount it.
That last post on gender constructions tells me more about its author than about the text itself.
https://www.youtube.com/live/0XRc0Q-iqQ4?si=n4rIWE8TX4oIJb1l&t=2181
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