The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

ENNO E. POPKES 297
self-predication of Jesus as the light. This famous I-am word is found in
John 8:12 as well as in Gos. Thom. 77a. Apart from this literal correspondence,
both gospels and the Johannine Epistles contain light metaphors
in a pronounced way (1 John 1:5–7; 2:7–11; John 1:4–10; 3:1–21; 9:4–5;
11:9–10; 12:35–36; 12:45–46; Gos. Thom. 11d, 24c, 33, 50, 61e, 83).
What relevance does this phenomenon have for determining the relationship
between the Johannine writings and the Gospel of Thomas? I have
discussed this question in detail in a special essay. 36 One central result of
this investigation was that the christological and soteriological functions
of the light metaphors are fundamentally different in both tradition circles.
The Gospel of John has a christological focus of the light metaphors
that is directed toward the audience acknowledging Jesus as the light of
the world. Corresponding to this, the Gospel of John presents no anthropological
motifs of an immanent light, the human capacity for knowledge
(cf., e.g., Luke 11:33–36 par. Matt 6:22–23), and certainly no motifs of a
saving spark of light in the disciples as they strive back toward their place
of origin. This lack of such motifs is all the more striking as we recognize
the Gospel of John’s pronounced language of immanence. 37 Neither the
language of immanence nor the light metaphors propagate the salvatory
knowledge of an inner light, but instead the acknowledgment of Jesus as
the light of the world. This shows a clear discrepancy to later early-gnostic
and gnostic traditions, where the motif of a saving spark of light
becomes a fundamental soteriological motif for the gnostics (Gos. Thom.
24c, 61e, 83). 38 And such a fundamentally gnostic orientation can also be
recognized in the light metaphors of the Gospel of Thomas.
The light metaphors of the Gospel of Thomas are based on an anthropology
that contradicts Johannine theology. Even if is not possible to
characterize the Gospel of Thomas as a typical gnostic document, the light
metaphors have affinities to gnostic texts. Even if the Gospel of Thomas
36. Cf. Popkes, “‘Ich bin das Licht,’” 641–74.
37. Cf. Klaus Scholtissek, In ihm sein und bleiben: Die Sprache der Immanenz in den johanneischen
Schriften (HBS 21; Freiburg: Herder, 2000), 1, 33–34, 364, etc.
38. Cf. Michael Fieger, Das Thomasevangelium: Einleitung, Kommentar und Systematik
(NTAbh 22; Münster: Aschendorff, 1991), 215 on Gos. Thom. 50, 61e, 77; Fieger
claims that the knowledge about their own spark of light enables the gnostics to have
a mutual relationship with the fullness of light called Jesus. Similarly Davies,
“Christology and Protology of the Gospel of Thomas,” 663–82, 665–66. Zöckler, Jesu
Lehren im Thomasevangelium, 127–28, correctly sees in this a complete contrast between
John 8:14b; 13:33; and 16:28 on the one hand, and Gos. Thom. 49–50 on the other.
Interestingly, the only passages of the Gospel of John that hint at a light immanence
(11:10; 12:35) are avoided in parts of the Syriac and Coptic verisions (esp. sys.p; sa
ac2; pbo [proto-Bohairic]; etc.).