seek and you will find
On this website I present the “unlocked” or “unzipped” version of the Gospel of Thomas.
The texts on the papyri found in Egypt are written in a “compressed” manner, one character right after another, from beginning to end. Yet in the text of the Gospel of Thomas I have found clues that unlock the true structure of this Gospel.
Jesus says it many times: “Seek and you will find”. -- So I sought and I have found!
The key to the hidden structure of the Gospel of Thomas is made up by the 2 logia that obviously seem to belong to each other, yet are separated by 7 logia: logion 6 and logion 14. Logion 6 poses the questions, and logion 14 answers them all, one by one, in the same order. Many have found it strange that these logia did not follow each other.
I wondered about it too. But I got the idea, that maybe the solution to this riddle was that the logia should not be read the one after the other, but the one aside the other. Logion 6 should then be on one side with the questions, and logion 14 on the opposite side, with the answers to it. And maybe other connections and hidden meanings could show up!
I tried to see in what ways the text of the gospel could be aligned, so that logia 6 and 14 would match perfectly. I tried a “table” structure at first with in every cell of the table a different logion, but it didn’t give the desired result. There where to many differences between the length of the cells of the table. There were cells with only one line of text and cells with many lines.
So I tried another approach: the “running text”. Not like in the papyri with all the characters sticking to each other, but with the text made up of paragraphs, one logion per paragraph. I thought that the easiest way to match logion 6 and 14 was to make them sit next to each other at the top of two adjacent pages, and then see what would show up.
So what I did was put a page-return after logion 5, thus putting logion 6 at the top of page 2. And then by adjusting the size of all the characters and margins of the pages (so that the lay-out and make up of the text would be the same for the complete document as a whole) until and logion 14 was at the top of page 3, just opposite logion 6.
What did I find? The complete “running” text in paragraphs ended very close to the end of page 12. Since I consider 12 a special number, that can often be found in “sacred” texts, my attention was sharpened!
If logia 6 and 14 were meant to act as some kind of “anchors”, to fix the text on the pages in such an order that it would fit almost exactly on 12 pages, then maybe there were more of these “anchors”.
As a matter of fact the next couple of text-anchors was obvious: it appeared right before me. While at the top of page 2 and 3, the large logia 6 and 7 mirrored each other, at the bottom of these pages, 2 other large logia also mirrored each other. On one side was logion 13, where Jesus asks his disciples “Who am I like?” and Peter, Matthew and Thomas answering him. And opposite it was logion 21, with Mary asking Jesus “Whom are your disciples like?”
So now I had found 4 anchors that fixed the beginning and end of page 1, 2, and 3. Where there other?
I looked at page 12. The last logion, at the bottom, mentioned Peter and Mary, just as did logia 13 and 21 on page 2 and 3. - Would the logion at the top of page 12 also match logion logia 6 and 14? I needed only just a little bit to adjust the text, to make logion 103 show up at the top of it. Logia 6, 14 and 103 all 3 are about “fasting and praying”!
Now I had 6 anchors and pages 1, 2, 3 and 12 fixed! Where there other?
Now things got a bit more difficult. After looking at the outer parts of the gospel (beginning and ending), I directed my attention to the inner parts. What was there to be seen on the middle pages 6 and 7?
With a little adjusting, I could bring logion 52 at the top of page 7. This logion deals with “24 prophets” that spoke in “Israel”. Maybe this was not a coincidence, the day being made up of 24 hours, the week being made up of 7 days and the year being made up of 52 weeks.
Without much trouble I could also place logion 43 at the top of page 6. This logion talks about the “Judaeans”. So in the middle, at the top of pages 6 and 7, I had now to logia that referred to the 2 Jewish “Kingdoms” Israel and Judah.
By putting logion 43 at the top of page 6, the shortest of all logia, logion 42 (“pass by”) was at the same time fixed at the bottom of page 5, also like an anchor.
Looking for a next anchor I found that on Page 8, I could easily match logion 62, that talks about the left hand (side) and the right hand (side), possibly referring to the left and the right page.
After finding these 10 anchors, the structure of the Gospel slowly started to make sense.
At page 7, in the same Jewish geographical context as logia 43 and 52, we find logion 60, talking about the Samaritan.
On page 8, we find the 3 large parables of logia 64, 65 and 66 all on one and the same page.
What I then did, was splitting up logion 111, where Jesus quotes himself. That seemed illogical to me. By doing so, the last page now also counted 12 logia instead of 11.
I found it also very easy to fit 12 logia on the preceding pages 9, 10 and 11. This was also possible on page 5. So I ended up with 5 pages, each containing 12 logia: pages 5, 9,10, 11 and 12.
Beginning and ending of all the pages of the Gospel were now fixed. Now I did only one more thing: I split logion 61, talking about the 2 resting on a bed, and so made logion 62 starting with “Salome said”. In this way the Gospel now has 116 logia, instead of 114. 116 can be divided by 4, what gives 29 (maybe referring to the 29 days of the duration of 1 moon-cycle).
The final structure of the Gospel is now as follows:
Page 1 : intro + 5 logia --- logia 1 - 5
Page 2-3 : a ‘table’ of 2 x 8 logia --- logia 6 - 21
Page 4 : 9 logia --- logia 22 - 30
Page 5 : 12 logia --- logia 31 - 42
Page 6 : 9 logia --- logia 43 - 51
Page 7 : 11 logia --- logia 52 - 62
Page 8 : 6 logia --- logia 63 - 68 (old logion 62 - old logion 67)
Page 9-12 : a ‘table’ of 4 x 12 logia --- logia 69 - 116 (old logion 68 - old logion 114)
(old logia 61 and 111 each split in 2 parts)
With all pages having approximately the same length.
Jeff Ysebaert
5 september 2009
On the next part of the site I put the different pages as they would look if you would read them like a book.
At the end I have placed pages 2,3 and 12 on the same webpage for comparison.
On the download page, you can download a textfile, that you can print on 3 leafs of A4 paper recto verso. Each leaf then contains 2 pages on each side, so that you can fold it and read it as a ‘mini-codex’. You can also see for yourself how easy it is to put the Gospel in this order of 12 pages.
For my translation I have made use of the ‘Brill’ version, the book of April Deconick “The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation”, especially for the greek Oxyrinchus papyri, and the version of Mike Grondin, that I used to stay as closely as possible to the Coptic. The text is an almost literal translation, so that no words, verbs, expressions could be hidden by a translation.
The texts on the papyri found in Egypt are written in a “compressed” manner, one character right after another, from beginning to end. Yet in the text of the Gospel of Thomas I have found clues that unlock the true structure of this Gospel.
Jesus says it many times: “Seek and you will find”. -- So I sought and I have found!
The key to the hidden structure of the Gospel of Thomas is made up by the 2 logia that obviously seem to belong to each other, yet are separated by 7 logia: logion 6 and logion 14. Logion 6 poses the questions, and logion 14 answers them all, one by one, in the same order. Many have found it strange that these logia did not follow each other.
I wondered about it too. But I got the idea, that maybe the solution to this riddle was that the logia should not be read the one after the other, but the one aside the other. Logion 6 should then be on one side with the questions, and logion 14 on the opposite side, with the answers to it. And maybe other connections and hidden meanings could show up!
I tried to see in what ways the text of the gospel could be aligned, so that logia 6 and 14 would match perfectly. I tried a “table” structure at first with in every cell of the table a different logion, but it didn’t give the desired result. There where to many differences between the length of the cells of the table. There were cells with only one line of text and cells with many lines.
So I tried another approach: the “running text”. Not like in the papyri with all the characters sticking to each other, but with the text made up of paragraphs, one logion per paragraph. I thought that the easiest way to match logion 6 and 14 was to make them sit next to each other at the top of two adjacent pages, and then see what would show up.
So what I did was put a page-return after logion 5, thus putting logion 6 at the top of page 2. And then by adjusting the size of all the characters and margins of the pages (so that the lay-out and make up of the text would be the same for the complete document as a whole) until and logion 14 was at the top of page 3, just opposite logion 6.
What did I find? The complete “running” text in paragraphs ended very close to the end of page 12. Since I consider 12 a special number, that can often be found in “sacred” texts, my attention was sharpened!
If logia 6 and 14 were meant to act as some kind of “anchors”, to fix the text on the pages in such an order that it would fit almost exactly on 12 pages, then maybe there were more of these “anchors”.
As a matter of fact the next couple of text-anchors was obvious: it appeared right before me. While at the top of page 2 and 3, the large logia 6 and 7 mirrored each other, at the bottom of these pages, 2 other large logia also mirrored each other. On one side was logion 13, where Jesus asks his disciples “Who am I like?” and Peter, Matthew and Thomas answering him. And opposite it was logion 21, with Mary asking Jesus “Whom are your disciples like?”
So now I had found 4 anchors that fixed the beginning and end of page 1, 2, and 3. Where there other?
I looked at page 12. The last logion, at the bottom, mentioned Peter and Mary, just as did logia 13 and 21 on page 2 and 3. - Would the logion at the top of page 12 also match logion logia 6 and 14? I needed only just a little bit to adjust the text, to make logion 103 show up at the top of it. Logia 6, 14 and 103 all 3 are about “fasting and praying”!
Now I had 6 anchors and pages 1, 2, 3 and 12 fixed! Where there other?
Now things got a bit more difficult. After looking at the outer parts of the gospel (beginning and ending), I directed my attention to the inner parts. What was there to be seen on the middle pages 6 and 7?
With a little adjusting, I could bring logion 52 at the top of page 7. This logion deals with “24 prophets” that spoke in “Israel”. Maybe this was not a coincidence, the day being made up of 24 hours, the week being made up of 7 days and the year being made up of 52 weeks.
Without much trouble I could also place logion 43 at the top of page 6. This logion talks about the “Judaeans”. So in the middle, at the top of pages 6 and 7, I had now to logia that referred to the 2 Jewish “Kingdoms” Israel and Judah.
By putting logion 43 at the top of page 6, the shortest of all logia, logion 42 (“pass by”) was at the same time fixed at the bottom of page 5, also like an anchor.
Looking for a next anchor I found that on Page 8, I could easily match logion 62, that talks about the left hand (side) and the right hand (side), possibly referring to the left and the right page.
After finding these 10 anchors, the structure of the Gospel slowly started to make sense.
At page 7, in the same Jewish geographical context as logia 43 and 52, we find logion 60, talking about the Samaritan.
On page 8, we find the 3 large parables of logia 64, 65 and 66 all on one and the same page.
What I then did, was splitting up logion 111, where Jesus quotes himself. That seemed illogical to me. By doing so, the last page now also counted 12 logia instead of 11.
I found it also very easy to fit 12 logia on the preceding pages 9, 10 and 11. This was also possible on page 5. So I ended up with 5 pages, each containing 12 logia: pages 5, 9,10, 11 and 12.
Beginning and ending of all the pages of the Gospel were now fixed. Now I did only one more thing: I split logion 61, talking about the 2 resting on a bed, and so made logion 62 starting with “Salome said”. In this way the Gospel now has 116 logia, instead of 114. 116 can be divided by 4, what gives 29 (maybe referring to the 29 days of the duration of 1 moon-cycle).
The final structure of the Gospel is now as follows:
Page 1 : intro + 5 logia --- logia 1 - 5
Page 2-3 : a ‘table’ of 2 x 8 logia --- logia 6 - 21
Page 4 : 9 logia --- logia 22 - 30
Page 5 : 12 logia --- logia 31 - 42
Page 6 : 9 logia --- logia 43 - 51
Page 7 : 11 logia --- logia 52 - 62
Page 8 : 6 logia --- logia 63 - 68 (old logion 62 - old logion 67)
Page 9-12 : a ‘table’ of 4 x 12 logia --- logia 69 - 116 (old logion 68 - old logion 114)
(old logia 61 and 111 each split in 2 parts)
With all pages having approximately the same length.
Jeff Ysebaert
5 september 2009
On the next part of the site I put the different pages as they would look if you would read them like a book.
At the end I have placed pages 2,3 and 12 on the same webpage for comparison.
On the download page, you can download a textfile, that you can print on 3 leafs of A4 paper recto verso. Each leaf then contains 2 pages on each side, so that you can fold it and read it as a ‘mini-codex’. You can also see for yourself how easy it is to put the Gospel in this order of 12 pages.
For my translation I have made use of the ‘Brill’ version, the book of April Deconick “The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation”, especially for the greek Oxyrinchus papyri, and the version of Mike Grondin, that I used to stay as closely as possible to the Coptic. The text is an almost literal translation, so that no words, verbs, expressions could be hidden by a translation.
