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New Garments

Data

(1) Thom 37 = POxy655 37
(2a) DialSav 49-52 [=19:5-12]
(2b) DialSav 84-85 [=34:1-5]
(3) GEgy 5a
(4?) 2Cor 5:1-5

 

Texts

(1) Thom 37 = POxy655 37

/37:1/ His disciples said, "When will you appear to us, and when will we see you?" /2/Jesus said, "When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample them, /3/then [you] will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid." [Complete Gospels]

= POxy 655

/37:1/ His disciples say to him, "When will you be revealed to us, and when shall we see you?" /2/He says, "When you strip without being ashamed, /3/[... and you will not be afraid]." [Complete Gospels]

 

(2) Dialogue of the Savior

(2a) DialSav 49-52 [=19:5-12]

/19:5/ Judas said, "Look, the archons are above us; so, then, it is they who will rule over us!"
/6/The Lord said, "It is you who will rule over them. /7/But when you remove envy from you, then you will clothe yourselves with light and enter the bridal suite."
/8/Judas said, "How will our garments be brought to us?"
/9/The Lord said, "There are some who will bring <them> to you, and others who will receive [them], for it is they [who will give] you your garments. /10/For who [will] be able to reach that place [which is th]e reward? /11/But the garments of life were given to such people because they know the way by which they will go. /12/Indeed, for me too it is a burden to reach it."
[Complete Gospels]

(2b) DialSav 84-85 [=34:1-5]

/34:1/ Judas said to Matthew, "We wish to understand what kind of garments we are to be clothed with when we come forth from the corruption of the [fle]sh."
/2/The Lord said, "The archons and the administrators have garments that are given <only> for a while and that are impermanent. /3/[But] you, as children of truth, are not to clothe yourselves with these garments that are impermanent. /4/Rather, I say to you that you will be blessed when you strip yourselves. /5/For it is not a great thing [...] beyond."
[Complete Gospels]

 

(3) GEgy 5a

Contending further for the impious doctrine he (Julius Cassianus) adds: "And how could a charge be rightly brought against the Savior, if he has transformed us and freed us from error, and delivered us from sexual intercourse?" In this matter his teaching is similar to that of Tatian. But he emerged from the school of Valentinus. Therefore, Cassianus now says, When Salome asked when what she had inquired about would be known, the Lord said, "When you have trampled on the garment of shame and when the two become one and the male with the female is neither male nor female." Now in the first place, we have not this word in the four gospels that have been handed down to us, but in the Gospel of the Egyptians. Further, he seems to me to fail to recognize that by the male impulse is meant wrath and by the female lust.
Clement, Stromateis 3.13.92.1-93.1 (Sayings Parallels, 162)

 

(4?) 2Cor 5:1-5 (not in the Crossan inventory, but perhaps reflecting similar ideas)

/5:1/ For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with human hands, eternal in the heavens. /2/ For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling --/3/indeed, when we taken it off we will not be found naked. /4/ For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. /5/He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

 

Notes

 

John Dominic Crossan

Item: 37
Stratum : I (30-60 CE)
Attestation
: Triple
Historicity : -

Crossan [Historical Jesus, 228] mentions this cluster when discussing the development of an early non-apocalyptic interpretation of Jesus that imagined him more in sapiential terms and seems to have been popular at Corinth by the time of Paul's letters in the middle of the first century as well as being expressed in the Gospel of Thomas. Other clusters that seem to share this concern would include 285 Beginning and End [1/1], 8 When and Where [1/5], 21 The World's Light [1/4], 296 From My Words [1/1], 42 Scriptures and Jesus [1/3] and 53 Knowing the Times [1/3].

 

Jesus Seminar

Text

Item

 Source

JS Mtg

%Red

%Pink

%Gray

%Black

W Avg

Color
Thom 37:2-3

455

T

90Son

0

0

0

100

0.00

Black

The Jesus Seminar only recognized one text within this cluster: Thom 37:2-3. The commentary reads as follows:

The removal of one's clothes can be understood in different ways ... as an allusion to Christian baptism, where the naked candidate is reborn; ... as a return to the heavenly state in which humans have shed their bodies; ... the primordial state of androgyny in which the sexes are not differentiated. It is striking that in 37:3 Jesus speaks about himself; this is rare among sayings attributed to Jesus. [Five Gospels, 494]

 

Gerd Luedemann

Luedemann [Jesus, 609] concludes:

The sayings are inauthentic and completely at home in a Gnostic thought world.

 

John P. Meier

Meier does not comment on this cluster in the first three volumes of A Marginal Jew.

 

 

 

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