Logion 11

The interpretation of logion 11 is not obvious. Jesus emphasizes the temporality of the heavens that we see, and “the one above it,” presumably one (the firmament?) whose existence was taught by the Helenized Jews. The Greeks taught of concentric crystaline spheres containing the paths and positions of the visible heavenly bodies. In the time since then these concepts have certainly gone by the board. He also emphasizes the fact that those who are spiritually dead do not live full lives, but those who are spiritually alive need not fear death. (A literal interpretation would deny a resurrection yet support a millenial paradise.) Jesus then seems to refer to the time when his disciples followed the pronouncements of the prophets who by then had died (as in Th 52). These teachings they had brought into their own lives. He contrasts this with the day when truth, light and knowledge will not be gotten from their writings, but will fill all being. There is then a similar contrast made between the time when his disciples were one and became two in some sense. (Another interpretation takes it as referring to the time when Eve was created out of Adam.) And then comes a time, presumably in the future, when they (or humankind?) in some sense must become two (dead body and living spirit?). What sense this is is not at all clear to me. Perhaps he is speaking of all kinds of divisions and categorizations that must at some time become irrelevant. In logion 106 the promise is made that when two become one, presumably one in intent, faith, and purpose, the power to move mountains is present. Perhaps therefore he is admonishing his disciples to be one, when he asks rhetorically what they can do as two.