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

310 THE DIFFERING APPROACH TO A THEOLOGICAL HERITAGE
comparison between the Qumran and the Johannine texts. The author or
authors of the Johannine writings attempted to preserve the theological
heritage of the Old Testament and the early-Jewish intellectual world and
to use them as a foundation for interpreting the words and deeds of Jesus.
We can find a large number of points of comparison in terminology and
motifs, and yet these are received and modified in the specifically
Johannine way. Even if the author of the Gospel of John envisages mainly
pagan Christian addressees, to whom he has to explain central aspects of
Jewish life and faith (as in 1:41; 2:6; 4:25; 11:55; 18:20, 28c; 19:40), he
proves to be an author who is familiar with his Old Testament and early-
Jewish predecessors and who knows to treat them in a confident and creatively
innovative way. Also, the Gospel of John’s theologically highly
problematic polemics against “the Jews” (5:10, 15–16, 18; 6:41; 7:1, 13;
8:44, 48, 52, 57; 9:18, 22; 10:31, 33; 11:8, 54; 18:36; 19:7, 14, 38b;
20:19) has in part resulted from an argument about the correct development
of the theological heritage.
By contrast, the sayings of the Gospel of Thomas have a completely different
orientation. The Gospel of Thomas also contains sayings with a
Jewish or Jewish-Christian influence. Sometimes Gos. Thom. 12 is seen as
indicating a Jewish-Christian origin of the Gospel of Thomas. Here Jesus
calls his brother James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth have
been created. He tells the disciples to gather around James after the
departure of Jesus. 67 This esteem for the Lord’s brother, however, does
not have to be seen as indicating any Jewish-Christian origins of the
Gospel of Thomas. The Lord’s brother James also plays an important role
in gnostic traditions. 68 Above all, however, the actual intention of saying
12 is only apparent in saying 13, the next one, which addresses the special
position of Thomas, who did not even need Jesus as teacher (13e).
Jesus explicitly directs the disciples to James, to whom a leading function
is given during Jesus’ absence. But Thomas is the one who has already
received the hidden teaching of Jesus and who is presented as the actual
guarantor of the tradition (13f). 69
67. For similar traditions see Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.1.2–5; Jerome, Vir. ill. 2; Wilhelm
Pratscher, Der Herrenbruder Jakobus und die Jakobustradition (FRLANT 139; Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), 114–15; Martin Hengel, “Jakobus der
Herrenbruder—der erste ‘Papst’?” in Kleine Schriften, vol. 3, Paulus und Jakobus (WUNT
141; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 549–82, esp. 557.
68. For similar passages, e.g., 1 Apoc. Jas. (NHC V,3) 32.1–3; 2 Apoc. Jas. (NHC
V,4) 60.11–13, see Pratscher, Der Herrenbruder Jakobus, 151–77.
69. Thus Schröter and Bethge, “Das Evangelium nach Thomas” (NHC II,2),
151–81, esp. 163. For this reason Hengel, “Jakobus der Herrenbruder,” 549–82,
557n31, assumes correctly that Gos. Thom. 12 probably has the original version of