Kentwell, Forrest
(2018)
Incongruity, Flux, and Multiplicity: Interpreting the ‘The Gospel according to Thomas’.
Master thesis, Master Research Master Theologie en Religiewetenschappen.
Abstract
This thesis investigates the research question ‘how does the Gospel According to Thomas (Thomas/GTh) authorize a practice of plural, multifaceted interpretive possibilities? This thesis aims to utilize methodologies of intertextuality and discourse analysis to understand better, (1) how Thomas engaged with the world around it, (2) how contemporary scholars write texts and understand GTh, (3) how I come to understand myself. I open the text by reflecting on the lessons I have learned over the past few years regarding taxonomies and scholarly categories. This introduction gives shape and possibility to the rest of the text. Then, to excavate Thomas, I first detail and then analyze various repetitions and discursive strands within the text. Then, I turn to theories of comical incongruity to enliven my analysis. To further reveal layers of play within Thomas, I turned to the fragments of Heraclitus. Lastly, I propose several lines of future inquiry for myself and other scholars by tracing several issues currently plaguing the field. From these investigations, I have drawn three major conclusions (1) Thomas is littered with incongruities structurally, rhetorically, linguistically, and metaphorically, which I propose is a two-fold strategy to build a following and explain a particular anthropological monism and world-engaged soteriology of ethical progress; (2) that the fragments of Heraclitus and Thomas have a similar theology and circulated within similar discursive circles; (3) scholarship on Thomas is at a crossroads, one is stagnantly pondering ‘origins’ and the other is just being to blossom in analyzing social worlds and literary production.
| Type: |
Thesis
(Master)
|
| Supervisors (RUG): |
| Supervisor | E-mail | Tutor organization | Tutor email |
|---|
| Roig Lanzillotta, F.L. | F.L.Roig.Lanzillotta@rug.nl | | | | Mason, S.N. | S.Mason@rug.nl | | |
|
| Degree programme: |
Master Research Master Theologie en Religiewetenschappen |
| Academic year: |
2017- 2018 |
| Date of delivery: |
12 Oct 2018 |
| Last modified: |
12 Oct 2018 11:33 |
| URI: |
https://rcs.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/420 |
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