Gospel of Thomas
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The Gospel of Thomas (also known as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas) is a non-canonical sayings gospel. It was discovered near
Nag Hammadi Nag Hammadi ( ; ) is a city and Markaz (administrative division), markaz in Upper Egypt. It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about north-west of Luxor. The city had a population of close to 61,737 . History ...
,
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
, in 1945 among a group of books known as the
Nag Hammadi library The Nag Hammadi library (also known as the Chenoboskion Manuscripts and the Gnostic Gospels) is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. Thirteen leather-bound papyrus c ...
. Scholars speculate the works were buried in response to a letter from Bishop
Athanasius Athanasius I of Alexandria ( – 2 May 373), also called Athanasius the Great, Athanasius the Confessor, or, among Coptic Christians, Athanasius the Apostolic, was a Christian theologian and the 20th patriarch of Alexandria (as Athanasius ...
declaring a strict canon of Christian scripture. Most scholars place the composition during the second century, while some have proposed dates as late as 250 AD and others have traced its signs of origins back to 60 AD. Some scholars have seen it as evidence of the existence of a "
Q source The Q source (also called The Sayings Gospel, Q Gospel, Q document(s), or Q; from , meaning "source") is a hypothesized written collection of primarily Jesus' sayings (, ). Q is part of the common material found in the Gospels of Matthew and ...
" that might have been similar in its form as a collection of sayings of
Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
, without any accounts of his deeds or his life and death, referred to as a sayings gospel, though most conclude that Thomas depends on or harmonizes the Synoptics. The Coptic-language text, the second of seven contained in what scholars have designated as Nag Hammadi Codex II, comprises 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. Almost two-thirds of these sayings resemble those found in the
canonical gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...
and its ''
editio princeps In Textual scholarship, textual and classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts. These had to be copied by han ...
'' counts more than 80% of parallels, while it is speculated that the other sayings were added from
Gnostic Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: , romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: nostiˈkos 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among early Christian sects. These diverse g ...
tradition. Its place of origin may have been
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
, where Thomasine traditions were strong. Other scholars have suggested an
Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
n origin. The introduction states: "These are the hidden words that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote them down." Didymus (
Koine Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...
) and Thomas (
Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
) both mean "twin". Most scholars do not consider the
Apostle Thomas Thomas the Apostle (; , meaning 'the Twin'), also known as Didymus ( 'twin'), was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. Thomas is commonly known as "doubting Thomas" because he initially doubted the resurrection of ...
the author of this document; the author remains unknown. Because of its discovery with the Nag Hammadi library, and the cryptic nature, it was widely thought the document originated within a
school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...
of early Christians, proto-Gnostics. By contrast, critics have questioned whether the description of Thomas as an entirely gnostic gospel is based solely on the fact it was found along with gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi. The Gospel of Thomas is very different in tone and structure from other
New Testament apocrypha The New Testament apocrypha (singular apocryphon) are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings were cit ...
and the four canonical Gospels. Unlike the canonical Gospels, it is not a
narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller ...
account of Jesus' life; instead, it consists of ''logia'' (sayings) attributed to Jesus, sometimes stand-alone, sometimes embedded in short
dialogues Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is ch ...
or parables; 13 of its 16 parables are also found in the
Synoptic Gospels The gospels of Gospel of Matthew, Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Mark, and Gospel of Luke, Luke are referred to as the synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar or sometimes identical ...
. The text contains a possible allusion to the death of Jesus in logion 65 ( Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen), but does not mention his
crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, beam or stake and left to hang until eventual death. It was used as a punishment by the Achaemenid Empire, Persians, Ancient Carthag ...
, his
resurrection Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions involving the same person or deity returning to another body. The disappearance of a body is anothe ...
, or the
Last Judgment The Last Judgment is a concept found across the Abrahamic religions and the '' Frashokereti'' of Zoroastrianism. Christianity considers the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to entail the final judgment by God of all people who have ever lived, res ...
; nor does it mention a messianic understanding of Jesus.


Finds and publication

The manuscript of the Coptic text ( CG II), found in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in Egypt, is dated at around 340 AD. It was first published in a photographic edition in 1956.For photocopies of the manuscript see: This was followed three years later (1959) by the first English-language translation, with Coptic transcription. In 1977, James M. Robinson edited the first complete collection of English translations of the Nag Hammadi texts. The Gospel of Thomas has been translated and annotated worldwide in many languages. The original Coptic manuscript is now the property of the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt, Department of Manuscripts.


Oxyrhynchus papyrus fragments

After the Coptic version of the complete text was discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi, scholars soon realized that three different Greek text fragments previously found at
Oxyrhynchus Oxyrhynchus ( ; , ; ; ), also known by its modern name Al-Bahnasa (), is a city in Middle Egypt located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo in Minya Governorate. It is also an important archaeological site. Since the late 19th century, t ...
(the
Oxyrhynchus Papyri The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrology, papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient Landfill, rubbish dump near Oxyrhync ...
), also in Egypt, were part of the Gospel of Thomas. These three papyrus fragments of Thomas date to between 130 and 250 AD. Prior to the Nag Hammadi library discovery, the sayings of Jesus found in Oxyrhynchus were known simply as Logia Iesu. The corresponding
Uncial script Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...
Greek fragments of the Gospel of Thomas, found in Oxyrhynchus are: * P. Oxy. 1: fragments of logia 26 through 33, with the last two sentences of logion 77 in the Coptic version included at the end of logion 30 herein. * P. Oxy. 654: fragments of the beginning through logion 7, logion 24 and logion 36 on the flip side of a papyrus containing
surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the land, terrestrial Plane (mathematics), two-dimensional or Three-dimensional space#In Euclidean geometry, three-dimensional positions of Point (geom ...
data. * P. Oxy. 655: fragments of logia 36 through 39. 8 fragments designated ''a'' through ''h'', whereof ''f'' and ''h'' have since been lost. The wording of the Coptic sometimes differs markedly from the earlier Greek Oxyrhynchus texts, the extreme case being that the last portion of logion 30 in the Greek is found at the end of logion 77 in the Coptic. This fact, along with the quite different wording Hippolytus uses when apparently quoting it (see below), suggests that the Gospel of Thomas "may have circulated in more than one form and passed through several stages of redaction." Although it is generally thought that the Gospel of Thomas was first composed in Greek, there is evidence that the Coptic Nag Hammadi text is a translation from Syriac (see Syriac origin).


Attestation

The earliest surviving written references to the Gospel of Thomas are found in the writings of
Hippolytus of Rome Hippolytus of Rome ( , ; Romanized: , – ) was a Bishop of Rome and one of the most important second–third centuries Christian theologians, whose provenance, identity and corpus remain elusive to scholars and historians. Suggested communitie ...
() and
Origen of Alexandria Origen of Alexandria (), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria. He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises i ...
(). Hippolytus wrote in his '' Refutation of All Heresies'' 5.7.20: This appears to be a reference to saying 4 of Thomas, although the wording differs significantly. As translated by Thomas O. Lambdin, saying 4 reads: "Jesus said, 'the man old in days will not hesitate to ask a small child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become one and the same". In this context, the preceding reference to the "sought-after reign of the heavens within a person" appears to be a reference to sayings 2 and 3. Hippolytus also appears to quote saying 11 in ''Refutation'' 5.8.32, but without attribution.
Origen Origen of Alexandria (), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, Asceticism#Christianity, ascetic, and Christian theology, theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Early cent ...
listed the "Gospel according to Thomas" as being among the heterodox apocryphal gospels known to him (''Hom. in Luc.'' 1). He condemned a book called "Gospel of Thomas" as heretical; it is not clear that it is the same gospel of Thomas, however, as he possibly meant the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. In the 4th and 5th centuries, various Church Fathers wrote that the Gospel of Thomas was highly valued by
Mani Mani may refer to: People * Mani (name), (), a given name and surname (including a list of people with the name) ** Mani (prophet) (c. 216–274), a 3rd century Iranian prophet who founded Manichaeism ** Mani (musician) (born 1962), an English ...
. In the 4th century, Cyril of Jerusalem mentioned a "Gospel of Thomas" twice in his ''
Catechesis Catechesis (; from Greek: , "instruction by word of mouth", generally "instruction") is basic Christian religious education of children and adults, often from a catechism book. It started as education of converts to Christianity, but as the ...
'': "The Manichaeans also wrote a Gospel according to Thomas, which being tinctured with the fragrance of the evangelic title corrupts the souls of the simple sort." and "Let none read the Gospel according to Thomas: for it is the work not of one of the twelve Apostles, but of one of the three wicked disciples of Manes." The 5th-century ''
Gelasian Decree The Gelasian Decree () is a Latin text traditionally thought to be a decretal of the prolific Pope Gelasius I (492-496). The work reached its final form in a five-chapter text written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553. The second chapt ...
'' includes "A Gospel attributed to Thomas which the Manichaean use" in its list of heretical books.


Date of composition

Richard Valantasis writes: Valantasis and other scholars argue that it is difficult to date Thomas because, as a collection of ''logia'' without a narrative framework, individual sayings could have been added to it gradually over time. Valantasis dates Thomas to 100–110 AD, with some of the material certainly coming from the first stratum, which is dated to 30–60 AD. J. R. Porter dates the Gospel of Thomas to 250 AD. Scholars generally fall into one of two main camps: an "early camp" favoring a date for the core "before the end of the first century," prior to or approximately contemporary with the composition of the canonical gospels; and a more common "late camp" favoring a date in the 2nd century, after composition of the canonical gospels.: "Most interpreters place its writing in the second century, understanding that many of its oral traditions are much older." In August 2023, the Egypt Exploration Society published the second century Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 5575, which includes the earliest extant fragment from the Gospel of Thomas.


Argument for early composition


Form of the gospel

Theissen and Merz argue the genre of a collection of sayings was one of the earliest forms in which material about Jesus was handed down. They assert that other collections of sayings, such as the Q source and the collection underlying Mark 4, were absorbed into larger narratives and no longer survive as independent documents, and that no later collections in this form survive. Marvin Meyer also asserted that the genre of a "sayings collection" is indicative of the 1st century, and that in particular the "use of parables without allegorical amplification" seems to antedate the canonical gospels.


Independence from synoptic gospels

Stevan L. Davies argues that the apparent independence of the ordering of sayings in Thomas from that of their parallels in the synoptics shows that Thomas was not evidently reliant upon the canonical gospels and probably predated them. Some authors argue that Thomas was a source for Mark, usually considered the earliest of the synoptic gospels. Several authors argue that when the logia in Thomas do have parallels in the synoptics, the version in Thomas often seems closer to the source. Theissen and Merz give sayings 31 ( Rejection at Nazareth) and 65 ( Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen) as examples of this. Koester agrees, citing especially the parables contained in sayings 8, 9, 57, 63, 64 and 65. In the few instances where the version in Thomas seems to be dependent on the synoptics, Koester suggests, this may be due to the influence of the person who translated the text from Greek into Coptic. Koester also argues that the absence of narrative materials, such as those found in the canonical gospels, in Thomas makes it unlikely that the gospel is "an eclectic excerpt from the gospels of the New Testament". He also cites the absence of the
eschatological Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of present age, human history, or the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that negative world ...
sayings considered characteristic of Q source to show the independence of Thomas from that source.


Intertextuality with the Gospel of John

Another argument for an early date is what some scholars have suggested is an interplay between the
Gospel of John The Gospel of John () is the fourth of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "Book of Signs, signs" culminating in the raising of Lazarus (foreshadowing the ...
and the ''logia'' of Thomas. Parallels between the two have been taken to suggest that Thomas's ''logia'' preceded John's work, and that the latter was making a point-by-point riposte to Thomas, either in real or mock conflict. This seeming dialectic has been pointed out by several New Testament scholars, notably Gregory J. Riley,
April DeConick April D. DeConick is the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She came to Rice University as a full professor in 2006, after receiving tenure at Illinois Wesleyan ...
, and Elaine Pagels. Though differing in approach, they argue that several verses in the Gospel of John are best understood as responses to a Thomasine community and its beliefs. Pagels, for example, says that the Gospel of John states that Jesus contains the divine light, while several of Thomas's sayings refer to the light born 'within'. The Gospel of John is the only canonical one that gives Thomas the Apostle a dramatic role and spoken part, and Thomas is the only character therein described as being (), despite the failings of virtually all the Johannine characters to live up to the author's standards of belief. With respect to the famous story of "
Doubting Thomas A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience—a reference to the Gospel of John's depiction of the Apostle Thomas, who, in John's account, refused to believe the resurrected Jesus had appeared to ...
", it is suggested that the author of John may have been denigrating or ridiculing a rival school of thought. In another apparent contrast, John's text matter-of-factly presents a bodily resurrection as if this is a ''
sine qua non A ''sine qua non'' (, ) or ''condicio sine qua non'' (plural: ''condiciones sine quibus non'') is an indispensable and essential action, condition, or ingredient. It was originally a Latin legal term for " conditionwithout which it could not b ...
'' of the faith; in contrast, Thomas's insights about the spirit-and-body are more nuanced. For Thomas, resurrection seems more a cognitive event of spiritual attainment, one even involving a certain discipline or asceticism. Again, an apparently denigrating portrayal in the "Doubting Thomas" story may either be taken literally, or as a kind of mock "comeback" to Thomas's logia: not as an outright censuring of Thomas, but an improving gloss, as Thomas's thoughts about the spirit and body are not dissimilar from those presented elsewhere in John.e.g. Jn. 3:6, 6:52–6 – but pointedly contrasting these with 6:63. John portrays Thomas as physically touching the risen Jesus, inserting fingers and hands into his body, and ending with a shout. Pagels interprets this as signifying one-upmanship by John, who is forcing Thomas to acknowledge Jesus's bodily nature. She writes that "he shows Thomas giving up his search for experiential truthhis 'unbelief'to confess what John sees as the truth". The point of these examples, as used by Riley and Pagels, is to support the argument that the text of Thomas must have existed and have gained a following at the time of the writing of the Gospel of John, and that the importance of the Thomasine logia was great enough that the author of John felt the necessity of weaving them into their own narrative. As this scholarly debate continued, theologian Christopher W. Skinner disagreed with Riley, DeConick, and Pagels over any possible John–Thomas interplay, and concluded that in the book of John, Thomas the disciple "is merely one stitch in a wider literary pattern where uncomprehending characters serve as foils for Jesus's words and deeds."


Role of James

Albert Hogeterp argues that the Gospel's saying 12, which attributes leadership of the community to
James the Just James the Just, or a variation of James, brother of the Lord ( from , and , , can also be Anglicized as "Jacob"), was, according to the New Testament, a brother of Jesus. He was the first Jewish bishop of Jerusalem. Traditionally, it is beli ...
rather than to
Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...
, agrees with the description of the early Jerusalem church by Paul in Galatians 2:1–14 and may reflect a tradition predating 70 AD. Meyer also lists "uncertainty about James the righteous, the brother of Jesus" as characteristic of a 1st-century origin. In later traditions (most notably in the Acts of Thomas, Book of Thomas the Contender, etc.), Thomas is regarded as the twin brother of Jesus.


Depiction of Peter and Matthew

In saying 13, Peter and Matthew are depicted as unable to understand the true significance or identity of Jesus. Patterson argues that this can be interpreted as a criticism against the school of Christianity associated with the Gospel of Matthew, and that " is sort of rivalry seems more at home in the first century than later", when all the apostles had become revered figures.


Parallel with Paul

According to Meyer, Thomas's saying 17"I shall give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard and no hand has touched, and what has not come into the human heart" is strikingly similar to what
Paul Paul may refer to: People * Paul (given name), a given name, including a list of people * Paul (surname), a list of people * Paul the Apostle, an apostle who wrote many of the books of the New Testament * Ray Hildebrand, half of the singing duo ...
wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:9, which was itself an allusion to Isaiah 64:4.


Argument for late composition

The late camp dates Thomas some time after 100 AD, generally in the early second century.: "Most date the gospel to the second century and place its origin in Syria ..Most scholars regard the book as an early second-century work."(61); "However, for most scholars, the bulk of it is later reflecting a second-century work."(63): "for most scholars the ''Gospel of Thomas'' is seen as an early-second century text." They generally believe that although the text was composed around the mid-second century, it contains earlier sayings such as those originally found in the New Testament gospels of which Thomas was in some sense dependent in addition to inauthentic and possibly authentic independent sayings not found in any other extant text. J. R. Porter dates Thomas much later, to the mid-third century.


Dependence on the New Testament

Several scholars have argued that the sayings in Thomas reflect conflations and harmonisations dependent on the canonical gospels. For example, saying 10 and 16 appear to contain a redacted harmonisation of Luke 12:49, 12:51–52 and Matthew 10:34–35. In this case it has been suggested that the dependence is best explained by the author of Thomas making use of an earlier harmonised oral tradition based on Matthew and Luke. Biblical scholar Craig A. Evans also subscribes to this view and notes that "Over half of the New Testament writings are quoted, paralleled, or alluded to in Thomas... I'm not aware of a Christian writing prior to 150 AD that references this much of the New Testament." Mark Goodacre also argues that Thomas is dependent on the Synoptics. Another argument made for the late dating of Thomas is based upon the fact that saying 5 in the original Greek (Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 654) seems to follow the vocabulary used in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 8:17), and not the vocabulary used in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 4:22). According to this argumentwhich presupposes firstly the rectitude of the two-source hypothesis (widely held among current New Testament scholars), in which the author of Luke is seen as having used the pre-existing gospel according to Mark plus a lost Q source to compose their gospelif the author of Thomas did, as saying 5 suggests, refer to a pre-existing Gospel of Luke, rather than Mark's vocabulary, then the Gospel of Thomas must have been composed after both Mark and Luke, the latter of which is dated to between 60 and 90 AD. Another saying that employs similar vocabulary to that used in Luke rather than Mark is saying 31 in the original Greek (Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1), where Luke 4:24's term () is employed rather than Mark 6:4's (). The word (in all its cases and genders) is clearly typical of Luke, since it is only employed by the author in the canonical gospels Luke 4:19, 4:24, and Acts 10:35. Thus, the argument runs, the Greek Thomas has clearly been at least influenced by Luke's characteristic vocabulary.For general discussion, see . See also . J. R. Porter states that, because around half of the sayings in Thomas have parallels in the synoptic gospels, it is "possible that the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas were selected directly from the canonical gospels and were either reproduced more or less exactly or amended to fit the author's distinctive theological outlook." According to John P. Meier, scholars predominantly conclude that Thomas depends on or harmonizes the Synoptics.


Syriac origin

Several scholars argue that Thomas is dependent on Syriac writings, including unique versions of the canonical gospels. They contend that many sayings of the Gospel of Thomas are more similar to Syriac translations of the canonical gospels than their record in the original Greek. Craig A. Evans states that saying 54 in Thomas, which speaks of the poor and the kingdom of heaven, is more similar to the Syriac version of Matthew 5:3 than the Greek version of that passage or the parallel in Luke 6:20. Klyne Snodgrass notes that saying 65–66 of Thomas containing the Parable of the Wicked Tenants appears to be dependent on the early harmonisation of Mark and Luke found in the old Syriac gospels. He concludes that, "''Thomas'', rather than representing the earliest form, has been shaped by this harmonizing tendency in Syria. If the ''Gospel of Thomas'' were the earliest, we would have to imagine that each of the evangelists or the traditions behind them expanded the parable in different directions and then that in the process of transmission the text was trimmed back to the form it has in the Syriac Gospels. It is much more likely that Thomas, which has a Syrian provenance, is dependent on the tradition of the canonical Gospels that has been abbreviated and harmonized by oral transmission." Nicholas Perrin argues that Thomas is dependent on the ''
Diatessaron The ''Diatessaron'' (; c. 160–175 AD) is the most prominent early gospel harmony. It was created in the Syriac language by Tatian, an Assyrian early Christian apologist and ascetic. Tatian sought to combine all the textual material he fou ...
'', which was composed shortly after 172 by
Tatian Tatian of Adiabene, or Tatian the Syrian or Tatian the Assyrian, (; ; ; ; – ) was an Assyrian Christian writer and theologian of the 2nd century. Tatian's most influential work is the Diatessaron, a Biblical paraphrase, or "harmony", of the ...
in Syria. Perrin explains the order of the sayings by attempting to demonstrate that almost all adjacent sayings are connected by Syriac catchwords, whereas in Coptic or Greek, catchwords have been found for only less than half of the pairs of adjacent sayings. Peter J. Williams analyzed Perrin's alleged Syriac catchwords and found them implausible. Robert F. Shedinger wrote that since Perrin attempts to reconstruct an Old Syriac version of Thomas without first establishing Thomas's reliance on the ''Diatessaron'', Perrin's logic seems circular.


Lack of apocalyptic themes

Bart D. Ehrman Bart Denton Ehrman (born October 5, 1955) is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books ...
argues that the
historical Jesus The term ''historical Jesus'' refers to the life and teachings of Jesus as interpreted through critical historical methods, in contrast to what are traditionally religious interpretations. It also considers the historical and cultural context ...
was an apocalyptic preacher, and that his apocalyptic beliefs are recorded in the earliest Christian documents: Mark and the authentic
Pauline epistles The Pauline epistles, also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest ext ...
. The earliest Christians believed Jesus would soon return, and their beliefs are echoed in the earliest Christian writings. The Gospel of Thomas proclaims that the Kingdom of God is already present for those who understand the secret message of Jesus (saying 113), and lacks apocalyptic themes. Because of this, Ehrman argues, the Gospel of Thomas was probably composed by a Gnostic some time in the early 2nd century. Ehrman also argued against the authenticity of the sayings the Gospel of Thomas attributes to Jesus. Elaine Pagels points out the Gospel of Thomas promulgates the Kingdom of God not as a final destination but a state of self-discovery. Additionally, the Gospel of Thomas conveys that Jesus ridiculed those who thought of the Kingdom of God in literal terms, as if it were a specific place. Pagels goes on to argue that, through saying 22, readers are to believe the "Kingdom" symbolizes a state of transformed consciousness. John P. Meier has repeatedly argued against the historicity of the Gospel of Thomas, stating that it cannot be a reliable source for the quest of the historical Jesus and also considers it a Gnostic text. He has also argued against the authenticity of the parables found exclusively in the Gospel of Thomas. Bentley Layton included the Gospel of Thomas into his list of Gnostic scriptures. Craig A. Evans has argued that the Gospel of Thomas represents the theological motives of 2nd century Egyptian Christianity and is dependent on the Synoptic Gospels and the Diatesseron.
N.T. Wright Nicholas Thomas Wright (born 1 December 1948), known as N. T. Wright or Tom Wright, is an English New Testament scholar, Paul the Apostle, Pauline theologian and Anglican bishop. He was the bishop of Durham and Lord Spiritual in the UK Pa ...
, Anglican bishop and professor of New Testament history, also sees the dating of Thomas in the 2nd or 3rd century. Wright's reasoning for this dating is that the "narrative framework" of 1st-century Judaism and the New Testament is radically different from the worldview expressed in the sayings collected in the Gospel of Thomas. Thomas makes an anachronistic mistake by turning Jesus the Jewish prophet into a Hellenistic/Cynic philosopher. Wright concludes his section on the Gospel of Thomas in his book ''The New Testament and the People of God'' in this way:


Relation to the New Testament canon

Although arguments about some potential New Testament books, such as ''
The Shepherd of Hermas ''The Shepherd of Hermas'' (; ), sometimes just called ''The Shepherd'', is a Christian literary work of the late first half of the second century, considered a valuable book by many Christians, and considered canonical scripture by some of the ...
'' and the
Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation, also known as the Book of the Apocalypse or the Apocalypse of John, is the final book of the New Testament, and therefore the final book of the Bible#Christian Bible, Christian Bible. Written in Greek language, Greek, ...
, continued well into the 4th century, four canonical gospels, attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were accepted among
proto-orthodox Christians The term proto-orthodox Christianity or proto-orthodoxy describes the early Christian movement that was the precursor of Christian orthodoxy. Older literature often referred to the group as "early Catholic" in the sense that their views were the ...
at least as early as the mid-2nd century. Tatian's widely used ''
Diatessaron The ''Diatessaron'' (; c. 160–175 AD) is the most prominent early gospel harmony. It was created in the Syriac language by Tatian, an Assyrian early Christian apologist and ascetic. Tatian sought to combine all the textual material he fou ...
'', compiled between 160 and 175 AD, utilized the four gospels without any consideration of others.
Irenaeus of Lyons Irenaeus ( or ; ; ) was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by opposing Gnostic interpret ...
wrote in the late 2nd century that: "since there are four-quarters of the earth ..it is fitting that the church should have four pillars ..the four Gospels." and then shortly thereafter made the first known quotation from a fourth gospel – the now-canonical version of the Gospel of John. The late 2nd-century Muratorian fragment also recognizes only the three synoptic gospels and John. Bible scholar
Bruce Metzger Bruce Manning Metzger (February 9, 1914 – February 13, 2007) was an American biblical scholar, Bible translator and textual critic who was a longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of th ...
wrote regarding the formation of the New Testament canon:


Relation to the Thomasine milieu

The question also arises as to various sects' usage of other works attributed to Thomas and their relation to this work. The Book of Thomas the Contender, also from Nag Hammadi, is foremost among these, but the extensive
Acts of Thomas ''Acts of Thomas'' is an early 3rd-century text, one of the New Testament apocrypha within the Acts of the Apostles subgenre. The complete versions that survive are Syriac and Greek. There are many surviving fragments of the text. Scholars d ...
provides the mythological connections. The short and comparatively straightforward Apocalypse of Thomas has no immediate connection with the synoptic gospels, while the canonical Jude – if the name can be taken to refer to Judas Thomas Didymus – certainly attests to early intra-Christian conflict. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, shorn of its mythological connections, is difficult to connect specifically to the Gospel of Thomas, but the Acts of Thomas contains the Hymn of the Pearl whose content is reflected in the
Psalms of Thomas The ''Psalms of Thomas'' (more correctly ''Psalms of Thom'') are a set of third-century psalms found appended to the end of a Coptic Manichaean psalm book, which was in turn part of the Medinet Madi library excavated in 1929. The psalms were orig ...
found in
Manichaean Manichaeism (; in ; ) is an endangered former major world religion currently only practiced in China around Cao'an,R. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''. SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 found ...
literature. These psalms, which otherwise reveal Mandaean connections, also contain material overlapping with the Gospel of Thomas.


Relation to other Christian texts

Scholars such as Sellew (2018) have also noted striking parallels between the Gospel of Thomas and '' Apophthegmata Patrum''.


Importance and author

Considered by some as one of the earliest accounts of the teachings of Jesus, the Gospel of Thomas is regarded by some scholars as one of the most important texts in understanding
early Christianity Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the History of Christianity, historical era of the Christianity, Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Spread of Christianity, Christian ...
outside the
New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
. In terms of faith, however, no major Christian group accepts this gospel as canonical or authoritative. It is an important work for scholars working on the Q document, which itself is thought to be a collection of sayings or teachings upon which the gospels of Matthew and Luke are partly based. Although no copy of Q has ever been discovered, the fact that Thomas is similarly a "sayings" gospel is viewed by some scholars as an indication that the early Christians did write collections of the sayings of Jesus, bolstering the Q hypothesis. Modern scholars do not consider Thomas the Apostle the author of this document and the author remains unknown. J. Menard produced a summary of the academic consensus in the mid-1970s that stated that the gospel was probably a very late text written by a Gnostic author, thus having very little relevance to the study of the early development of Christianity. Scholarly views of Gnosticism and the Gospel of Thomas have since become more nuanced and diverse. Paterson Brown, for example, has argued forcefully that the three Coptic Gospels of Thomas,
Philip Philip, also Phillip, is a male name derived from the Macedonian Old Koine language, Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominen ...
and
Truth Truth or verity is the Property (philosophy), property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth, 2005 In everyday language, it is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise cor ...
are demonstrably not Gnostic writings, since all three explicitly affirm the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life, which Gnosticism by definition considers illusory and evil. In the 4th century Cyril of Jerusalem considered the author a disciple of
Mani Mani may refer to: People * Mani (name), (), a given name and surname (including a list of people with the name) ** Mani (prophet) (c. 216–274), a 3rd century Iranian prophet who founded Manichaeism ** Mani (musician) (born 1962), an English ...
who was also called Thomas. Cyril stated: Many scholars consider the Gospel of Thomas to be a gnostic text, since it was found in a library among others, it contains Gnostic themes, and perhaps presupposes a Gnostic worldview. Others reject this interpretation, because Thomas lacks the full-blown mythology of Gnosticism as described by
Irenaeus of Lyons Irenaeus ( or ; ; ) was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by opposing Gnostic interpret ...
(), and because Gnostics frequently appropriated and used a large "range of scripture from Genesis to the Psalms to Homer, from the Synoptics to John to the letters of Paul." The mysticism of the Gospel of Thomas also lacks many themes found in second century Gnosticism, including any allusion to a fallen Sophia or an evil
Demiurge In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the Demiurge () is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. Various sects of Gnostics adopted the term '' ...
. According to David W. Kim, the association of the Thomasines and Gnosticism is anachronistic and the book seems to predate the Gnostic movements.


The historical Jesus

Some scholars (most notably those belonging to the
Jesus Seminar The Jesus Seminar was a group of about 50 biblical criticism scholars and 100 laymen founded in 1985 by Robert Funk that originated under the auspices of the Westar Institute.''Making Sense of the New Testament'' by Craig Blomberg (Mar 1, 200 ...
) believe that the Gospel of Thomas was written independently of the canonical gospels, and therefore is a useful guide to
historical Jesus The term ''historical Jesus'' refers to the life and teachings of Jesus as interpreted through critical historical methods, in contrast to what are traditionally religious interpretations. It also considers the historical and cultural context ...
research. These scholars may utilize one of several critical tools in
biblical scholarship Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible, with ''Bible'' referring to the books of the canonical Hebrew Bible in mainstream Jewish usage and the Christian Bible including the can ...
, the
criterion of multiple attestation The criterion of multiple attestation, also called the criterion of independent attestation or the cross-section method, is a tool used by Biblical scholars to help determine whether certain actions or sayings by Jesus in the New Testament are from ...
, to help build cases for historical reliability of the sayings of Jesus. By finding those sayings in the Gospel of Thomas that overlap with the
Gospel of the Hebrews The Gospel of the Hebrews (), or Gospel according to the Hebrews, is a lost Jewish–Christian gospel. The text of the gospel is lost, with only fragments of it surviving as brief quotations by the early Church Fathers and in apocryphal writi ...
, Q, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and Paul, scholars feel such sayings represent "multiple attestations" and therefore are more likely to come from a historical Jesus than sayings that are only singly attested. However,
Bart Ehrman Bart Denton Ehrman (born October 5, 1955) is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books ...
states that the Gospel of Thomas has very little value in historical Jesus research, because it places no importance on the physical experiences of Jesus (e.g. his crucifixion) or the physical existence of believers.


Representation of women

Interpretations of the Gospel of Thomas's view of women vary widely, with some arguing that it is chauvinistic, while others view it as comparatively positive.


Women disciples

The Gospel of Thomas names six people who are close to Jesus and, of these, two are the women disciples
Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene (sometimes called Mary of Magdala, or simply the Magdalene or the Madeleine) was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to crucifixion of Jesus, his cr ...
and
Salome Salome (; , related to , "peace"; ), also known as Salome III, was a Jews, Jewish princess, the daughter of Herod II and princess Herodias. She was granddaughter of Herod the Great and stepdaughter of Herod Antipas. She is known from the New T ...
. Professor Antti Marjanen suggests that their inclusion is significant and purposeful because of how few people are named. He argues that, in logio 61 and 21, their discussions with Jesus clarify the nature of discipleship. They are shown not as "ones who misunderstand, but as ones who do not quite understand enough." This is shown to be the case for all of the disciples and Marjanen states that "Mary Magdalene's or Salome's lack of understanding should not be overemphasized."


Logion 114

The final saying of the Gospel of Thomas is one of the most controversial and has been highly debated by academics. It has been criticised for implying that women are spiritually inferior, but some scholars argue that it is symbolic, with "male" representing the prelapsarian state. Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley argued that Logion 114 represents a process with females becoming male before achieving the prelapsarian state, a reversal of the Genesis story in which women were made from men. Melissa Harl Sellew's trans-centered reading emphasizes the idea that the outer appearance must be transformed to reflect the inner reality.


Comparison of the major gospels

The material in the comparison chart is from ''Gospel Parallels'' by B. H. Throckmorton, ''The Five Gospels'' by R. W. Funk, ''The Gospel According to the Hebrews'' by E. B. Nicholson and ''The Hebrew Gospel and the'' ''Development of the Synoptic Tradition'' by J. R. Edwards.


See also

* British Library Or 4926 * Common Sayings Source *
Five Trees The Five Trees in Paradise is an esoteric or allegorical image from the Coptic language, Coptic Gospel of Thomas, a collection of ''logia'' (sayings) of Jesus. "Blessed is he who was before he came into being" is similar to other enigmatic stat ...
* List of Gospels *
Psalms of Thomas The ''Psalms of Thomas'' (more correctly ''Psalms of Thom'') are a set of third-century psalms found appended to the end of a Coptic Manichaean psalm book, which was in turn part of the Medinet Madi library excavated in 1929. The psalms were orig ...


References


Notes


Quotes


Citations


Works cited

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - ''Standard edition of the Coptic text.'' * * * * * * Plates 80, line 10–99, line 28. * * - ''The critical edition of the seven texts of Codex II, including the Gospel of Thomas.'' * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links


Interactive Coptic-English Thomas translation
With hyperlinear translation of every single word linked to onlin
KELLIA Coptic Dictionary
2020. Contains verified representation of facsimile, including corrections to all previous translations such as those of Guillaumont, Quispel, Layton, Lambdin, and Patterson / Meyer / Robinson

With hyperlinear translation linked to Crum's

' and Plumley's

'
Ecumenical Coptic Project
online edition, 1998 ff.
Ecumenical Coptic Project
at
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
.
Gospel of Thomas Collection at The Gnosis Archive



Gospel of Thomas Collection
Commentary and Essays by
Hugh McGregor Ross Hugh McGregor Ross (31 August 1917 – 1 September 2014) was an early pioneer in the history of British computing. He was employed by Ferranti from the mid-1960s, where he worked on the Ferranti Pegasus, Pegasus Vacuum tube, thermionic valve ...

Michael Grondin's Coptic–English Interlinear Translation of the Gospel of Thomas


* ttp://www.sofiatopia.org/equiaeon/thomas.htm The Gospel of ThomasEnglish translation of the text, by Wim van den Dungen
Gospel of Thomas, bibliography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gospel of Thomas Thomas, Gospel of Books of quotations Coptic literature
Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...
Nag Hammadi library Thomas the Apostle Works of unknown authorship