Hundie Jo [dot] Com

  I finally have posted my thesis in a series of pages:

• Chapter I: Introduction to the Acts of Thomas as a Literary Work
• Chapter II: Edessine Identity –Romanization and Resistance
• Chapter III: Scott and Hidden Transcripts 56 Language and the Extent of Domination
• Chapter IV: The Hidden Transcripts of the Acts of Thomas
• Afterword
• Appendix I: Outline of the Acts of Thomas
• Appendix II: Transcript Diagrams
• Bibliography

Abstract

The Acts of Thomas was written by a community of Christians in eastern Syria sometime in the opening decades of the third century CE. The text quickly became popular both in the region and throughout Christendom. The text displayed a considerable amount of fluidity, being adapted by local Christians to better suit their own communities.  This celibate apocalyptic work encouraged its readers to completely reject the outside world in favor of its internal community.

Its composition and subsequent popularity attest to the desire of early third-century eastern Syrian Christians, and later Christians throughout the empire who adapted it, to reject the customs and power structures of Roman society.

One of the strategies by which some Christians resisted this Romanizing tendency of other Christians was the writing of Christian romances, more commonly and collectively known as the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. They rejected the ideal marriage and paterfamilial authority as the basis of society, opting for celibacy and devotion to Christ instead. These Christian romances advocated the negation of the Greco-Roman romances and, by extension, Greco-Roman society.

The Acts of Thomas, as one of these texts, rejected the world within which the authors found themselves. The writers, through the telling of Thomas’ escapades, encoded the text not only with this “cosmic no” of celibate apocalypticism, but also gave the receiving communities advice and direction of how to live out the “cosmic no” in their daily lives. Additionally, based upon their own communal experiences, or hidden transcript, as opposed to public expectation, or the public transcript, the writers offered up advice as to how one should navigate and respond to the inevitable conflicts that arise from living out their “cosmic no.”

As far as one can tell, the community consisted of adherents of all strata of society including a significant presence of women. Stories concerning either women’s conversion or conflicts that arise out of their conversion dominate the narrative. Structurally, the communities were founded and lead by wandering charismatic apostles. In their absence deacons were appointed by the apostles to shepherd the communities in the apostles’ absence. This analysis of the Thomasine community helps to unearth a picture of this Christian group which lay outside the developing proto-orthodox church. It not only helps recover the real lives of vanished people group, but also aids in understanding the varied responses to the Romanization of Christianity in the Empire in the opening decades of the third century. In addition to the social makeup of the compositional communities of the Acts of Thomas, one is also able to see how the community reacted in the face of persecution.

Update: I changed the post title to the title of my thesis.