Henry Imler September 18th, 2007

Throughout the early development of Christianity, groups of Christians adopted certain apostles as their patrons. The most evident feature of these communities is the corpuses of literature that either were written in the name of the patron apostle, or have the patron apostle prominently featured in the literature. The best example of such a school is the Johannine school. A lesser known, but equally important school was the Thomasine school, located in Syria from at least the second century until at least the fourth. The works associated with the Thomasine school are The Gospel of Thomas, the Acts of Thomas, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and The Book of Thomas the Contender.

If these books indeed were from an extinct school of Christianity, which I intend to demonstrate, then a construction of their social world would be useful in the study of Christian history. James C. Scott’s theory of societal transcripts allows scholars to use a text to build a picture of how power is constructed and resisted by and within a community. Scott’s approach allows the humanities, and consequently Biblical studies, to avoid reductionism by privileging the social experience of domination and subjugation through the lens of human feelings and interactions. This emphasis helps to reduce the dependency and overemphasis on the material and social dimensions of societies found in material studies. Scott’s theory enables one to peer beyond the material to the experiential aspects of domination. Scott’s approach has been adapted from its original use in modern communities, such as American plantations in the eighteenth century, to communities in antiquity, such as the Pauline communities.

In order to apply the modified version of Scott’s theory to the Thomasine corpus, several preliminary steps need to be taken. First, the existence of apostle schools must be defended. Secondly, the inclusion and exclusion of the Thomas texts need to be justified. After this is completed, the texts are to be situated historically and culturally into the communities in which they were written and used. Only then can Scott’s theory be applied to the Thomasine corpus. Once this is finished, the results can be arranged chronologically allowing one to see how the group adapted to changing conditions. By analyzing each text through Scott’s theory and exploring the development of the group as the texts progress chronologically, we can more clearly understand the history and culture of the Thomasine community. Specifically, we will see that Syriac Christians from the second to fourth century used the Thomasine corpus to resist domination and to create their own alternative power structure.

• Christianity , Religion
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