Making Mary Male: the Categories ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ in the Gospel of Thomas

Abstract

The CopticGospel of Thomasis one of the most spectacular of the fifty-two tractates filling the thirteen codices of the Nag Hammadi library. Discovered in December 1945 by several Egyptianfellahin, the Nag Hammadi tractates were subjected to a variety of political and scholarly ploys, and were not made available in their entirety until the very end of 1977, when the last of the volumes of manuscript pages in theFacsimile Editionand the one-volume edition ofThe Nag Hammadi Library in Englishfinally appeared.1One of the very first of the documents to be published was theGospel of Thomas, and its appearance has already stimulated the production of numerous articles and monographs by the scholars who have recognized its significance for our knowledge of Christian origins and early church history. Since the time of its initial publication scholars have suggested a variety of interpretations of theGospel, and to date no consensus has been reached. Yet, in my estimation, a reasonably strong case can be made that theGospel of Thomas, in its present form, belongs at least on the periphery of Christian Gnosticism, and to that extent the Coptic text may be termed a gnosticizing gospel.2

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