Distant Reading of the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John: Reflection of Methodological Aspects of the Use of Digital Technologies in the Research of Biblical Texts

Zdeňka Špiclová,Vojtěch Kaše

doi:10.1515/opth-2020-0111

Zdeňka Špiclová, Vojtěch Kaše

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2020-0111

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Journal: Open Theology	Publication Date: Jul 20, 2020
Citations: 1	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of West Bohemia, Aarhus University

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this study is to demonstrate the applicability of selected methods of the so-called distant reading from the area of digital humanities for the interpretation of early Christian texts, specifically for approaching similarities and differences between the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John. We use the term “distant reading” for the methods that allow us to explore, analyze, and visualize digitized textual data while using the tools from the area of data mining, natural language processing, or corpus linguistics. We want to explore whether methods from the field of digital humanities can allow for a sophisticated, quantifiable, and replicable comparison of the corpora of early Christian movements and thereby help to uncover the basic features of their theology and thus be a suitable complement to traditional exegesis and interpretation achieved by close reading.

Highlights

This study[1] attempts to contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate concerning the relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John: While one group of scholars emphasizes the similarities between the two, others highlight the differences
The aim of this study is to demonstrate the applicability of selected methods of the so-called distant reading from the area of digital humanities for the interpretation of early Christian texts, for approaching similarities and differences between the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John
We want to explore whether methods from the field of digital humanities can allow for a sophisticated, quantifiable, and replicable comparison of the corpora of early Christian movements and thereby help to uncover the basic features of their theology and be a suitable complement to traditional exegesis and interpretation achieved by close reading

Summary

Introduction

This study[1] attempts to contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate concerning the relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John: While one group of scholars emphasizes the similarities between the two, others highlight the differences. The first aim of this study is to use selected methods of quantitative text analysis (QTA), which are based on standardized tools and algorithms from the fields of computational linguistics, information retrieval, and digital humanities, to explore whether these methods can help us to decide which of these two views – commonly based on more traditional exegetical interpretations – is better grounded in evidence. On a more general level, we attempt to demonstrate the applicability of these types of methods for the study of early Christian history in general. We want to explore to what extent these methods allow for a sophisticated, This work is licensed under the Creative

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