Seeking the Imperishable Treasure: Wealth, Wisdom and a Jesus Saying (review)

This book is a version of Steven R. Johnson's doctoral dissertation, completed under the guidance of James M. Robinson at Claremont in 1998. The study examines the history and transformation of the "storing up treasures in heaven"—a saying found in Q 12:33-4 and in the Gospel of Thomas 76:3. Johnson is a long-time member of the International Q Project and has published the database on the history of this saying in Q (Q 12:33-34: Storing Up Treasures in Heaven [Leuven: Peeters, 2007]), so he is probably the most well-qualified person on the planet to write a book about the history of this pericope!

Johnson's thesis is that the Q and Thomas forms of the saying are early (first century) and that they were central source for the transmission of the saying in later texts. The Thomas version came to influence or was altered by Luke 12:33, John 6:27, and Colossians 3:1-2, while the Q saying, in some form, was used in James 5:2-3, Matthew 6:19-20, and Luke 12:33. The saying also appears in Mark 10:21, a version not influenced by Q or Thomas. Thus the pericope makes eight appearances: six canonical and two extra-canonical. The relationships between these sources are helpfully outlined in a chart on page 151. Moreover, Johnson argues that there are two main wisdom themes that are associated with the saying "the proper disposition of wealth and the search for divine wisdom of knowledge" (4).

The introduction lays out the thesis and approach of the book, then provides a history of recent research on the Gospel of Thomas, especially as the Gospel relates to the Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel of John, and the Pauline letter tradition. Chapter 2 summarizes the published database on Q 12:33-4, including a review of how Matthew and Luke redact Q. Johnson also attends to Mark's independent version of the saying (Mark 10:21), noting that Mark's is not necessarily a more primitive one. In chapter 3 Johnson develops an interesting argument about how the Gospel of John has adapted the saying from the Gospel of Thomas in a manner that is counter to the understanding of salvation in Thomas. The Gospel of John redacts the saying to stress "faith" over Thomas's "enlightenment," thereby underlining a "Johannine, anti-Thomasine soteriology" (78). The author of Luke is influenced by the versions of the saying in Mark, Q, and Thomas, but, unlike John, does not attempt to undermine the Thomas tradition. Luke's use of Thomas demonstrates, for Johnson, that some Thomas traditions had obtained a degree of authority outside of Thomasine communities by the late first or early second century.

The use of the tradition in James and Colossians is the subject of chapter 4, where Johnson rehearses some of the scholarship on the relationship between James and the Synoptic tradition, arguing, as have others, that James used some form of Q (perhaps not written). Here, it is unfortunate that the author did not engage more recent work on James and the sayings of Jesus (beyond the work of Dean Deppe and Patrick Hartin), for a number of scholars (Richard Bauckham, Wesley Hiram Wachob, John S. Kloppenborg) have been assessing how James adapts teachings of Jesus, including this particular tradition, and with specific attention to ancient rhetorical techniques. Johnson then focuses upon Colossians, arguing that the letter uses a version of the saying most similar to that of the Gospel of Thomas. While James 5:2-3 retains the concern with material wealth, Colossians 3:1-2, like Thomas, moves in a more metaphorical direction. The subsequent and penultimate chapter reconstructs what might have been the "archetype" form of the saying that was the source for the Thomas and Q versions. This archetype would have reflected Q's wisdom topos, while...