Worth More than Many Sparrows - Essays in Honour of Willi Braun - Sarah E. Rollens

Worth More than Many Sparrows - Essays in Honour of Willi Braun - Sarah E. Rollens

Farm to (School)table: The Cultivation of Paideia in the Gospel of Thomas

Worth More than Many Sparrows - Essays in Honour of Willi Braun - Sarah E. Rollens

Ian Brown [+-]
University of Regina
Ian Phillip Brown is SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Gender, Religion, and Critical Studies at the University of Regina.

Description

This chapter locates the Gospel of Thomas within the world of Graeco-Roman encyclia paideia (education) by examining four seed parables within Gos.Thom. In Graeco-Roman school exercises and commentaries on encyclia paideia, seeds were frequently used as metaphors for teaching with the sower representing the teacher, and the soil representing the student. Gos.Thom.’s parables of the sower (9), mustard seed (20), grapevine (40), and good seed (57) all employ the metaphor of seed-as-learning. This metaphor is hidden from the uneducated but rewards the educated with the hidden meaning of these parables: the reader is the soil that must prepare themself for Jesus’ teachings.

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Citation

Brown, Ian. Farm to (School)table: The Cultivation of Paideia in the Gospel of Thomas. Worth More than Many Sparrows - Essays in Honour of Willi Braun. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 238-255 Feb 2023. ISBN 9781800501973. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=43723. Date accessed: 28 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.43723. Feb 2023

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