Gospel of Thomas Saying 23
BLATZ
(23) Jesus said: I shall choose you, one out of a thousand and two out of ten thousand, and they shall stand as a single one.
LAYTON
(23) Jesus said, “I shall choose you (plur.) - one out of a thousand and two out of ten thousand. And they will stand at rest by being one and the same.”
DORESSE
28 [23]. Jesus says: “I will choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousand, and those <whom I have chosen> will be lifted up, being one!”
Scholarly Quotes |
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Funk quotes Pistis Sophia 134: “‘There shall be found one among a thousand and two among ten thousand . . .’ (Gartner: 229)” (New Gospel Parallels, v. 2, p. 123) Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: “The Gnostic community is very small. It consists of those chosen by Jesus, ‘one out of a thousand and two out of ten thousand’ (23/24) - a saying quoted by the Gnostic followers of Basilides [Adv. haer. I. 24. 6] and in Pistis Sophia. To be sure, this element of exclusiveness is not absent from early Christianity (’many are called, but few are chosen’), but in Christianity it is balanced by the call to mission and discipleship, omitted in Thomas. The Gospel of Thomas thus offers no hope, eschatological or other, to mankind as a whole, or to any considerable numbers of men.” (Gnosticism & Early Christianity, p. 189) Funk and Hoover write: “The use of the phrase ‘one from a thousand’ may indicate that the gnotsics thought of themselves as an elite, relatively rare species among humankind. The phrase ’single one’ (v. 2) points to undifferentiated existence prior to creation.” (The Five Gospels, p. 487) |
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