Gospel of Thomas Saying 31

[gnostic ken]

What does this saying - say to you?

31 "No prophet is welcome on his home turf;
doctors don't cure those who know them."
................................

31) Jesus said, "No prophet is accepted in his own village;
no physician heals those who know him."
..................................

31.)
No prophet is honoured
in his homeland.
No physician heals those
who know him well.
.....................................

31. Y'shua says:
No oracleº is accepted in his own village,
no physician heals those who know him.
.....................................

(31) Jesus says:
(1) "No prophet is accepted in his (own) village.
(2) A physician does not heal those who know him."
......................................

31
Prophets and Physicians are not accepted at home
JESUS said,
"A prophet is not acceptable in that prophet's own native town.
A physician does not heal people who are acquainted with that
physician."

[gnostic ken]

Oct 10, 2006 05:27 PDT, Gnostic Tom said:
Muhammad had to leave Mecca
because he was no longer welcome there.

Moses had to leave Egypt
because his destiny was elsewhere.

Jesus faced Capernaum and taught,
but all they could note was
"isn't this Mary's boy,
oh yes, and his dad's that carpenter,
good work he does,
I remember when Jesus was a boy
playing with his clay pigeons,
his brothers turned out to be
respected professionals,
why did little Jesus have to turn out
so weird. What is he saying?
Something about blessed are the
cheesemakers, maybe he will go into
the dairy business, I saw him separating
goats from sheep the other day..."

So Jesus goes to Samaria, to Tyre, to Sidon,
away from home, and then the drone of
"I remember when Jesus was a little boy"
no longer drowned out what he had come to say.

The Samaritan "Paul" (not of Tarsus, but that
is another story) had his vision of Jesus and
did he stay home and explain it to those he
went to high school with? No way. He headed
out to Arabia and spent the next three years
in Edessa.


=====================================
Thomas Ragland (Gnostic Tom)
"So little time, so much to unlearn."
http://www.geocities.com/gnostictom/
=====================================

Oct 10, 2006 08:22 PDT, slvan-@... said:
Our old self (our turf/villiage/homeland/town) will initially reject being
awakened (the prophet).

Unless we see with new eyes, the Physician will not heal us.

 

Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:58 am, Gnostic Tom said:
it may sound odd
but nobody in my family
knows i have two books
at amazon.com

nobody in my family,
nobody in my work,
nobody i meet in gas stations
or restaurants or stores
would i talk about my gnosis.
but i share with hundreds of people
i have never met and probably will
never meet on lists like this
on what is nearly a daily basis.

back home in Caper-Naum,
Jesus was met with,
"isn't that the carpenter?
yeah, i know his sister and went
to school with his brothers. he
is just a regular guy. where does
he get off preaching like a rabbi?"

G n o s t i c . T o m
http://www.geocities.com/gnostictom/

Wed Mar 26, 2008 10:29 am, eugnostos2000@... said:
> What does this saying - say / mean to you?

It says my kids walk all over me and Grrlfriend
doesn't think that I'm All That.
-Steve

Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:14 pm, evwheeler@... said:
Yep, Birds crap on prophets too! lol. For me it means that the ego/persona's of
others that know you cannot get beyond themselves and perceive!

ed

Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:16 pm, Ed added:
I tried to share my gnosis with my loved one's. Big mistake or so it seemed.

ed

Thu Mar 27, 2008 11:12 am, rosiolady@... said:
My initial impression is that "familiarity reeds contempt." Well, that may
be a bit strong, but something like that. Knowing someone well sometimes
"softens" their apparent authority, it seems.

Rosalie

Thu Mar 27, 2008 11:17 am, Rosalie replied to Ed and Steve:
Hi Ed and Steve,

I have the same problem of "getting no respect" from my family as far as my
ideas go.

Rosalie

Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:53 am, Gnostic Tom replied to Rosalie:
reminds me of that scene in the gospel
where the family of Jesus has come to
"take him home" because they think he's
gone mad, then someone says to him,
"your family is here" to which he replies,
"you people who understand me are my
mother and brother and sister"

G n o s t i c . T o m
http://www.geocities.com/gnostictom/

Thu Mar 27, 2008 8:26 pm, giftofgabe@... said:
I think it means that a prophet transcends and moves beyond the
bounds of the culture he or she is born into and is not recognized or
accepted by their own culture. They may seem crazy and in need of
help themself. As in:
"Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself"
Luke 4:22

Brian

Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:43 pm, itsallrozee@... said:
Hey yes! familiarity breeds contempt also comes to mind for me
rosalie, and ...'don't it always seem to go that you don't know what
you've got till its gone!'
but the non recognition of something wonderful because it is familiar
is much to the point.

 

 

Tue Oct 5, 2010 7:38 am, I said:

Our village is where we live. Our mind is where we live.

The hardest medicine is self medication.

Our mind rejects new thoughts and it is very difficult to see how we need to
improve our own selves.

IMO.

Ken

 

 

Tue Oct 5, 2010 6:59 pm,  Rhyming Sam said:

People who knew us as snot-nosed-kid
won't accept us... in role of David.

itso,
philo

 

 

Wed Oct 6, 2010 5:10 pm, Oregon George said:

At first look. this appears to be a straightforward proverb with no significant
hidden meanings. The general meaning seems to be that "familiarity breeds
contempt" and sometimes that can certainly be true. It's not always true,
though. Villages can be quite proud of their resident prophet. Doctors often
successfully treat those who live nearby, just as well as any unfamiliar outside
doctor can. But true or not, it's not the sort of wisdom teaching that one
would expect to be treasured and passed on in a document like the Gospel of
Thomas. Of course, the NT has a form of this proverb, in particular, the
prophet statement. But the NT uses it, not so much as a wisdom statement, but
as part of the narrative describing the relationship Jesus has with his home
town. It also serves to foreshadow the rejection Jesus later experiences in
Jerusalem. I ask myself: what is a proverb like this doing in the Gospel of
Thomas?

Like many of these sayings, taking them inside, on the level of mind, can reveal
meaning not otherwise seen. I believe that it is in the mind of man where truth
is found or buried and I thing this gospel reflects that idea, too. Also, the
Gospel of Thomas seems to be richly cloaked in symbols. I began to wonder if
the prophet and the doctor in this saying could be symbolic representatives of
the Holy Spirit. Jesus seems to have a special regard for the Holy Spirit
(GTh44). In the Gospel of John, the Holy Spirit is called the Counselor or
Comforter who resides in the mind to counsel and instruct (Jn14:16-17 and
Jn14:26). It's impossible to know how the Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas viewed
the Holy Spirit, but the role of Counselor seemed to have been a common belief
in those who followed Jesus. However, notwithstanding what I just stated, in
this saying, this symbol doesn't seem to work. It would seem that as the HS
became more familiar or acknowledged in the mind, He would be embraced, not
rejected. So, the prophet/doctor cannot be the Holy Spirit.

As I thought more about this saying, another possibility sprang into my mind. 
Just as the optical illusion of the duck and the rabbit can reveal first one
animal, then the other, from the same image, so too can this saying reveal
another possibility. The saying doesn't say what kind of prophet or what kind
of doctor it's talking about. If the prophet was a false prophet and the doctor
a false doctor, then the rejection would make sense. On the level of the mind,
there is only the true teacher/prophet/healer which is the Holy Spirit. 
Likewise on that same level, there is only one source of confusion/false
prophesy and illness, which is the ego. Nondualism says that the first is true
and the second, the ego, is an illusion. Only in man's belief in the ego does
it acquire any power. This understanding of dualism is western in orientation
and from the book, "A Course in Miracles." Advaita, however, has similar
understandings of this. The symbols of the false prophet and the false doctor
are not symbols of the Holy Spirit, but of the ego. The ego might be compared
to the "lion" in GTh7, the beast within.

To sum this up, under the guise of the proverb is a wisdom statement. It says
that in the mind of man, there is a false teacher and false healer (the ego). 
As he grows in the understanding of this ego, man learns that it teaches only
lies and it not only doesn't heal, but it ultimately seeks his death. So in
this way, this false prophet/false healer becomes completely unacceptable in the
village of the mind.
Thanks,
George Duffy
Corvallis, OR

 

 

May 13, '11, Clive said:

I believe the 2parts of this saying, the prophet and the physician are just different ways of saying the same thing.
The link with Luke 4 seems pretty obvious but as this is a gnostic text I doubt the real meaning of its inclusion is so plain.
Scott said-
Oct 10, 2006 08:22 PDT, slvan-@... said:
Our old self (our turf/villiage/homeland/town) will initially reject being
awakened (the prophet).
I should imagine that an interpretation along these lines is more in keeping with how the early gnostics understood this saying.
Best wish's.