Visitor Comments
Spirit is thicker than blood.
- 1of2
(99) We of this world are one when we are not of this world.
- Ardele
Intended for effect. An admonition to pupils by a teacher of an esoteric school & intended to be viewed in perspective. Literalists will of course take it literally....
- Thief37
Marvin Meyer quotes a church father describing the Ebionites denying that Christ was human, but the Ebionites believed that Christ was fully human (and not divine).
- passerby
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Scholarly Quotes
Marvin Meyer quotes from Gospel of the Ebionites 5: "Furthermore, they (that is, the Ebionites) deny that he (that is, Christ) was a human being, apparently from the saying that the savior spoke when it was reported to him, 'Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside': 'Who are my mother and brothers?' And extending his hand toward the followers, he said, 'These are my brothers and mothers and sisters, who do the will of my father.'" (The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, p. 99)
R. McL. Wilson writes: "Quispel claims a parallel in the Gospel of the Ebionites, but to this Bauer objects. Comparing the whole saying, he concludes that there is nothing which could not have come from the canonical Gospels. Nevertheless there are differences: Jesus' informants, anonymous in the Synoptics, are here the disciples; the saying as a whole is shortened, a process already begun in Luke; there is no reference to sisters, again as in Luke, and 'brethren' are mentioned first, against all our Gospels; finally Thomas reads the plural with Luke ('those who do the will'), but retains the order of Matthew and Mark; the closing words may be no more than explanatory expansion. Here, as elsewhere, it would probably be wrong to think of direct literary dependence; for an author to piece together the Synoptic material in this way, for no apparent purpose, would be a monumental waste of time and trouble. The most probable explanations once again are either the use of a Gospel harmoney of some kind, free quotation from memory, or independent tradition." (Studies in the Gospel of Thomas, pp. 115-116)
Helmut Koester writes: "As in the previous example, Thomas's text is a brief chria, lacking any of Mark's elaborate introductory setting of the stage and discourse. Thomas also does not share Mark's peculiarity of stating the answer in the form of a rhetorical question. Thus Thomas's version of this pericope, except for the secondary conclusion, corresponds to its more original form." (Ancient Christian Gospels, p. 110)
Funk and Hoover write: "'Mother and brothers' may refer to the gentiles, who became Jesus' true relatives, in contrast to the Judeans, who rejected him and thus became outsiders. Or, Jesus' true relatives may reflect the competition in the early movement between Jesus' blood relatives, such as his brother James, who became leaders of the group, and those who were not blood relatives, who claimed direct commission from the risen Jesus. The apostle Paul would be an example of the latter. Finally, the contrast may point to an actual incident during Jesus' life. On one occasion his family may have attempted to take him away because they thought he had lost his mind (in Mark 3:20 we are told that his family thought he was demented). The Fellows were divided on which of these three scenarios should be used to interpret the saying. A healthy majority chose the third, which produced a pink vote here, as in the corresponding version in Matthew (12:46-50)."
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