Hebrew Origin of gThomas (Prof. Gebhardt-Klein)

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Therein is also demonstrated the relative priority of GosThom to the New Testament’s synoptic gospels, while simultaneously refuting Nicholas Perrin’s argument for a late production of the text from the Diatessaron. See Nicholas Perrin, Thomas and Tatian: The Relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and the Diatessaron (Boston: Brill, 2002). Despite the elimination of hypothetical Syriac originality, Syriac is nevertheless reconstructively valuable due to the attestation of a Syriac translation which did at one time exist: see René Falkenberg, “A Manichaean Reading of the Gospel of Thomas” (Brill, 2021). Accordingly, Syriac retrotranslations will continue to be given alongside Hebrew for comparative purposes and for students of Manichaeism.

1. One problematic logion is logion 100, the parallel to Mt 22:15–22, Mk 12:13–17, and Lk 20:20–26’s “render unto Caesar” episode. Antoine Guillaumont’s version begins like so: “They showed Jesus a gold (coin) and said to Him: Caesar’s men ask taxes from us…”6 Alternatively the expression “Caesar’s men” (ϫⲉⲛⲉⲧⲏⲡ⳿ ⲁⲕⲁⲓⲥⲁⲣ⳿) has been rendered by Jean Doresse as “The people who belong to Caesar,”7 both of which sound rather stilted and neither of which have any parallel in the Christian New Testament. The term translated by Doresse as “belong” (ⲙⲡ⳿) actually has a literal meaning of “count, esteem,” as given by the KELLIA’s Coptic Dictionary Online.8 Accordingly, a fluid translation would be something like “those who are counting for Caesar.” However, this literal rendering is itself awkward. Who are “those who are counting for Caesar”? What are they counting? Clearly something has been bungled and glossed over by modern translators. The verbal expression “those who are counting” is standing in place for a word whose natural idiom has been lost in translation, and there is nowhere more appropriate to search for that than in Semitic languages where nouns are commonly formed from verbal roots. If the Coptic verb is traced back via translation to the Hebrew bible, it can be seen that it has correspondence to the hapax legomenon root כסס in Ex 12:4’s “counting” of the Paschal lamb. The root also exists in Syriac and is used copiously throughout the gospels but in the fossilized Aph‘el verbal stem’s substantivized form ܡܟܣܐ for “publican, collector, tax-gatherer,”9 such as found in Mt 5:46, Mk 2:15, and Lk 3:12. Notably, the Hebrew is not just used literally for “counting,” but also idiomatically in its Aph‘el participle סֵוכֹמ for “revenue farmer, publican, custom-collector (considered a robber in Jewish law).
2. https://www.academia.edu/81906379/Evidence_for_a_Semitic_Language_Hebrew_or_Aramaic_Original_behind_the_Coptic_Gospel_of_Thomas?f_ri=826

The first feature of note is “ ” which ⲡⲧⲏⲣ literally means “the all.”4 It occurs in logion 2, “…and he will reign over the All,” logion 67, “He who knows the all…” and logion 77, “I am the all; the all came forth from me, and the all attained to me” (Blatz translation). 5 This is not a very clear expression, and hence many translators who aim for a more fluid rendering simply ignore the prefixed definite article – (“the”) and translate it merely as ⲡ “all.” Yet, when faced with what it means, commentators gravitate to metaphysical answers, as if “the all” were spookily implying a doctrine of Metaphysical Monism or Absolute Idealism, or they treat it as the by-product of a garbled translation. However, the former is not a good approach to understanding a difficult text, and the latter requires explanation. Previous interpretations have had it both ways—i.e. treating the text as corrupt (ignoring the definite article) while also attempting to reach for an idiom or deeper meaning which is not present. While this can render a tolerably readable translation, the sense is no clearer than before, which is evident by the many excursuses of commentators into philosophical and religious dogma not implied in context.