Saying 97: The Jar of Meal
The kingdom is like a woman carrying a jar of meal. The handle broke on the road and the meal spilled out behind her; she noticed nothing, and found the jar empty when she got home.
Commentary
Found nowhere else, and unlike any canonical kingdom parable. The kingdom is compared to an unnoticed loss — a reading that fits Thomas’s claim that the kingdom is already spread out and unseen (saying 113).
Parallels
This saying has no close parallel in the canonical gospels. Roughly half of the Gospel of Thomas is material of this kind, found nowhere else in the early Christian record.
Sayings on the same themes
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- Saying 46 Saying 46: Greater Than John the Baptist From Adam to John the Baptist no one born of women is so far above John that his eyes should not be…
- Saying 21 Saying 21: Children in a Field Not Theirs Mary asks what the disciples are like; they are like children living in a field that is not theirs, who give it…
- Saying 61 Saying 61: Salome and the Undivided Two will rest on a couch; one will die, one will live. Salome asks who he is to climb on her couch…
- Saying 99 Saying 99: My True Brothers and Mother Told that his brothers and mother are outside, Jesus says that those here who do the will of his Father are his…
- Saying 98 Saying 98: The Assassin The kingdom is like a man who wanted to kill someone powerful. At home he drew his sword and drove it into…