How to Break a Scholarly Monopoly: The Case of the Gospel of Thomas

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BAR has repeatedly urged that photographs of all unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls be published immediately so that—after 35 years—these texts will be available to all scholars.a An American foundation has offered $100,000 to undertake this project.b The scholars who control the texts, however, have firmly rejected this proposal. They argue that if these photographs were made available to everyone, no one would undertake the time-consuming, often tedious work of preparing a comprehensive editio princeps with full notes and commentary. The work that would be done, they say, would be inferior, containing errors that would go uncorrected for centuries, thereby […]

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Footnotes

See “At Least Publish the Dead Sea Scrolls Timetable!” BAR 15:03; “Dead Sea Scrolls Scandal—Israel’s Department of Antiquities Joins Conspiracy to Keep Scrolls Secret,” BAR 15:04; “What Should Be Done About the Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls?” BAR 15:05; “New Hope for the Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls,” BAR 15:06; and the special section on the Dead Sea Scrolls publication delay, “Dead Sea Scrolls,’” BAR 16:02; and “Dead Sea Scroll News,” BAR 16:05.

See “Scroll Editors Spurn $100,000 Offer to Publish Book of Photographs of Still-Secret Texts,” BAR 16:04.

See James Brashler, “Nag Hammadi Codices Shed New Light on Early Christian History,” BAR 10:01.

Endnotes

Latin: Gerhard Garitte and Lucien Cerfaux, “Les paraboles du royaume dans l’Evangile de Thomas,” Le Museon 70 (1957), pp. 307–327; German: Johannes Liepoldt, “Ein neues Evangelium? Das kapotische Thomas—evangelium” Theologische Literatur-Zeitung (83) 1958, columns 481–496 French: Jean Doresse, Les livres secrets-des gnostiques d’Egypt, Vol. II, Evangile selon Thomas (Paris Librarie Plon, 1959); Danish: Søren Giversen, Thomas Evangeliet, (Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gads 1959).

In about 1958 Bruce M. Metzger translated the Gospel of Thomas into English; however, he gave his translation a limited circulation—primarily among his students. At about the same time Torgeny Säve-Söderberg prepared a Swedish translation.

Nag Hammadi Codex 11, tractate 2–7, in The Coptic Gnostic Library Edition, ed. James M. Robinson (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1989).

The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, ed. Robinson, 11 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill 1972–1977).