parallels, and more in theological conceptuality and symbolism. Nevertheless, the parallels that exist invite comparison, and scholars have suggested a multitude of possibilities. Hugh Evelyn-White looked at the Oxyrhynchus papyri and determined that similarities to John could not come from direct use of the Gospel: “The two fragments [P. Oxy. 1, 654] do not contain a single passage which can be regarded as derived either from the Fourth Gospel or from any other Johannine work.”38 Instead, he suggested that similarities were due to the Oxyrhynchus fragments having been compiled in a pre-Johannine gospel milieu:
I do not see why the Oxyrhynchus Collection may not have been indebted to the same source (whether traditional or documentary) as St John, or to some nearly related source. At the same time Johannine influence is distinctly traceable in the Sayings. . . .
. . . Johannine influence is distinctly present, though definite dependence on any of the Johannine works or literary use of any of them is not likely . . . the Sayings were formed at a period when Johannism was already in the air but still nascent and undeveloped.39
Robert McL. Wilson, having the Coptic Gospel of Thomas at his disposal, still found Evelyn-White’s proposal to be plausible, arguing that similarities between Thomas and John exist “in the realm of ideas, not citation.”40 Surprisingly, these suggestions of White and Wilson were not picked up and developed in several subsequent decades of Thomas research.
Raymond E. Brown was the first to do a systematic comparison of parallels between John and Thomas. He began with the assumption that the Gospel of John predated the Gospel of Thomas.41 However, he also recognized that “the affinity to John in GTh is not nearly so clear or so strong as the affinity to the Synoptic Gospels.” In fact, he argues that “many of the parallels . . . are so tenuous that they would be of significance only after a clear relationship between John and GTh had already been established.”42 He offered four ways of understanding the relationship between Thomas and John:
(1) The author(s) of GTh may have read John in the past and have been influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by recollections. (2) The author(s) of GTh may have had some familiarity with memories of the oral preaching that underlay the Fourth Gospel. There have been attempts to localize both GTh and John in Syria. (3) The author(s) of GTh may have drawn on a source which in turn drew on John. . . . (4) GTh and John may both be drawing on a third source like Bultmann’s hypothetical Offenbarungsreden source.43
In the end, Brown argues that the Gospel of Thomas originally contained a collection of synoptic-like sayings that were overlaid with Johannine themes indirectly derived from the Gospel of John itself.44
Jesse Sell rejected Brown’s thesis (and his caution), arguing that Thomas was directly dependent upon John.45 Unfortunately, as Riley has pointed out, “he makes no comment on why the author of Thomas should never quote a saying or sentence from John, although the GTh is half full of such ‘quotations’ from the Synoptics.”46
Helmut Koester has approached the Thomas-John relationship from the direction of genre development. Koester has argued in a series of studies that the Gospel of John represents a development of the dialogue or discourse genre two steps removed from the Gospel of Thomas—that is, two steps beyond the genre of Thomas, not prior to it.47 In these studies, Koester deals especially with the gospels of Thomas and John, the Dialogue of the Savior, and the Apocryphon of James. According to Koester, the Gospel of Thomas “exhibits the first stage of transition from sayings collection to dialogue. The Dialogue of the Savior shows the initial stages of larger compositions.”48 Koester further argues that John “contains fully developed dialogues and discourses. Earlier stages could be reconstructed by using the analogies of the Gospel of Thomas and the Dialogue of the Savior, both with respect to form and structure and with respect to themes and topics.”49 Koester calls this earlier stage the Dialog as Exposition of Sayings (“Dialog als Spruchauslegung”) and includes the Gospel of Thomas, the Dialogue of the Savior, the Apocryphon of James, and the Book of Thomas as Nag Hammadi texts belonging to this form.50 Yet, the Apocryphon of James is seen by Koester as possibly dependent upon the Gospel of Thomas, and the form of the Gospel of Thomas shows us how the Dialogue of the Savior has combined sayings in the construction of discourses.51 Furthermore, the Dialogue of the Savior is even less developed than the Gospel of John in terms of discourse development. Koester concludes:
1. The speeches and dialogs of John’s gospel are composed on a greater scale than hitherto received and transmitted sayings of Jesus. 2. The sayings dialogs from the Nag Hammadi writings as well as previously known apocryphal gospel material have preserved such sayings independently of the Gospel of John and thus provide a means to better discern the sayings that are foundational to the Johannine dialogs and speeches.52
At this point, Koester makes what many have considered to be a radical claim for the Gospel of Thomas: “A date in the second half of the first century C.E. can certainly be assumed for an older version of this writing.”53 What is often missed in this claim, however, is the fact that Koester is not claiming that the Gospel of Thomas as represented by the Coptic manuscript is to be dated this early.54 Rather, he argues for an earlier version of the sayings collection. Such a qualified claim fits with the data collected in the recent comparisons of Thomas to synoptic sayings parallels noted above. Koester is usually careful not to make an outright claim that the Gospel of John has used the Gospel of Thomas.55 Most recently he has suggested that Thomas and John have shared a common tradition, developing it in different directions.56 However, he is clear that he thinks the author of John is combating gnostic responses to the teaching of Jesus and the search for life—gnostic responses reflected in the Gospel of Thomas, the Apocryphon of James, and the Dialogue of the Savior.57 More to the point of our survey, Koester argues that “these dialogues were shaped by a theological interpretation of Jesus’ sayings that is comparable to that of the Gospel of Thomas, a theology that emphasized the recognition of one’s divine self and the return to one’s heavenly origin.”58
Stevan L. Davies returned to the thesis of Evelyn-White that the Gospel of Thomas as a saying collection derived from an early stage of the Johannine community.59 This sayings collection was developed by the author of John (à la Koester) in the discourse material of the gospel. Where Davies appears to depart from Koester is in his insistence that the Gospel of Thomas is not gnostic but, like John, relies on and develops the Jewish wisdom tradition.60 Rather than being about a return to one’s heavenly origin, the Gospel of Thomas is about a return to the pre-Fall state of Genesis creation.
