499 A Korean Reader’s Insight on Thomas and Its Oral Tradition Origin DAVID W. KIM University of Sydney ABSTRACT This paper demonstrates the genesis of an ancient religious document titled, Gospel of Thomas, from a Korean religio-critical reader’s view. The words of the oral Performer (Jesus) actively circulated among certain eyewitnesses of the era, and these Logia were eventually carried on into the form of a written tradition, under the policy of each individual community. If then, how (or how long) did the oral tradition survive? And how can one relate the oral tradition of Jesus with the canon of the Thomasine community? The record of the Gos. Thom. first appeared in the passage of Hippolytus’ Refutatio 5.7.20 (222–235 C.E.), but it is a general knowledge that the original text was not recreated in the second or third century C.E. in which there were flourishing gnostic texts. The Greek fragment of P. Oxy 654 36–40, with Nag Hammadi Codex II, 2. 34. 30–35.14, argue a fresh insight that the literary traces of oral tradition, revealed in Logia 9, 33, 65 and 66, remind readers that the origin of Thomas is related to a pre-canonical Q period of the first century C.E. Contemporary readers often ignore the existence of the Jewish customised oral traditions of the Jesus movement, but several ancient texts certify the continuation of the verbal traditions as well as their effects in the world of written tradition. 1 For instance, the Matthean scene in which the soldiers deny the story of the Resurrection of Jesus, clearly depicts a well-known oral tradition circulating in the Jewish-nominated Christian community: “… this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day”. 2 The words of First John, such as “we proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us” 3 and “see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you” 4 , also suggest the existence and continuation of the oral tradition that was transferred to the following tradition carriers. The testimony of John that “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, … even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” 5 , confirms the unaccountable scale of the agrapha 6 of Jesus remaining within the verbal form. This is 1 Holly E. Hearon, ‘The Implications of Orality for Studies of the Biblical Text’ in Performing the Gospel. (Edited by Richard A Horsley, Jonathan A. Draper, and John Milies, Foley. Minneapolis: Fortress Press), 2006. pp. 3–20. Jens Schröter, ‘Jesus and the Canon: The Early Jesus Traditions in the Context of the Origins of the New Testament Canon’ in Op. cit. pp. 104–122. 2 Mt. 28: 15b. 3 1 Jn. 1: 3. 4 1 Jn. 1: 24. “this is the message we have heard … and declare to you: God is Light …”(1 Jn. 1: 5) 5 Jn. 21: 25. 6 The Greek word means ‘the unwritten words of Jesus’ in the field of the Gospel tradition. Blomfield Jackson, Twenty-Five Agrapha or Extra-Canonical Sayings of Our Lord, (London and New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and E. & J. B. Yong & Co.), 1900. pp. 7–12. The British Museum, The New Gospel Fragments with one Plate, (London: Cambridge University Press), 1951. pp. 5–20. Jacques Hervieux, What are Apocryphal Gospels?, (London: Burns & Oates), 1960. pp. 124–131.