Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§4.7 The Flight from Dogma
proved so fatal to the nineteenth-century Liberal Jesus: whether this neo-Liberal
Jesus is any less a construct and retrojection of late-twentieth-century ideals and
aspirations than was the Liberal Jesus of late-nineteenth-century ideals and aspirations.
186 And Temple's jibe still has resonance: is it any less of a mystery why
anyone should have troubled to crucify the Christ of neo-Liberalism? 187 These issues
will also remain with us as we proceed.
More questionable is Crossan's confidence in his new sources, in his ability
to set them all into sequential strata, and even more in his ability to attribute
particular traditions to these different strata. 188 But Crossan is only a somewhat
extreme exponent of a more widely supported trend in favour of recognizing that
later documents have preserved earlier traditions. And the importance of the discovery
of the Gospel of Thomas in particular should not be understated. 189 For in
it, for the first time, we have a complete, unified, and coherent sayings Gospel.
At a stroke, then, Thomas has given a degree of credibility to the hypothesis of a
sayings source (Q) for Matthew and Luke which the hypothesis never previously
enjoyed. 190 Moreover, the degree of overlap between Q material and Thomas,
and the fact that we have evidence of an earlier Greek version of Thomas, 191
point to some kind of 'trajectory' from or through Q to Thomas which is different
from the incorporation of Q by Matthew and Luke into their Gospels. 192 It also
may merely echo academic empathy for our own rootless age' {Honest 87). Mack speaks of 'the
telltale remnants of a rather playful mode of response', and notes as characteristic of this manner
of conversation 'wit, skillful manipulation of the limits of conventional logic, and delight in
repartee . . .' (Myth 62).
186. Crossan is fully aware of the danger: 'It is impossible to avoid the suspicion that
historical Jesus research is a very safe place to do theology and call it history, to do autobiography
and call it biography' (Historical Jesus xxviii).
187. See above, n. 110.
188. Note the sharp critique by C. M. Tuckett, 'The Historical Jesus, Crossan and Methodology',
in S. Maser and E. Schiarb, eds., Text und Geschichte, D. Lührmann FS (Marburg:
Elwert, 1999) 257-79; criticisms include Crossan's privileging of Thomas and Q and his arbitrariness
in failing to acknowledge that there may be 'sources' other than Mark and Q behind
Matthew and Luke and a 'miracles collection' behind Mark (262-65, 273).
189. Many versions are available; see chapter 7, n. 104 below.
190. The parallels between Thomas and the four canonical Gospels are conveniently
listed by J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993) 133-35. The
sayings material has been set out in parallel by W. D. Stroker, Extracanonical Sayings of Jesus
(Atlanta: Scholars, 1989), and J. D. Crossan, Sayings Parallels: A Workbook for the Jesus Tradition
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986).
191. The Oxyrhynchus papyri were recovered between 1897 and 1904. Following the
discovery of the Gospel of Thomas it was realised that Pap. Oxy. 1 contains Thomas 26-33 and
77, Pap. Oxy. 654 contains Thomas 1-7, and Pap. Oxy. 655 contains Thomas 36-39.
192. Noted originally by J. M. Robinson, 'LOGOI SOPHON: On the Gattung of Q'
(1964), ET in Robinson and Koester, Trajectories 71-113.
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