According to Barth

 According to Barth  

from Farah See’s commentary on The Gospel of Thomas and Other Sayings of Jesus (in the Incoherent series, published by Rantrage Press, 2012, p. 231) – 

     From the late second- or early third-century manuscript known as KATA BARQOLOMAION. The manuscript is incomplete, but what there is of it is quite readable. The only narrative is a brief version of the passion in Joe-Friday-just-the-facts-ma’am style. The rest of the manuscript is sayings in no order that anyone that doesn’t have an ax to grind can discern. Many but by no means all the sayings are prefaced with εἶπεν ὁ υἱὸς.

     This, which directly precedes the narrative, is not:

 τὸ ἀσφαλὲς περί τούτοn γινώσκεται εἰ μὴ εἷς ὁ πατήρ.

The real reason for this is known only by the father.

 

Commentary

Almost all the sayings in KATA BARQOLOMAION resemble this one. That is, they depend on pronouns without antecedents. The manuscript is then the treasure or the bane of dogmatists, depending on how much or how little confidence they have in their power to interpret (or decide) what Bartholomew must be saying. Mostly, their confidence is considerable. (One notable exception is the Kristovian scholar Popa Radu, whose essay “Min Papaglar,” [“A Thousand Hats”] in Festschrift für Kishmish Kopuk is a triumph of intelligent confusion.)

     For example, what “this” refers to here God only knows, yet more than a few sectarian scholars are certain they do as well. Argenbright, who knows what Scripture means whatever the words say, avers it has to do with the timing for the apocalypse, which has been delayed. [See Mark 13:31-32.] Chapman, on the other hand, asserts that it refers to a healing that has failed or been denied. [See Mark 7:24-27; 9:17-28.]

     For my part: Consider the case of Pyrrho of Elis, who claimed that certainty was impossible and had to be protected by his friends from walking off cliffs because he couldn’t trust his own senses.

                                                                                 04.10.21

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*Bonus: m ball’s sketch of Bartholomew in PAINT JOY by Doodle Joy Studio. Click on the image to have it jump out at you!

For links to other biblical commentary from Rantrage, click here.