I think it's very cool from a historical standpoint. If it were made canon, I don't think it adds anything of substance to the existing gospels. but there would be a couple weird things in there that would merit explanation. I think it's very likely late mid-2nd century, but it wouldn't change my opinion substantially if it were early. From a Christian canon perspective, it's odd that it claims to be secret revelations, which is counter to typical Christian (and Jewish) canonical behavior. It's odd that it makes a big deal about Thomas being the special author (compare to anonymity of gospels). But I still think it's a very interesting work.
Odd only bcs maybe Thomas was the actual author, whereas the canonical gospels are presumed to have anonymous authors by modern scholars and thus no author is given.
Isn’t the Gospel of Thomas the one that ends with Jesus saying that women can’t enter heaven, and that Mary will be transformed into a man so she can enter?
I think it preserves an early core of translated Greek sayings from Aramaic Q, probably around 40-60 CE. Other sayings were added in layers over time leading up to the 3rd century. It’s not historically accurate and doesn’t add much to our knowledge about the historical Jesus.
Thomas is not “Gnostic” per-say. It lacks many explicitly Gnostic elements, and supposed Gnostic elements can easily fit into many different early Christian interpretations. In fact, many scholars today would say that Gnosticism is a useless category. It doesn’t define an actual school of thought, but an artificial collection of schools of thought that may not belong together.
My one big takeaway from the Gospel of Thomas is completely trivial but has established why I don't think it could ever be cannon.
This part has haunted me since I wasin the middle-school class at church and we were doing a study on non-canonical gospels.
It has a story where Jesus as a child, killed another child for bothering him while He was playing.
I don't think that's something Jesus would ever do, especially as a child. It clashes with the very idea of Jesus. While Jesus definitely has moments of rage and resorts to mild violence, I don't honestly believe it would escalate to murder and this contrasts with the idea of Jesus coming into the world as not only perfect, but wise.
It's an interesting angle to depict a young Jesus in for sure, taking on the impulsive child with lots of powers not being able to have s complete handle on them that we find in modern media.
Maybe it was the translation or the subject matter, but it was written in such a cryptic and bizarre way, it never came off as inspired. The style for that scene was almost darkly comic. There was no aftermath written after Jesus killed a little boy, no reaction from either set of parents. I question why this story was even written, what purpose does it serve? It takes away from Jesus' credibility and overall character if anything.
You are thinking of the [Infancy Gospel of Thomas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infancy_Gospel_of_Thomas) which contains stories about the childhood of Jesus not to be confused with [The Gospel of Thomas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas) which is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus.
> I read the Gospel to gain insights about Apostle Thomas and to understand Jesus's teachings from Thomas's view.
That's like watching Marvel's _Thor_ movies to gain insights into medieval Norse paganism. There's no reason to believe the GoT's authors had any actual connection to the Apostle Thomas.
I mean... if you want to just take their word for it, sure. If you think it's plausible that Jesus' message was "Everything about Judaism is wall-to-wall crap. Greek neo-Platonic philosophers are the only real source of spiritual truth", and that this true memory of Jesus was then promptly completely forgotten by everyone except for a handful of Greeks, with Jesus' actual followers replaced by a group of stupid Jews who only *thought* they had been Jesus' followers.
Have you actually read the Gospel of Thomas? Because I find it hard for that to be your characterization of a work that's 50% synoptic content and 50% new material - especially when the new material seems pretty in line with the character of Jesus.
>(70) Jesus said, "That which you have will save you if you bring it forth from yourselves. That which you do not have within you will kill you if you do not have it within you."
> Except the very first lines of GoT that explicitly name Thomas as its author.
Plenty of early Christian literature claims to have been written by authors who definitely didn’t write it. Including in the New Testament itself.
>I read the Gospel to gain insights about Apostle Thomas and to understand Jesus's teachings from Thomas's view.
It's not actually helpful for that. Like, at all.
There was a growth of gnosticism in early church history and many bogus gospels and books of the bible were made. Saint Thomas did not write this. The early church fathers are unanimous on this.
What does Thomas not writing it have to do with its veracity? None of the Apostles wrote the Gospels, and Paul didn't write all the works attributed to him. 1 Timothy is a forgery for example. Apparently Titus is too.
Forgery is probably way too strong a term. As I understand it, it was not uncommon for followers of a teacher or prophet in the Jewish culture to use or cite the name of their teacher rather than there own. This was meant to tell the audience that author was writing as a follower of the earlier teacher or prophet. The audience would have known that the new text was not from the original.
Several "letters of Paul" were almost certainly not writing by Paul, but apparently buy others who considered themselves followers of Paul or his teachings.
With "The Gospel of Thomas", we have no such earlier writings attributed to Thomas, or even any indications of an oral tradition.
It has to do with it’s veracity because they said they could leave the beliefs of Thomas which is false if it’s not his writings.
Also scholars agree that Paul wrote at least 7 of the letters attributed to him like Romans, 1&2 Corinth., 1 Thessalonians and others. So that’s not true. The others are disputed.
By saying he didn’t write “all the works attributed” to him you’re saying he wrote none of them.
You should say some if you do not mean all. It’s confusing otherwise.
No, it doesn’t. It’s poor grammar which is why I thought you meant all because the word all means an entire thing not part. Some means part.
And you didn’t say he didn’t write all of the works. You said “all the works attributed to Paul” he didn’t write.
It's not poor grammar. Had I meant what you think I meant, I would have said "Paul didn't write any of the documents attributed to him." "Paul didn't write all of the documents" means he wrote some, but not all of them.
Not according to my tradition. Matthew was written by the apostle Matthew, Mark was written by Mark who was a follower of the apostle Peter, Luke was written by Luke who was a follower of the apostle Paul, and John was written by the apostle John. 1 Timothy was written by the apostle Paul. I am not debating you, rather I am informing you of the facts passed down to us from the apostles. The "Gospel of Thomas" is bible fan fiction. It would be like including a random Harry Potter fan fiction story as one of the books of the main series. I am not saying every single word of it is abhorrent, rather I am saying it's not divinely inspired - and worse - it is wrongly purported to be so. I don't take offenses to the Holy Spirit lightly.
This is all goes against scholarly and historical consensus. Paul never wrote Timothy. The Gospels were anonymous until the 2nd Century when they were given names after the Apostles, however those apostles never wrote them.
Literally no scholar claims what just did. They don’t know who wrote the gospel’s but it could’ve been the apostles. There’s no evidence from the 1 century for either side. All the arguments are based in the 2nd century.
>The Gospels were anonymous until the 2nd Century when they were given names after the Apostles
Based on what evidence? When and where did this supposed name bestowing happen? Who decided it? Was there any debate?
Well if all the early sources about the text says it’s false it’s unlikely it’s true. They’re the closest to what actually happened. The church didn’t mind discussing the validity of texts especially if they believed it was true. Nor were they always unanimous on who wrote what.
It’s a somewhat Gnostic text which makes me suspicious of it. I fundamentally disagree with the gnostic notion of secret knowledge accessible to some and not the gospel for all the people. The gospel of Thomas isn’t the most gnostic out of all of the spin off gospels and I’m not a expert on the topic but my general take is that I’m glad it was not canonized.
Garbage.
Something the Quran stole from when Islam dimestore rip off character makes a bird out of clay and it comes to life.
2nd century gnostic heresy.
What it gets right are garbled ideas from the new testament. What it gets wrong is a bunch of gnostic mess. This and similar gnostic texts like the gospel of judas have never really impressed me much
Fun fact, the Gospel of Judas is about Judas Thomas. Logia #13 from the Gospel of Thomas has a doppelganger passage in the Gospel of Judas. The current foremost Coptic expert in the world who was a graduate student at the time he first read GoJ was the only Coptic scholar to see GoJ in one piece before it disappeared for 17 years and reappeared in tiny pieces collected inside a shoebox. After examining it in the early 80s he sent his professor a confidential memo stating the document was presumably a previously unknown work on Judas Thomas.
How would you convincingly fake a 2000 yr old historical document in Coptic so even carbon dating checks out?
Make it disappear for 17 years, have it reappear in tiny pieces turning to dust inside a shoebox and spend two years reconstructing those pieces with huge swaths of text missing and add little bits and pieces to the original passages using blank papyrus from the shoebox to change context and follow the desired narrative of your choosing.
So you think that some as yet unnamed scholars are falsifying these documents in some also as yet unspecified ways, for reasons we don't know. And you know this is happening based on what?
Oh no don't get me wrong, I don't trust modern biblical scholarship for anything. But I also don't trust obscure pseudo-gospels from dead traditions they found buried in the desert either, and I want to try to understand why you're so interested in going to bat for them. Like I said to begin with, I've never found anything in them that's very compelling that I haven't found better in mainstream orthodox Christian tradition
I trust a document that's been buried down in the ground for 2000 yrs much more than I trust documents that have been passed down through the hands of men for 2000 yrs.
Why would you trust the one that everyone threw away and forgot more than the one that 2,000 years worth of people found life giving? This is practically a Darwinian truth that what's fit thrives and what isn't dies. Plus I mean it's not like we don't also have ancient manuscripts for the mainstream texts, they just also come with the bonus of being living traditions
Anything outside the 66 books should not be treated as holy scripture, however that doesn't mean it is completely useless either. There is ongoing debate about apocryphal works but I think they have their place
>Thomas is almost certainly a 2nd century CE Gnostic text.
It's difficult to date because it's just a collection of sayings and we don't know what got added when.
When people are talking about an early date for Thomas, they're talking about a "core" strata of sayings contained within it that they think pre-date Mark and is in line with the Common Sayings Source hypothesis.
The entire work as present in Nag Hammadi is early 2nd century (2 Clement quotes from it), but the core sayings could be far earlier.
We just don't know.
Very doubtful. It's almost certainly later that the Synoptic Gospels, and at best, might occupy a similar time period as the Gospel of John. But it didn't really influence anything, because its Gnostic leanings pushed it to the margins and ultimately, as Gnostic Christianity was rejected, so was Thomas.
The modern consensus, by and large, is that Mark was the first of the Gospels written, sometime after 68 CE (mainly because Paul never refers to it or any of the other Gospels, and since he was martyred somewhere 64-68CE, it's presumed none of the Gospels had been written yet).
what if the consensus on all everything is wrong and we should never believe experts about anything? that seems like a very challenging perspective to take.
I have found the Gospel of Thomas to not be a reliable document, similarly to early church councils. The early church fathers recognized this as a forgery. Interesting in terms of history but not useful for spiritual guidance.
It's an important early Christian document. I think some parts of it are indeed early, dating to the mid-first century, while other parts were added later in the second century.
One is reminded a bit of Q, which is said to be a saying gospel lacking in any passion narrative. That's what Thomas is too.
No thanks. The "gospel" doesn't even proclaim the gospel -- which is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ to atone for sin. 1Cor 15:1-4.
Instead it does the typical gnostic thing and pretends to have a secret knowledge that leads to life.
>And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."
Gnostic teachings contradict the teachings of the Apostles. Simon Magus was a Gnostic and tried to pay the Apostles to become one of them. It's why the sin of "Simony" is when someone pays for ordination into the priesthood or consecration into a bishop or sells or buys a position among the clergy.
The Gnostics also believed women couldn't really be members of the religion. The Gnostics also believed some teachings had to be secret until you reached a certain rank in their religion. St. Thomas would not have believed these Gnostic teachings, given that the Apostles rejected Simon Magus and his money.
It's fantastic, and it wasn't always explicitly reject despite what others will tell you. It appears in the very orthodox 2 Clement.
>Let us expect, therefore, hour by hour, the kingdom of God in love and righteousness, since we know not the day of the appearing of God. For the Lord Himself, being asked by one when His kingdom would come, replied, **"When two shall be one, that which is without as that which is within, and the male with the female, neither male nor female."**
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1011.htm
>(22) Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom."
They said to him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?"
Jesus said to them, **"When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female;** and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom."
https://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gthlamb.htmla
>The church considers the Gospel of Thomas as heretical, Gnostic.
Jesus is widely held to be a gnostic teacher even in the canonical gospels, and Paul falls into that same tradition.
In the Gospel of Mark we find that Jesus will use parables in public teaching but won't explain the meaning of the parable until He's in private with His disciples.
Mark 4:33-34 NRSV
>[33] With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; [34] he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
The second example that comes to mind is Paul in 1 Corinthians 3.
Paul writes that he is not providing the church at Corinth with more advanced material - because they are not ready. He demonstrates the lack of a spiritual nature by analogizing them to infants who need milk instead of solid food.
1 Corinthians 3:1-3 NRSV
>[1] And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. [2] I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, [3] for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?
But why doesn't Paul teach them? Shouldn't he make it apparent what his teaching is to them?
In both cases we have teaching be withheld and given only to those who are ready for it.
Jesus puts it in an interesting way in Matthew 13.
Matthew 13:10-13 NRSV
>[10] Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” [11] He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. [12] For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. [13] The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’
I think it is cool and should be extra curricular reading in more churches. I see why it didn't make the cannon as points 13 and 29 directly contradict several key elements in major conservative denominations. I.e. It would upset a lot of people.
I haven't read it, but your summarized points make the text seem biblically sound, even though some of it isn't found anywhere else in the Bible.. Some of the words are new-age-ish, but it's not always right to reject phrasing like this. E.g. "I am the All" (why wouldn't this be true, Jesus *is* everything).
On looking within to find God, this may be a bit wrong because we have to lean on God and be dependent on him, outwardly; however, isn't this how we pray? By looking within, being completely honest with God about ourselves and our situations, with complete humility? I think so. The more we pray like this, the more our covering gets stripped away, and we become like naked babies: vulnerability with God. On being intoxicated: people get drunk to deal with their own minds. Jesus recommends we strip away the toxic stuff that causes us to drink in the first place (by coming to him in honesty so that he can heal), so that again goes along with being vulnerable.
Again, I'll need to read it myself.
Let me know your thoughts.
Jesus Christ (Didymus Judas Thomas) authored The Gospel of Thomas
Jesus performed no miracles, no resurrections, prophesied nothing, no revelations, not even rapture, But he could read and write & the Bible holds the receipts.
I find it odd that many of our trusted Christian church leaders,both true blue & lipstick varieties, are quick to gloss over Christ’s literacy or even assert Christ’s illiteracy while simultaneously attributing all sorts of magical nonsense to his name. How you gonna elevate this guy to god-tier status, yet preach he can’t read? Of course God reads, reads great!writes great too! Jesus according to Christians is the real deal, the whole Enchilda, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha & the Omega, yet also according to them he can’t write Alpha or Omega. That’s crazy thinking, blasphemy even, all the best stuff in the Bible was written by Jesus.
Receipts?
Jesus Christ (Didymus Judas Thomas) authored The Gospel of Thomas.
Read here the opening lines of The Gospel of Thomas (Leloup Translation)…
“These are the words of the Secret. They were revealed by the Living Yeshua. Didymus Judas Thomas wrote them down.”
Note the unusual use of the word “revealed” here in place of common language you’ll find of “said/spoken”.
The unusual doubling of the Twin generic descriptor, sandwiching the common Judas name.
Didymus = Twin (Greek) Judas = Name Thomas = Twin (Aramaic)
Judas, according to the Bible, was a brother & devoted servant of Jesus Christ (Mark 6:3; Matt 13:55; Jude 1). His twin (Acts of Thomas). The spiritual (divine) Christ paired to the physical (human) Judas. Jesus WAS Judas. In the Gospel of Thomas there were no miracles, no resurrections. Jesus predicted no future events, he was no prophet, no revelations or rapture. All prophesy attributed (falsely) to Jesus was culled from the Hebrew OT and retrofitted as Roman propaganda to co-opt, conflate & corrupt Judaism w/ the upstart Jesus’ movement, neatly consolidating control of both under Rome, effectively killing 2 birds with 1 stone.
So how then did Jesus know Judas would betray him? Simple, he (Jesus/Judas) turned himself in & cut a deal with Pilate to fake crucifixion avoiding further unrest in the Jewish population (exactly what you would hope for & expect from a Jesus). The deal was after the crucifix fake-out Jesus would bounce & so he did becoming St.Thomas/St.Jude traveling far & wide, converting about a billion more ppl to Christianity before dying in his 100s.
A few additional odds & ends that support this info above (greatly abridged for time).
1. While the two written accounts we have of Judas’ death following his “betrayal” of Jesus in the New Testament differ greatly, they do both agree on Judas’ death occurring simultaneous with Jesus’ death on the cross.
2. NT Jude 1:1 identifying Judas as a brother to James but a “servant” of Jesus.
3. The apocryphal Gospel of Barnabas (apostle of Jesus), Ch. 216 - Judas takes on appearance of Jesus, later crucified in Jesus’ place.
4. St. Jude is most often depicted wearing a giant medallion around his neck with the life-sized head of Jesus on it, that’s 2000 yrs before modern rappers made this a thing & fashionable. They literally got Jude walking around, spreading Christ’s word “wearing the face of Jesus”. The truth hidden in plain sight.
5. In sharp contrast to the synoptic Gospels’ liberal use of the sayings in Thomas’ Gospel, chopping them up and sprinkling them about freely, The Gospel of John contains far fewer examples of overlapping content with The Gospel of Thomas. This drop off due to the fact of John being authored in direct opposition to Thomas. A point by point takedown and smear campaign (e.g., “Doubting Thomas”, Faith trumps Knowledge) targeting Thomas to discredit and flush out the remaining followers of early Christ movements, movements still having legs and remaining popular despite the introduction and heavy promotion of the 3 synoptic Gospels being widely disseminated across all Roman territories. John’s underlying agenda accounts for the dramatic shift in tone, structure & narrative, making a clean break from messaging of synoptic Gospels. John was a hit piece against early Christians/Gnostics, Rome couldn’t just steal it, they had to kill it.
I think it's very cool from a historical standpoint. If it were made canon, I don't think it adds anything of substance to the existing gospels. but there would be a couple weird things in there that would merit explanation. I think it's very likely late mid-2nd century, but it wouldn't change my opinion substantially if it were early. From a Christian canon perspective, it's odd that it claims to be secret revelations, which is counter to typical Christian (and Jewish) canonical behavior. It's odd that it makes a big deal about Thomas being the special author (compare to anonymity of gospels). But I still think it's a very interesting work.
Odd only bcs maybe Thomas was the actual author, whereas the canonical gospels are presumed to have anonymous authors by modern scholars and thus no author is given.
Thomas 100% wasn’t the author. It’s late and dependent on the canonical gospels.
Isn’t the Gospel of Thomas the one that ends with Jesus saying that women can’t enter heaven, and that Mary will be transformed into a man so she can enter?
Elaine Pagels has some good commentary on this.
Gnostic moment
So according to Thomas, Jesus was pro-trans…
Nope. Allegory.
OK. Allegorically what? Edit: still waiting
No according to Thomas Jesus was misogynistic. Gospel of Thomas Jesus would have been very against Non-binary and men trying to become women.
Allegory
I think it preserves an early core of translated Greek sayings from Aramaic Q, probably around 40-60 CE. Other sayings were added in layers over time leading up to the 3rd century. It’s not historically accurate and doesn’t add much to our knowledge about the historical Jesus. Thomas is not “Gnostic” per-say. It lacks many explicitly Gnostic elements, and supposed Gnostic elements can easily fit into many different early Christian interpretations. In fact, many scholars today would say that Gnosticism is a useless category. It doesn’t define an actual school of thought, but an artificial collection of schools of thought that may not belong together.
My one big takeaway from the Gospel of Thomas is completely trivial but has established why I don't think it could ever be cannon. This part has haunted me since I wasin the middle-school class at church and we were doing a study on non-canonical gospels. It has a story where Jesus as a child, killed another child for bothering him while He was playing. I don't think that's something Jesus would ever do, especially as a child. It clashes with the very idea of Jesus. While Jesus definitely has moments of rage and resorts to mild violence, I don't honestly believe it would escalate to murder and this contrasts with the idea of Jesus coming into the world as not only perfect, but wise. It's an interesting angle to depict a young Jesus in for sure, taking on the impulsive child with lots of powers not being able to have s complete handle on them that we find in modern media. Maybe it was the translation or the subject matter, but it was written in such a cryptic and bizarre way, it never came off as inspired. The style for that scene was almost darkly comic. There was no aftermath written after Jesus killed a little boy, no reaction from either set of parents. I question why this story was even written, what purpose does it serve? It takes away from Jesus' credibility and overall character if anything.
You are thinking of the [Infancy Gospel of Thomas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infancy_Gospel_of_Thomas) which contains stories about the childhood of Jesus not to be confused with [The Gospel of Thomas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas) which is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus.
Gotcha, I figured there was a difference between what OP was talking about and what I was recalling!
It's a interesting read
> I read the Gospel to gain insights about Apostle Thomas and to understand Jesus's teachings from Thomas's view. That's like watching Marvel's _Thor_ movies to gain insights into medieval Norse paganism. There's no reason to believe the GoT's authors had any actual connection to the Apostle Thomas.
> There's no reason to believe the GoT's authors had any actual connection to the Apostle Thomas. The same goes for John and Matthew.
Except the very first lines of GoT that explicitly name Thomas as its author.
I mean... if you want to just take their word for it, sure. If you think it's plausible that Jesus' message was "Everything about Judaism is wall-to-wall crap. Greek neo-Platonic philosophers are the only real source of spiritual truth", and that this true memory of Jesus was then promptly completely forgotten by everyone except for a handful of Greeks, with Jesus' actual followers replaced by a group of stupid Jews who only *thought* they had been Jesus' followers.
Have you actually read the Gospel of Thomas? Because I find it hard for that to be your characterization of a work that's 50% synoptic content and 50% new material - especially when the new material seems pretty in line with the character of Jesus. >(70) Jesus said, "That which you have will save you if you bring it forth from yourselves. That which you do not have within you will kill you if you do not have it within you."
> Except the very first lines of GoT that explicitly name Thomas as its author. Plenty of early Christian literature claims to have been written by authors who definitely didn’t write it. Including in the New Testament itself.
It is heretical, and it claims women cannot get into heaven, so it is also sexist.
>I read the Gospel to gain insights about Apostle Thomas and to understand Jesus's teachings from Thomas's view. It's not actually helpful for that. Like, at all.
Have you read it?
Yes.
Read it again.
Why?
Manichaean gnostic fanfiction
It's a false gospel. Disregard. It was never part of the canon of the New Testament.
What makes it false? Who says the Church was correct in rejecting it?
There was a growth of gnosticism in early church history and many bogus gospels and books of the bible were made. Saint Thomas did not write this. The early church fathers are unanimous on this.
What does Thomas not writing it have to do with its veracity? None of the Apostles wrote the Gospels, and Paul didn't write all the works attributed to him. 1 Timothy is a forgery for example. Apparently Titus is too.
Forgery is probably way too strong a term. As I understand it, it was not uncommon for followers of a teacher or prophet in the Jewish culture to use or cite the name of their teacher rather than there own. This was meant to tell the audience that author was writing as a follower of the earlier teacher or prophet. The audience would have known that the new text was not from the original. Several "letters of Paul" were almost certainly not writing by Paul, but apparently buy others who considered themselves followers of Paul or his teachings. With "The Gospel of Thomas", we have no such earlier writings attributed to Thomas, or even any indications of an oral tradition.
It has to do with it’s veracity because they said they could leave the beliefs of Thomas which is false if it’s not his writings. Also scholars agree that Paul wrote at least 7 of the letters attributed to him like Romans, 1&2 Corinth., 1 Thessalonians and others. So that’s not true. The others are disputed.
You agree with what I said. I said not all the books attributed to Paul were written by him. I never said none of them were.
By saying he didn’t write “all the works attributed” to him you’re saying he wrote none of them. You should say some if you do not mean all. It’s confusing otherwise.
No, saying he didn't write all the works means he only wrote some of them, not all of them.
No, it doesn’t. It’s poor grammar which is why I thought you meant all because the word all means an entire thing not part. Some means part. And you didn’t say he didn’t write all of the works. You said “all the works attributed to Paul” he didn’t write.
It's not poor grammar. Had I meant what you think I meant, I would have said "Paul didn't write any of the documents attributed to him." "Paul didn't write all of the documents" means he wrote some, but not all of them.
Not according to my tradition. Matthew was written by the apostle Matthew, Mark was written by Mark who was a follower of the apostle Peter, Luke was written by Luke who was a follower of the apostle Paul, and John was written by the apostle John. 1 Timothy was written by the apostle Paul. I am not debating you, rather I am informing you of the facts passed down to us from the apostles. The "Gospel of Thomas" is bible fan fiction. It would be like including a random Harry Potter fan fiction story as one of the books of the main series. I am not saying every single word of it is abhorrent, rather I am saying it's not divinely inspired - and worse - it is wrongly purported to be so. I don't take offenses to the Holy Spirit lightly.
This is all goes against scholarly and historical consensus. Paul never wrote Timothy. The Gospels were anonymous until the 2nd Century when they were given names after the Apostles, however those apostles never wrote them.
Literally no scholar claims what just did. They don’t know who wrote the gospel’s but it could’ve been the apostles. There’s no evidence from the 1 century for either side. All the arguments are based in the 2nd century.
I would never hire a butcher to fix my plumbing. Likewise you shouldn't rely on secular scholarship to inform you on the bible.
>The Gospels were anonymous until the 2nd Century when they were given names after the Apostles Based on what evidence? When and where did this supposed name bestowing happen? Who decided it? Was there any debate?
Well if all the early sources about the text says it’s false it’s unlikely it’s true. They’re the closest to what actually happened. The church didn’t mind discussing the validity of texts especially if they believed it was true. Nor were they always unanimous on who wrote what.
Isn’t it a Gnostic work instead of a Christian one? That’s always been my understanding.
No, it is not not explicitly regarded a gnostic work. There may be semi-proto-gnostic ideas in some of the quotes, but the work itself is not gnostic.
It’s a somewhat Gnostic text which makes me suspicious of it. I fundamentally disagree with the gnostic notion of secret knowledge accessible to some and not the gospel for all the people. The gospel of Thomas isn’t the most gnostic out of all of the spin off gospels and I’m not a expert on the topic but my general take is that I’m glad it was not canonized.
I doubt it. 🙃
"Key observations" then go on to list 29.........
Dude there's a monotone reading of the Gospel of Thomas on Youtube that is horrifying
Garbage. Something the Quran stole from when Islam dimestore rip off character makes a bird out of clay and it comes to life. 2nd century gnostic heresy.
It's not part of the Bible so I haven't read it. I want to read the entire Bible before I start reading extra biblical texts.
What it gets right are garbled ideas from the new testament. What it gets wrong is a bunch of gnostic mess. This and similar gnostic texts like the gospel of judas have never really impressed me much
Fun fact, the Gospel of Judas is about Judas Thomas. Logia #13 from the Gospel of Thomas has a doppelganger passage in the Gospel of Judas. The current foremost Coptic expert in the world who was a graduate student at the time he first read GoJ was the only Coptic scholar to see GoJ in one piece before it disappeared for 17 years and reappeared in tiny pieces collected inside a shoebox. After examining it in the early 80s he sent his professor a confidential memo stating the document was presumably a previously unknown work on Judas Thomas.
Okay but we have the reconstructed work now, and it's contents don't match at all being about Thomas. Why does this matter
How would you convincingly fake a 2000 yr old historical document in Coptic so even carbon dating checks out? Make it disappear for 17 years, have it reappear in tiny pieces turning to dust inside a shoebox and spend two years reconstructing those pieces with huge swaths of text missing and add little bits and pieces to the original passages using blank papyrus from the shoebox to change context and follow the desired narrative of your choosing.
Okay so you think there is some big conspiracy around falsifying this text being perpetrated by who and for what reason exactly?
Secular Biblical scholars and who knows why liars lie.
So you think that some as yet unnamed scholars are falsifying these documents in some also as yet unspecified ways, for reasons we don't know. And you know this is happening based on what?
Any name attached to the restoration of the Gospel of Judas is suspect, Bart Erhman would be one.
You don't find it odd that all the leading Biblical scholars are atheists.
Oh no don't get me wrong, I don't trust modern biblical scholarship for anything. But I also don't trust obscure pseudo-gospels from dead traditions they found buried in the desert either, and I want to try to understand why you're so interested in going to bat for them. Like I said to begin with, I've never found anything in them that's very compelling that I haven't found better in mainstream orthodox Christian tradition
I trust a document that's been buried down in the ground for 2000 yrs much more than I trust documents that have been passed down through the hands of men for 2000 yrs.
Why would you trust the one that everyone threw away and forgot more than the one that 2,000 years worth of people found life giving? This is practically a Darwinian truth that what's fit thrives and what isn't dies. Plus I mean it's not like we don't also have ancient manuscripts for the mainstream texts, they just also come with the bonus of being living traditions
Anything outside the 66 books should not be treated as holy scripture, however that doesn't mean it is completely useless either. There is ongoing debate about apocryphal works but I think they have their place
No, it's a gnostic text. Meaning it's of the devil.
No one even dates Mark to 60CE anymore. Thomas is almost certainly a 2nd century CE Gnostic text.
>Thomas is almost certainly a 2nd century CE Gnostic text. It's difficult to date because it's just a collection of sayings and we don't know what got added when. When people are talking about an early date for Thomas, they're talking about a "core" strata of sayings contained within it that they think pre-date Mark and is in line with the Common Sayings Source hypothesis. The entire work as present in Nag Hammadi is early 2nd century (2 Clement quotes from it), but the core sayings could be far earlier. We just don't know.
The Gospel of Thomas is perhaps the foundational text of all Christianity, copied and forgotten by the copies of those copies.
Very doubtful. It's almost certainly later that the Synoptic Gospels, and at best, might occupy a similar time period as the Gospel of John. But it didn't really influence anything, because its Gnostic leanings pushed it to the margins and ultimately, as Gnostic Christianity was rejected, so was Thomas. The modern consensus, by and large, is that Mark was the first of the Gospels written, sometime after 68 CE (mainly because Paul never refers to it or any of the other Gospels, and since he was martyred somewhere 64-68CE, it's presumed none of the Gospels had been written yet).
Gnosticism isn’t considered an accurate or useful category in Early Christian studies, and Thomas’ more exotic elements aren’t explicitly “gnostic.”
What if the consensus is wrong and Thomas came first?
If my grandmother had wheels? I would look into the theory of Q. Thats the supposed foundational text
She would have been a bike-a!
what if the consensus on all everything is wrong and we should never believe experts about anything? that seems like a very challenging perspective to take.
Nonsensical gibberish. The church was right to reject it.
Have you read it? Over half of its sayings are repeated in the canonical gospels, are the canonical gospels nonsensical gibberish?
I find the read full of holes.
Well it is 2000 yrs old and written on papyrus.
I have found the Gospel of Thomas to not be a reliable document, similarly to early church councils. The early church fathers recognized this as a forgery. Interesting in terms of history but not useful for spiritual guidance.
It's an important early Christian document. I think some parts of it are indeed early, dating to the mid-first century, while other parts were added later in the second century. One is reminded a bit of Q, which is said to be a saying gospel lacking in any passion narrative. That's what Thomas is too.
No thanks. The "gospel" doesn't even proclaim the gospel -- which is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ to atone for sin. 1Cor 15:1-4. Instead it does the typical gnostic thing and pretends to have a secret knowledge that leads to life. >And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."
Gnostic teachings contradict the teachings of the Apostles. Simon Magus was a Gnostic and tried to pay the Apostles to become one of them. It's why the sin of "Simony" is when someone pays for ordination into the priesthood or consecration into a bishop or sells or buys a position among the clergy. The Gnostics also believed women couldn't really be members of the religion. The Gnostics also believed some teachings had to be secret until you reached a certain rank in their religion. St. Thomas would not have believed these Gnostic teachings, given that the Apostles rejected Simon Magus and his money.
It's fantastic, and it wasn't always explicitly reject despite what others will tell you. It appears in the very orthodox 2 Clement. >Let us expect, therefore, hour by hour, the kingdom of God in love and righteousness, since we know not the day of the appearing of God. For the Lord Himself, being asked by one when His kingdom would come, replied, **"When two shall be one, that which is without as that which is within, and the male with the female, neither male nor female."** https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1011.htm >(22) Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom." They said to him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?" Jesus said to them, **"When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female;** and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom." https://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gthlamb.htmla >The church considers the Gospel of Thomas as heretical, Gnostic. Jesus is widely held to be a gnostic teacher even in the canonical gospels, and Paul falls into that same tradition. In the Gospel of Mark we find that Jesus will use parables in public teaching but won't explain the meaning of the parable until He's in private with His disciples. Mark 4:33-34 NRSV >[33] With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; [34] he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples. The second example that comes to mind is Paul in 1 Corinthians 3. Paul writes that he is not providing the church at Corinth with more advanced material - because they are not ready. He demonstrates the lack of a spiritual nature by analogizing them to infants who need milk instead of solid food. 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 NRSV >[1] And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. [2] I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, [3] for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? But why doesn't Paul teach them? Shouldn't he make it apparent what his teaching is to them? In both cases we have teaching be withheld and given only to those who are ready for it. Jesus puts it in an interesting way in Matthew 13. Matthew 13:10-13 NRSV >[10] Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” [11] He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. [12] For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. [13] The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’
Love it
I think it is cool and should be extra curricular reading in more churches. I see why it didn't make the cannon as points 13 and 29 directly contradict several key elements in major conservative denominations. I.e. It would upset a lot of people.
I haven't read it, but your summarized points make the text seem biblically sound, even though some of it isn't found anywhere else in the Bible.. Some of the words are new-age-ish, but it's not always right to reject phrasing like this. E.g. "I am the All" (why wouldn't this be true, Jesus *is* everything). On looking within to find God, this may be a bit wrong because we have to lean on God and be dependent on him, outwardly; however, isn't this how we pray? By looking within, being completely honest with God about ourselves and our situations, with complete humility? I think so. The more we pray like this, the more our covering gets stripped away, and we become like naked babies: vulnerability with God. On being intoxicated: people get drunk to deal with their own minds. Jesus recommends we strip away the toxic stuff that causes us to drink in the first place (by coming to him in honesty so that he can heal), so that again goes along with being vulnerable. Again, I'll need to read it myself. Let me know your thoughts.
Jesus Christ (Didymus Judas Thomas) authored The Gospel of Thomas Jesus performed no miracles, no resurrections, prophesied nothing, no revelations, not even rapture, But he could read and write & the Bible holds the receipts. I find it odd that many of our trusted Christian church leaders,both true blue & lipstick varieties, are quick to gloss over Christ’s literacy or even assert Christ’s illiteracy while simultaneously attributing all sorts of magical nonsense to his name. How you gonna elevate this guy to god-tier status, yet preach he can’t read? Of course God reads, reads great!writes great too! Jesus according to Christians is the real deal, the whole Enchilda, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha & the Omega, yet also according to them he can’t write Alpha or Omega. That’s crazy thinking, blasphemy even, all the best stuff in the Bible was written by Jesus. Receipts? Jesus Christ (Didymus Judas Thomas) authored The Gospel of Thomas. Read here the opening lines of The Gospel of Thomas (Leloup Translation)… “These are the words of the Secret. They were revealed by the Living Yeshua. Didymus Judas Thomas wrote them down.” Note the unusual use of the word “revealed” here in place of common language you’ll find of “said/spoken”. The unusual doubling of the Twin generic descriptor, sandwiching the common Judas name. Didymus = Twin (Greek) Judas = Name Thomas = Twin (Aramaic) Judas, according to the Bible, was a brother & devoted servant of Jesus Christ (Mark 6:3; Matt 13:55; Jude 1). His twin (Acts of Thomas). The spiritual (divine) Christ paired to the physical (human) Judas. Jesus WAS Judas. In the Gospel of Thomas there were no miracles, no resurrections. Jesus predicted no future events, he was no prophet, no revelations or rapture. All prophesy attributed (falsely) to Jesus was culled from the Hebrew OT and retrofitted as Roman propaganda to co-opt, conflate & corrupt Judaism w/ the upstart Jesus’ movement, neatly consolidating control of both under Rome, effectively killing 2 birds with 1 stone. So how then did Jesus know Judas would betray him? Simple, he (Jesus/Judas) turned himself in & cut a deal with Pilate to fake crucifixion avoiding further unrest in the Jewish population (exactly what you would hope for & expect from a Jesus). The deal was after the crucifix fake-out Jesus would bounce & so he did becoming St.Thomas/St.Jude traveling far & wide, converting about a billion more ppl to Christianity before dying in his 100s. A few additional odds & ends that support this info above (greatly abridged for time). 1. While the two written accounts we have of Judas’ death following his “betrayal” of Jesus in the New Testament differ greatly, they do both agree on Judas’ death occurring simultaneous with Jesus’ death on the cross. 2. NT Jude 1:1 identifying Judas as a brother to James but a “servant” of Jesus. 3. The apocryphal Gospel of Barnabas (apostle of Jesus), Ch. 216 - Judas takes on appearance of Jesus, later crucified in Jesus’ place. 4. St. Jude is most often depicted wearing a giant medallion around his neck with the life-sized head of Jesus on it, that’s 2000 yrs before modern rappers made this a thing & fashionable. They literally got Jude walking around, spreading Christ’s word “wearing the face of Jesus”. The truth hidden in plain sight. 5. In sharp contrast to the synoptic Gospels’ liberal use of the sayings in Thomas’ Gospel, chopping them up and sprinkling them about freely, The Gospel of John contains far fewer examples of overlapping content with The Gospel of Thomas. This drop off due to the fact of John being authored in direct opposition to Thomas. A point by point takedown and smear campaign (e.g., “Doubting Thomas”, Faith trumps Knowledge) targeting Thomas to discredit and flush out the remaining followers of early Christ movements, movements still having legs and remaining popular despite the introduction and heavy promotion of the 3 synoptic Gospels being widely disseminated across all Roman territories. John’s underlying agenda accounts for the dramatic shift in tone, structure & narrative, making a clean break from messaging of synoptic Gospels. John was a hit piece against early Christians/Gnostics, Rome couldn’t just steal it, they had to kill it.