Stragglers

While the purpose of this site is to be an extension of my book Closing the Circle, and provide more material that was simply too detailed, or just too voluminous to be included in the book, I do feel compelled to maintain a certain sense of balance. I have noticed over time that some of the Logia have not come up in other contexts, and I realized that it might be fun at this point to expand on some of them beyond what was in the book. The whole thing is becoming a sort of a tapestry in which these sayings are becoming the repeating patterns. I'm beginning to sense that while the collection per se is not an organic whole, or in any way a complete representation of the teachings of Jesus, but rather an unfinished collection of pearls of wisdom, the way this site has grown, it is beginning to demonstrate more of an inner consistency among the collection, which tends to demonstrate how it does form a certain pattern we can recognize.

So, in that spirit, I just took an inventory of the Logia which have not yet come up in conversation, and they are respectively, 23, 32, 36, 40, 49, 51, 54, 58, 59, 70, 75, 76, 79, 80, 85, 86, 88, 92, 94, 95, 97, 103, 106, 107, 109. It'll be interesting at this point to see if I recognize any pattern among this collection. Pursah does point out in her comments in Gary's books that some of these sayings are not as easy for the modern western reader as some others.

So, the next few posts will be devoted to these stragglers. Meanwhile, I want to report here that I have begun to get reader feedback, complementing my own experience, strengthening my belief that for me the Pursah version of the Thomas gospel is the definitive edition. I was really very delighted recently to get a strong confirmation of that from a reader who evidently had a strong inner experience that this is the case. As I reported in the book, my original inclination had been to include a translation based on the Nag Hammadi texts, but when I encountered all kinds of difficulties with that, in particular in terms of getting the necessary permissions, I sensed that this might not be practical, in particular since the exercise would have to be repeated for every translation of the book. It seemed too much work and effort for something that was absolutely not material to the book, but more a matter of courtesy. Funnily enough, I naively assumed that in a field where there are 10+ Thomas translations circulating in most languages, I thought that the publishers of whatever text I chose would be happy if their edition got a boost from being thusly included in my book, and so I figured I was helping them. Hilariously, some of these folks thought I should pay them for the privilege. Some others did not even respond at all to the inquiry. So I gave it up. Initially I thought it was a sacrifice of convenience for the eventual reader, but then I realized it was a highly beneficial streamlining. No use carrying that ballast. This is how the comments about the comparison with the historical text have ended up being made in very general terms, so that everyone can do their own individual comparison with their own favorite translations. The bottom line is you'll do it only once, if that, and then you know. There is just no comparison.

The corollary to this information is our own reading experience, which also finds expression in this blog, in the sense that the more you commune with the text (in Pursah's version), the more you get the feeling I described above, which is that while the Thomas Gospel is not a complete text of Jesus' teachings even in the historical sense, as Pursah also addresses with Gary in his books, the more you work with it, the more consistent and coherent they seem to be, as if they were indeed repeat patterns in the embroidery of this particular tapestry. They very clearly belong together and come from the same place, and this becomes even more clear when you have the context of A Course in Miracles, and Gary's two books, now soon to be three, or even four.