My review of Mark Goodacre’s Thomas and the Gospels in Journal for Theological Studies has now appeared online.
You can read it here In short, I find Goodacre’s arguments for the Gospel of Thomas’s “familiarity” with the Synoptic Gospels convincing. I especially appreciate Mark’s argument that Thomas should be seen as a serious innovator who was creatively reshaping the gospel tradition for purposes that both did and did not align with the purposes of the Synoptic authors.
I, too, love this book and blogged about it when it first came out. Glad to see your review is so positive. Simon Gathercole's recent volume on Thomas is also quite good (though a bit more technical than Mark's).
ReplyDeleteI loved this book. I also appreciate how Goodacre concludes that just because Thomas is a later fabrication does not mean we should disregard it as historically redundant or refuse to take it seriously as a piece of literature. In fact, Goodacre's book in many ways makes the Gospel of Thomas a more compelling piece of writing and rhetoric if we understand that its author carefully crafted a "plausible Jesus" from portions of the canonical Gospel tradition.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks, Chris, for the review, and for taking such care with the book -- greatly appreciated. Thanks, Chris and Joshua too for your comments.
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