The Work of Waiting in the Sayings of Thomas

A note

Here is the conclusion, which is not an answer. I have decided to read this as a promise rather than a command, for the plain reason that I can live inside the first reading and not the second. Whether that is a legitimate reason I genuinely do not know.

How you render this one word determines the meaning of the whole paragraph. A translator has to decide, and the decision is already an interpretation. Readers deserve to know that a decision was made.

17主は霊である。そして、主の霊のあるところには、自由がある。

コリント人への第二の手紙 3:17（口語訳（日本語））

Leaving the question open

Let me set the terms. This is not an argument about doctrinal correctness. It is one reader's account of what the text can be made to yield. I am going to leave the ending open on purpose.（ホセア書 14:5-9）

15and I will praise thee continually all the days of my life: for all the host of the heavens sings to thee, and thine is the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

マナセの祈り 1:15（Brenton 訳・七十人訳から（英語））

There are obvious objections, and I don't hold this reading with much confidence. What I would defend is narrower: that the text leaves room for it.（ヨハネによる福音書 2:16-19）

• How I finally made peace with a passage I avoided for years.
• One verse, read slowly, with one word held up to the light.
• Notes from reading a canonical and a non-canonical text next to each other.
• Written out of a failed attempt to explain this passage to a child.

Following the context

Finally, back to the text. No amount of commentary competes with the texture of the sentences themselves. Read it out loud once before you read anything else about it.（アモス書 2:14-16）

（ユダの手紙 第1章）

Pull a single verse out of its paragraph and you can make it say almost anything. This particular verse has been made to say a great deal. Which is precisely why it deserves to be read with what stands on either side of it.（秘密のマルコの福音書 3:1）

A word about ordinary life. I think about this passage in the kitchen and on the train, almost never in a pew. I have come to suspect that is not accidental.（ストレンジャーの書 5:21）

Now set it back into its own century. What was the community that first heard this actually worried about? Simply imagining that changes the temperature of every line.（ネヘミヤ記 10:5）

The first time I read this passage I understood nothing at all. I carried that incomprehension around for years, and then one afternoon it turned slightly, the way a key turns, and something opened. What follows is an attempt to describe the turn.

A short detour. There is a passage elsewhere with the same shape though no direct connection, and setting them next to each other makes the writers' different concerns visible.

（テモテへの第二の手紙 第3章）

Some people are consoled by this verse and others are wounded by it, often in the same room. The writer almost certainly did not anticipate that. It is left for readers to carry.

1Jesus said, "Many are waiting at the door, but those who are one will enter the bridal chamber."

トマスの福音書 75:1（Mattison 訳（英語））

Closing

A word about ordinary life. I think about this passage in the kitchen and on the train, almost never in a pew. I have come to suspect that is not accidental.（士師記 19:5-8）

Following the context

I went through several scholarly treatments and found nothing decisive. On reflection, the absence of anything decisive may be the most appropriate result this passage could produce.

A short detour. There is a passage elsewhere with the same shape though no direct connection, and setting them next to each other makes the writers' different concerns visible.

（歴代志上 第3章）

A word about ordinary life. I think about this passage in the kitchen and on the train, almost never in a pew. I have come to suspect that is not accidental.（ヨシュア記 13:19）

What I read

Pull a single verse out of its paragraph and you can make it say almost anything. This particular verse has been made to say a great deal. Which is precisely why it deserves to be read with what stands on either side of it.

A short detour. There is a passage elsewhere with the same shape though no direct connection, and setting them next to each other makes the writers' different concerns visible.

1And he found a cave there, brought her (to it), and stationed his sons with her and went to look for a Hebrew midwife in the region of Bethlehem.

ヤコブによる幼児福音書 18:1（Mattison 訳（英語））

The first time I read this passage I understood nothing at all. I carried that incomprehension around for years, and then one afternoon it turned slightly, the way a key turns, and something opened. What follows is an attempt to describe the turn.（ピリピ人への手紙 3:3-4）

22But, as though transformed by fire into immortality, he nobly endured the rackings, saying,

23Imitate me, O brethren, nor ever desert your station, nor abjure my brotherhood in courage: fight the holy and honourable fight of religion;

24by which means our just and paternal Providence, becoming merciful to the nation, will punish the pestilent tyrant.

25And saying this, the revered youth abruptly closed his life.

マカバイ記四 9:22-25（Brenton 訳・七十人訳から（英語））

This is where I stopped. I could not go forward, so I stayed with the same few lines for a long time. I have come to think the staying was the point.

18And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

テモテへの第二の手紙 4:18（KJV（英語））