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ENNO E. POPKES 311
Furthermore, it is notable that Jewish or Jewish-Christian traditions in
the Gospel of Thomas are at times regarded as eminently negative. Thus,
for example, in 6a the disciples are presented as asking in what way they
are supposed to fast, pray, or give alms, and which food laws they are to
observe. The immediate answer of Jesus in Gos. Thom. 6 regards this
request as quite negative. Interestingly, a saying that is much later in the
textual levels of the Gospel of Thomas offers an answer of Jesus that immediately
fits the question in 6a; that is Gos. Thom. 14a–d. Also in this context,
Jesus on a fundamental level rejects the practices of fasting or prayer
and giving alms (cf. the statement in 14a, according to which the disciples
will bring forth sin by fasting).
Yet the strongest separation from the Jewish or Jewish-Christian foundations
of early Christianity lies in Gos. Thom. 52. In the words of the
disciples, this saying claims that the life and work of Jesus was predescribed
by the Old Testament traditions or had to be interpreted in
these categories (52a). 70 Such a view, however, is rigorously rejected by
the answer of Jesus. Any attempt to understand the fate of Jesus in these
categories is deemed as “searching for the living among the dead” (55b).
This idea is more than a sporadic polemic against Jewish cultic practices.
Rather, it ends in a fundamental break with tradition, a break that on
principle questions any form of christological embrace of the Hebrew
Bible. And in this aspect the Gospel of Thomas is categorically different
from the Gospel of John, which by contrast describes the words and
deeds of Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament traditions and hopes (
John 1:18; 5:39; and elsewhere). 71
these statements about James, and that the relativization of his position by Gos. Thom.
13 was added later.
70. Cf. Peter Nagel, “‘Vierundzwanzig Propheten sprachen in Israel’ (EvThom 52):
Prophetenbild und Prophetenerwartung im Judenchristentum und im Thomasevangelium,”
in Auch ein Licht durchbricht die Finsternis: Gelehrsamkeit, Wissenschaftsopposition,
Universalismus; Karam Khella zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet (ed. D. Quintern; Hamburg:
Theorie-und-Praxis Verlag, 1999), 47–62, esp. 53–54. However, it is inappropriate for
Zöckler, Jesu Lehren im Thomasevangelium, 251, to claim that Gos. Thom. 52 merely completes
the set of those sayings in which Jesus refuses a higher position intended for him.
71. Furthermore, a large number of the New Testament’s interpretations of the
death of Jesus are based on Old Testament and early-Jewish foundations. That the
same do not occur in the Gospel of Thomas does not lead to the conclusion that this tradition
belongs to an earlier stage, not yet shaped by the interpretative patterns of
early-Christian theological history (thus, e.g., Zöckler, Jesu Lehren im Thomasevangelium,
54–60). Rather, an understanding of the death of Jesus on the basis of the Old
Testament is impossible in the light of Gos. Thom. 52b. Cf. Enno E. Popkes, “Die
Umdeutung des Todes Jesu im koptischen Thomasevangelium,” in Deutungen des Todes
Jesu im Neuen Testament (ed. J. Frey and J. Schröter; WUNT 181. Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2005), 513–43.