Markus Vinzent's Blog

Friday 26 May 2023

Race, Ethnicity and Family in Late Antique Judaism and Early Christianity

This is a new article, just published as open access article in 


Religions | Free Full-Text | Race, Ethnicity and Family in Late Antique Judaism and Early Christianity (mdpi.com)


1 comment:

  1. Dear Markus, I must congratulate you on having become native English, given your "who’s founders" ;-)

    As usual, you present an interesting, clear and compelling view - and you touch upon important topics, and sensitive ones as well. We usually don't think of the offspring of criminals and murderers as victims - and perhaps that's an ambivalent word, yet it is evident that your life has also been greatly negatively impacted by Nazism. A grandfather of mine (whom I never got to know of course) got executed out of retaliation, and people would generally regard me as more of a victim than you - but I am quite sure that it is very much the other way around.
    So thank you for sharing some of your private life here, that is very valuable

    I would like to offer a word on your reference to the family of Jesus however, as the pivotal word there is 'outside' alone, and nothing else.
    Thomasine logia, transliterated from 64 onwards:

    ⲛⲃⲟⲗ (of-outside) Adjective, 22, (40), (64), (89), (99). I'm skipping 22 as there's no context there

    >>>
    (40). IS said a vine of grape she was planted within the part of outside of the father and not made strong; she will be plucked out at her root and destroyed.

    (64). ... did he come viz. the slave did he say it to his slaveowner : those have you summon them to the Dinner did they Beg-off. Said the slaveowner to his slave: go to the part of-outside, to the paths; they-who you will fall to them, bring them in-order-that they will make-be Dine: the men-who buy with the traders they will go-inward not to the Places of my father

    (89). said IS : because-of what? do you wash~ the part of-outside of the Cup, you make-be Conceive not : he-who has created the part of-inside he also he-who has created the part of-outside

    (99). said the Disciples to him : your brothers with your mother are standing-on-foot their, on the part of-outside. Said he to them : they-who of these places who make-be the desire of my father - these-ones are my brothers with my mother; themselves are who will go-inward to the reign-of king of my father
    <<<

    Logion 40 has one simple core argument: outside of the father.
    Logion 64 places the proverbial paths on the outside, and logion 9 already demonstrated that The Path isn't fruitful - and the woman with the jar (97) is walking on a path as well, "being distant" for that very reason (and both the path as the woman are feminine, of course!) - yet 64 doesn't have that word in the NT:

    Luke 14:21 And the servant having come, reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, having become angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’

    Matthew 22:9 Therefore go into the thoroughfares of the highways, and invite to the wedding feast as many as you shall find.’ 10 And those servants, having gone out into the highways, brought together all, as many as they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall became full of those reclining.

    δι-έξ-οδος (yet another hapax legomenon) in Matthew does contain a shade of the adverb, however, and so does Luke's Ἔξ-ελθε.
    Everything in Thomas that is outside is bad, and logion 3 - correctly translated - reads 'Rather, the reign of king is of your inside and she is of your eye'.

    Logion 89 is not so much a rejection of the outside as it points to neglection of the inside, yet logion 99 is the one: only those "of these places" who "make-be the desire of my father" are affirmed, and I have yet to Comment on this logion.

    You now (η καινή διαθήκη) know that *Ev alone contains 57 Thomasine parallels, 4 less than Luke - and that can't be coincidental. Hence why I won't comment on your chapter 3 that starts with 2 more copies of Thomas

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