Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§7.7 The Sources
gnostically motivated excision of that motif from the earlier tradition. In fact, it is
only a tendentious analysis of both Q and Thomas which has been able to make a
case for a non-apocalyptic earliest stratum of Jesus tradition. 124 The tradition
history of the son of man/Son of Man sayings in particular invites, rather, a more
sophisticated analysis which tells much more in favour of their presence in the
earliest stages of the tradition. 125
In what follows, then, we shall expect to find that the Gospel of Thomas attests
different forms which the Jesus tradition took. But where Thomas differs
markedly from the consensus of the Synoptic tradition in terms of particular motifs,
the likelihood will usually be that the Synoptic tradition is closer to the earliest
remembered sayings of Jesus than is the Gospel of Thomas. Which also
means that issues of date may be largely irrelevant to our concerns. For while the
question must always remain open that a particular Thomas saying has preserved
an early /earlier version of the saying than the Synoptic tradition or that an unparalleled
Thomas saying is as early as the earliest Synoptic tradition, it will always
be the undoubtedly early Synoptic tradition which provides the measure by
which judgment is made on the point. 126 The insistence on the need to date the
Gospel of Thomas itself early (as by Crossan and Koester) 127 once again implies
a theory of tradition history too much in terms of literary strata/editions rather
than of oral retellings/performances.
7.7. The Gospel of John
Baur's dismissal of John's Gospel as a historical source held increasingly undisputed
sway in scholarly circles for about a hundred years. And though the sharp
distinction between John and the Synoptics as between theology and history was
undermined by Wrede, 128 few scholars would regard John as a source for information
regarding Jesus' life and ministry in any degree comparable to the Synop-
124. See further Horsley in Horsley and Draper, Whoever 76 n. 62, 78-81.
125. See below, §§16.4-5. However Koester does recognize the influence which the oral
tradition may have continued to exert (Ancient Christian Gospels 99, 109); see also below,
§8.3d.
126. This remains true even when we take seriously C. W. Hedrick's warning against
'The Tyranny of the Synoptic Jesus', in C. W. Hedrick, ed., The Historical Jesus and the Rejected
Gospels, Semeia 44 (1988) 1-8, since any portrayal of Jesus is better based on clusters
and themes in the Jesus tradition rather than on individual sayings (see further below, § 10.2).
127. See above, §4.7; Patterson suggests a date for Thomas in the vicinity of 70-80 CE
(Thomas and Jesus 120).
128. But Baur already argued that each of the Gospels is systematically tendentious in
character (see chapter 4 n. 70).
165