Visitor Comments
A person who does not know that he needs nothing will lose everything.
- Simon Magus
Maybe it means that while the rich man put his life on hold to prepare for the future, he missed today. Then he died. Perhaps if he had lived each as though it were his last he would have lived it differently - or maybe he wouldn't have!
- passerby
Money can be mistaken for love. When one does so one is dead.
- Rodney
Be IN the world but not OF the world. If you are mesmerised by the things of thr world you will indeed "die" -- to the chance of lifting yourself up [a process which also requires specialist help]
- Thief37
The decision to keep his possesions for himself was fatal to his spirit.
- syrus
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Scholarly Quotes
R. McL. Wilson writes: "This is clearly a shorter version of Luke xii. 16-21, a passage peculiar to Luke; the preceding verses in Luke, which in that Gospel are the occasion of the saying, appear in Thomas as logion 72; those which follow, about anxiety over the things of this world, in logion 36. Formally, this should probably be considered a later development of the Lucan parable, but this does not necessarily mean that it was derived from Luke. Grant and Freedman suggest that the words 'this night they will require your soul of you' are omitted 'perhaps because something like them will recur in saying 88,' but the similarity is rather remote and, moreover, this would seem to presuppose a rather closer literary dependence than is justified by the gospel as a whole. In some cases we can indeed speak of intentional or unintentional harmonization, words or phrases occurring to the mind of the author by association with what he is writing, but in others it is difficult to imagine him selecting a word here, a saying there, and keeping part of another saying for use at a later stage. Explanations which are to be valid must take account of what we can learn of the writer's methods, and free citation from memory would appear to be nearer the mark than an extensive use of scissors and paste." (Studies in the Gospel of Thomas, pp. 99-100)
Joachim Jeremias writes: "The closing sentence, too, of the parable of the Rich Fool: 'So (foolishly behaves the man) who heaps up treasure for himself and does not gather wealth toward God' (Luke 12.21), must be an addition; it is missing from the Gospel of Thomas (63), and gives a moralizing meaning to the parable, which blunts the sharp edge of its warning." (The Parables of Jesus, p. 106)
Helmut Koester writes: "There are two secondary features in the narrative of Luke: the conclusion and the moralizing discourse. Both are missing in Thomas's version which presents this story in the more original form of a reversal parable. On the other hand, Thomas has also transferred the parable into a different milieu. The rich man is no longer a wealthy farmer but a decurion from the city who wants to invest his money successfuly. The maxim at the end of Gos. Thom. 63 is of course secondary, but it does not reveal any knowledge of Luke's conclusion." (Ancient Christian Gospels, p. 98)
Funk and Hoover write: "Whether Luke's version of this parable is drawn from Luke's special material or from Q is debated by scholars, but Thomas' version is drawn from neither. It is a simpler form of the parable, containing none of Luke's moralizing tone, and has an abrupt, uninterpreted conclusion rather than Luke's pronouncement (v. 20: 'God said to him, "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded back from you"') and generalizing application (v. 21 'That's they way it is with those who save up for themselves, but aren't rich where God is concerned'). Thomas also lacks the sequence of sayings on possessions that forms the context of the parable in Luke (12:13-15, 22-34)." (The Five Gospels, p. 508)
Funk and Hoover write: "As a single, unelaborated tale the Thomas version retains more of the characteristics of orally transmitted tradition and is probably an earlier form of the parable than Luke's. Thomas has nevertheless shifted the social location of the parable. His rich man is no longer a farmer. He is an investor who seeks such a high return that he will lack nothing. But on very day he has such thoughts he dies and thus loses everything. Thomas' version seems to turn on its incongruity between his thoughts and his end, whereas Luke's version focuses on the farmer's folly." (The Five Gospels, p. 508)
Gerd Ludemann writes: "This exemplary narrative is related to Luke 12.16-20. But the economic circumstances are slightly different. In Luke we have a farmer who wants to 'save', here a businessman who wants to put his money to work. The meaning of the two parables is the same. Sudden death can overtake even the shrewdest of rich men." (Jesus After 2000 Years, pp. 621-622)
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