|
Back to Robbins' Publications Jump to any page of the article: p.343 p.344 p.345 p.346 p.347 p.348 p.349 p.350 p.351 p.352 p.353 p.354 p.355 p.356 p.357 p.358 p.359 p.360 p.361 p.362 p.363 p.364 p.365 p.366 |
13 1Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to something and tell me what I am like." 2Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a just angel." 3Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher." 4Thomas said to him, "Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say what you are like." 5Jesus said, "I am not your teacher. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have tended." 6And he took him, and withdrew, and spoke three sayings to him. 7When Thomas came back to his friends, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?" 8Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come from the rocks and devour you." The enthymemic reasoning in this logion works abductively from contrawisdom that functions as a rule/warrant/major premise for the reasoning that follows. Conventional wisdom suggests that Jesus teaches his disciples throughout the Gospel of Thomas. Jesus, however, introduces as a rule/warrant/major premise the contrawisdom that he is not their teacher. This contrawisdom establishes an environment for abductive reasoning in Jesus' reply. Conventional reasoning could fill out the sequence as follows: Contrawisdom Belief (Rule): I am not your teacher. Case: [Thomas's] mouth is unable to say what Jesus is like. [Result: Thomas has had some other teacher not wise enough to teach him what Jesus is like.] Instead of this reasoning, the process has worked abductively. Working from the major premise, which has arisen because Thomas has unwittingly called Jesus "teacher" when he replied to him, the reasoning joins the case and the result in a manner that produces a discovery about Thomas' inability to say who Jesus is like. Thomas is not simply without knowledge; he has drunk from a source of wisdom that tells him that Jesus is not simply like an angel (Simon Peter) or a wise philosopher (Matthew). This produces a different result as follows: Contrawisdom Belief (Rule): I am not your teacher. Case put together with Result producing a Discovery: [Thomas's] mouth is unable to say what Jesus is like, because he has drunk (from some other source of wisdom)! Result: You [Thomas] have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have tended. Thomas's inability to say what Jesus is like comes from his drinking deeply from the well of wisdom Jesus has made available to those who will listen and seek. Thomas's statement "that language cannot articulate the experience" (Valantasis 1997: 76) is better than Simon Peter's answer that Jesus is a just angel and Matthew's answer that Jesus is a wise philosopher. Again, this is not grounded in conventional wisdom. It may well be that the reasoning here is grounded in the point of view articulated in the Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth in the Nag Hammadi Library:
|