The Gospel of Thomas, completely preserved in a papyrus Coptic manuscript discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, is a list of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. Some of those sayings resemble those found in the four canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), but other sayings were unknown until its discovery. Some sayings run directly counter to those of the four canonical gospels.

Unlike the four canonical gospels, which employ narrative accounts of the life of Jesus, Thomas takes the less structured form of a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus, brief dialogues with Jesus, and sayings that some of his disciples reported to Didymus Judas Thomas without being embedded in any narrative nor worked into any overt philosophical or rhetorical context.

When the complete text was found, in a Coptic version, it was realized that three separate Greek portions of it had already been discovered in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, in 1898. The manuscripts bearing the Greek fragments of the Gospel of Thomas have been dated to about 200, and the manuscript of the Coptic version to about 340. Although the Coptic version is not quite identical to any of the Greek fragments, it is believed that the Coptic version was translated from a prior Greek version.

Confusion with other works

The Gospel of Thomas is distinct and unrelated to other apocryphal or pseudepigraphal works, the Acts of Thomas, and the work called the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which expands on the canonical texts to describe the miraculous childhood of Jesus. When Hippolytus and Origen (ca 233) refer to a "Gospel of Thomas" among the heterodox apocryphal gospels, it is unclear whether they mean the Infancy Gospel of Thomas or this "sayings" Gospel of Thomas. The Gospel of Thomas is also distinct from the Book of Thomas the Contender, a Gnostic text.

In the 4th century, Cyril of Jerusalem mentioned a "Gospel of Thomas" in his Cathechesis V: "Let none read the gospel according to Thomas, for it is the work, not of one of the twelve apostles, but of one of Mani's three wicked disciples". Very little trace of Manichaean dualism can be detected in this "sayings" Gospel, the Gospel of Thomas, which is agreed to be simpler, less legend-filled, and altogether a less consciously literary document.

Corresponding Oxyrhyncus papyri

Previous to the find of the Nag Hammadi library, the sayings of Jesus found in Oxyrhyncus were known simply as Logia Iesu. The corresponding Koine Greek fragments of the Gospel of Thomas found in Oxyrhyncus are:

• Oxyrhyncus 1 - this is half a leaf of papyrus which contains fragments of logion 26 through 33.
• Oxyrhyncus 654 - this contains fragments of the beginning through logion 7, logion 24 and logion 36 on the flip side of a papyrus containing surveying data.
• Oxyrhyncus 655 - this contains fragments of logion 36 through logion 39 and is actually 8 fragments named a through h, whereof f and h have since been lost.

Date

There is currently much debate about when the text was composed, with scholars generally falling into two main camps: an early camp favoring a date in the 50s before the canonical gospels and a late camp favoring a time after the last of the canonical gospels in the 100s. Among critical scholars, the early camp is dominant in North America, while the late camp is more popular in Europe (especially in the U.K. and Germany).

The early camp

The early camp argues that since it consists of mostly original material and does not seem to be based on the canonical gospels, it must have been transcribed from an oral tradition. Since the practice of considering oral tradition as authoritative ended during the 1st century, the Gospel of Thomas therefore must have been written before then, perhaps as early as around 40. Since this date antecedes the dates of the traditional four gospels, there is some claim that the Gospel of Thomas is or has some connection to the Q gospel —the name for an unknown, theorised text (or oral verse) which may have spawned the parts of the gospels of Matthew and Luke known today which don't duplicate in some manner the Gospel of Mark.

The early camp argues that about half of the material in Thomas has no known parallels to the New Testament, and at least some of this material could plausibly be attributed to the historical Jesus, such as saying 42 "Be passers-by."

The early camp also notes that Q is almost universally regarded by secular biblical scholars as the most parsimonious explanation for the synoptic problem and is widely regarded to be the earliest written text of Jesus' teachings. It has been hypothesized that Q exists in 3 strata, termed Q1, Q2, and Q3, with the apocalyptic material belonging in Q2 and Q3. Secular biblical scholars have identified 37 sayings that overlap between Thomas and Q, all of which are conjectured to be in either Q1 or Q2 and none of which included the latter, apocalyptic material of Q3. Hence, Thomas shows little or no knowledge of Q3, did not incorporate or was not aware of Q3. The Q layers of Q1 and Q2 are thought to predate the four gospels. Hence the Gospel of Thomas is thought to be early.

The central argument of Elaine Pagels' Beyond Belief (2003) is that there seems to be conflict between the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas. According to Pagels, who is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University, certain specific passages in the Gospel of John can only be understood in light of Thomas-like sayings, ideas, traditions, philosophical beliefs, and community, whether or not precisely represented in the present Gospel of Thomas itself. The most famous example in the Gospel of John is of "Doubting Thomas," which Pagels interprets as rebuttal for the Thomas community - Doubting Thomas is made, in John, to physically touch Jesus and acknowledge his fleshy nature, in contrast to the docetism of gnostic groups. Pagels' interpretation of John logically requires that Thomas-like ideas or a Thomas-like community, if not the present Gospel of Thomas, already existed when John's gospel was written. An unsympathetic evaluation of Pagels' book can be found .

Another argument for the early camp is that there is overlap between Paul's epistles and Thomas. The authentic corpus of Paul's epistles, which include 1 Corinthians, Galatians, and

The early camp argues that if Thomas knew of the New Testament, including the Pauline epistles, and if it is thought that Thomas showed gnostic tendencies, then it is surprising that he did not take the opportunity to include many verses that would have supported such "gnostic" theology, which are present in the canonical New Testament, such as John 8:58 "Before Abraham was born, I AM." The Gospel of Thomas did in fact include a great deal of material unparalleled in the New Testament. It, however, lacks distinctive terms from second century Gnosticism such as archons, pleroma, aeons, demiurge that would be expected from a product of historical Gnosticism: this is seen by some as another justification for an earlier date of authorship.

The late camp

The late camp, on the other hand, dates Thomas sometime after 100, generally in the early and mid 2nd century, but a few argue that Thomas is dependent on the Diatessaron, which was composed shortly after 172. Since the Greek fragments of Thomas found in Egypt are typically dated between 140 and 200, the ultra-late, post-Diatessaronic position remains a small minority, even within the late camp.

The main argument put forth by the late camp is an argument from redaction. Under the most commonly accepted solution to the Synoptic problem, Matthew and Luke both used Mark, as well as a lost sayings collection called Q, to compose their gospels. Sometimes Matthew and Luke modified the wording of their source, Mark (or Q), and the modified text is known as redaction. Proponents of the late camp argue that some of this secondary redaction created by Matthew and Luke shows up in Thomas, which means that Thomas was written after Matthew and Luke were composed. Since Matthew and Luke are generally thought to have been composed in the 80s and 90s, Thomas would have to be composed later than that. Members of the early camp respond to this argument by suggesting that second-century scribes may have been the ones responsible for the Synoptic redaction now present in our manuscripts of Thomas, not its original author. Both camps agree, however, that the fluidity of the text in the 2nd century makes dating the Thomas very difficult.

A related argument is that Matthew and Luke independently incorporated their own local traditions into their gospels in addition to the traditions they obtained from Mark and Q. These local traditions are usually known as Sondergut or special material. The late camp notes that Thomas parallels not just the shared material in the Synoptic gospels, but also the special material found in each one of them. The late camp concludes that accessing this diverse set of materials, including local traditions, would be much easier after the canonical gospels were circulating rather than before. Those who argue for a later date for Thomas also call into question the apparent assumption of those within the early camp that "sayings" material is necessarily earlier than full-fledged gospels that include narrative.

The last major argument for Thomas's being later than the New Testament is on a History of Religions analysis. In particular, it is argued that Gnosticism is a later development, while the earliest Christianity, as evident in Paul's letters, was more Jewish than Gentile and focused on the death and resurrection of Jesus more than his words. In this connection, it is observed that the Jesus of Thomas does not seem very Jewish, and that its current form reflects the work of second-century Gnostic thought, such as the rejection of the physical world and women (see Thomas 114). It should be noted that the Gospel of John is replete with statements that involve a rejection of the physical world (see John 6:63), and all four gospels state "this world" belongs to the "devil". Graham Stanton, (The Gospels and Jesus 2002, p. 129) finds in Thomas a Gnostic document: "removal of the Gnostic veneer will never be easy."

The early camp, on the other hand, counters that Thomas reflects very little to none of the full-blown Valentinian gnosticism as seen in many of the other texts in the cache of manuscripts found at Nag Hammadi. In fact, some point out not all of the Nag Hammadi texts are gnostic; for example, one of the texts is a paraphrase of Plato's Republic, which predates gnosticism by centuries. It is also noted that gnosticism was a fluid belief system containing both new elements and old, and that material identifed as "gnostic" in Thomas may have been current as early as 50. As for the focus on the cross that Thomas lacks, early daters contend that Thomas belonged to an early form of Christianity, exemplified by Q, that concentrated on the sayings of teachings of Jesus. If one is a skeptic of Q, however, like several leading scholars in the U.K. (see Farrer hypothesis), this argument is less probative.

Allegations of sexism and Saying 114

114. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."

In Saying 114 of the Gospel of Thomas, Peter, who represents the orthodox viewpoint, asks Jesus to tell Mary Magdalene to leave, as women in general are unworthy of spiritual teachings. Jesus refuses Peter's request, and states that women who transform themselves as men become worthy of spiritual teachings.

In Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ, a popular evangelical apologetic work, one of the apologists makes a claim that Saying 114 in the Gospel of Thomas depicts a Jesus who rejects women, and therefore, is apocryphal. However, it must be rememberd that it is Peter, not Jesus, that is depicted as stating women are unworthy, and it was Jesus who affirmed that Mary Magdalene, a woman, had a right to receive spiritual teachings. The detection of a sexist intention behind the saying must be found without reference to modern understandings of the term, but rather in the linguistic context of first century Palestine, in which it would have had a more inclusive reverberation. Such an understanding would, in any case, cohere more fully with the attitudes to women reflected in the rest of the text. The Gospel of Thomas certainly acknowledges Jesus had female apostles, including Mary Magdalene and Salome, while by comparison all canonical Gospels acknowledge women only as disciples. This innovation on the part of Thomas could be used to argue a comparatively very early date or a very late date

It may be noted that, in a Platonist context, 'male' and 'female' had specific philosophical meaning, as denoting 'form' and 'consituent matter' respectively. Thus, an object's maleness equate to the rules governing its formal composition, while its femaleness is the material substrate of which is is composed. This philosophical conception derives fom Platonist conceptions of human foetal development, in which the male semen was thought to possess the formal components of the eventual human embryo, while the female donated its material substrate within the womb. Thus, given these meanings, the process of becoming 'male' equates with a Platonist veneration of the Forms; thus Jesus' statement would create, in a familiar with Platonist terminology (which was, of course, more endemic in antiquity), a notion of spiritual ascent and promised perfectibility. Platonist influences on gnosticism may been detected elsewhere, for example, in the common conception of the demiurge.

The Gospel of Thomas and the canon of the New Testament

The fact that the Gospel of Thomas does not seem to have been considered for the New Testament is seen by some as an indication of its being of a later date — had it actually been written by the apostle Thomas, they argue, it would have been at least seriously considered by those in the century immediately following Jesus' death. This opinion is more popular among Christians who accept a divinely-inspired New Testament canon as an article of their faith — especially those considering themselves fundamentalist or evangelical Christians.

The harsh and widespread reaction to Marcion's canon, the first New Testament canon known to ever have been created, may demonstrate that, by 140 C.E., it had become widely accepted that other texts formed parts of the records of the life and ministry of Jesus. Although arguments about some potential New Testament books, such as the Shepherd of Hermas and Book of Revelation, continued well into the fourth century C.E., four canonical Gospels, attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were universally accepted among orthodox Christians at least as early as the mid-second century. Tatian's widely-used Diatessaron, compiled between 160 and 175 C.E., utilized the four Gospels without any consideration of others. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote in the late second century C.E. that since there are four quarters of the earth, … it is fitting that the church should have four pillars, … the four Gospels (Against Heresies, 3:1), and then shortly therafter made the first known quotation from a fourth gospel - the canonical version of the Gospel of John. The late second-century C.E. Muratorian fragment also recognizes only the three synoptic Gospels and John. Bible scholar Bruce Metzger wrote regarding the formation of the New Testament canon, "Although the fringes of the emerging canon remained unsettled for generations, a high degree of unanimity concerning the greater part of the New Testament was attained among the very diverse and scattered congregations of believers not only throughout the Mediterranean world, but also over an area extending from Britain to Mesopotamia."

It should be noted that information about the historical Jesus itself was not a singular criterion for inclusion into the New Testament Canon. The canonizers chose to include many books that contain neither much information about the historical Jesus nor teachings from the historical Jesus, such as the Epistles and the book of Revelation.

The Gospel of Thomas may have failed to be included in the canon of the New Testament because:

• It was deemed heretical.
• It was deemed inauthentic.
• It was unknown to the Canonizers.
• It was thought to be superseded by the narrative Gospels.
• It belonged to a branch of Christianity outside the triumphant Athanasius of Alexandria circle.
• Its emphasis on individual spirituality apart from the Church was deemed anathema to the interests of organized religion.

The philosophy of the Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel of Thomas is mystical — it emphasizes a direct and unmediated experience of the Divine. Jesus is presented as a mystagogue, a teacher of divine mysteries, though never the "saviour" as in the Gospel of John. While the emphasis in John is a balance between his miracles and his words, the emphasis here is exclusively the words of Jesus. A discovery of the interpretation of those words is what brings about enlightenment. The Gospel of Thomas records this as one of Jesus' sayings: "He who discovers the interpretations of these secret teachings shall never taste death" — and this secretness is in stark contrast with all the Church teachings and Canon. The theme is paralleled in John, though in order to attack it; accordingly, in John, salvation is understood as salvation from Eternal Damnation, and does not depend on any secrets.

Unlike John, which distinguishes unbelief from belief in Jesus as Saviour, the Gospel of Thomas premises salvation dependent upon an enlightened understanding of the hearer's own true identity — an image of the hearer as divine. Where sayings parallel those in Matthew and Luke, i.e. those in Q, they are placed without their more familiar context; left in this manner, the sayings seem to be pregnant with gnosis though none of the apparatus of developed Gnosticism, as in Pistis Sophia, is to be found.

John's Gospel emphasizes Jesus as the "only begotten son" of the Father (John 1:3), giving Jesus unique status among humans. In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus is quoted as saying that "the kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it." This too can be interpreted as Jesus' attempt to bring enlightenment through his teachings that man's existence is not as much material as it is spiritual — hence his claims to his own divinity came with an implied stipulation that this "divinity" was not limited to himself, rather belongs to anyone who is spiritually reborn. This again is a stark contrast with canonical Christianity.

Elaine Pagels argued in Beyond Belief that, while this strand of Christianity died out, many great Christian mystics independently derived ideas similar to Thomas, from Meister Eckhart to Teresa of Avila to Saint John of the Cross. Mainstream Christian scholars, on the contrary, seek clear distinctions between the basic ideas of these Christian mystics and the author of the Gospel of Thomas "Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. ⁴⁸When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. ⁴⁹This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous ⁵⁰and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Note that Thomas makes a distinction between large and small fishes, whereas Matthew makes a distinction between good and bad fishes. Furthermore, Thomas' version has only one fish remaining, whereas Matthew's version implies many good fish remaining. The manner in which each Gospel concludes the parable is instructive. Thomas' version invites the reader to draw their own conclusions as to the interpretation of the saying, whereas Matthew provides an explanation connecting the text to an apocalyptic end of the age.

Another example is the parable of the lost sheep, which is paralleled by Matthew, Luke, John, and Thomas.

This is the parable of the lost sheep in Matthew 18: 12-14 NIV

¹²"What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? ¹³And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. ¹⁴In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost."

This is the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15: 3-7 NIV

³Then Jesus told them this parable: ⁴"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? ⁵And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders ⁶and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' ⁷I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent."

This is the parable of the lost sheep in Thomas 107 SV

107. Jesus said, "The kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the ninety-nine and looked for the one until he found it. After he had toiled, he said to the sheep, I love you more than the ninety-nine."

This is the parable of the lost sheep in John 10: 1-18 NIV

¹"I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. ²The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. ³The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." ⁶Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them. ⁷Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. ¹¹"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹²The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. ¹³The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. ¹⁴"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me — ¹⁵just as the Father knows me and I know the Father — and I lay down my life for the sheep. ¹⁶I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. ¹⁷The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life — only to take it up again. ¹⁸No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

Gospel of Thomas scholars

This is a list of scholars or intellectuals who either have committed significant scholarly work in Gospel of Thomas studies, or have commented on the Gospel.

• Harold Bloom
• Joseph Campbell, mythologist
• Stevan L. Davies
• April DeConick, Associate Professor of Religion at Illinois Wesleyan University and author of Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas
• Helmut Koester, Harvard University Divinity professor
• Marvin Meyer, translator of the scholars version SV
• Elaine Pagels, author of Gnostic Gospels, Beyond Belief, and The Gnostic Paul (: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Epistles)
• Ronald H. Miller, Associate Professor of Religion at Lake Forest University and author of The Gospel of Thomas: A Guidebook For Spiritual Practice
• Stephen Patterson
• Hugh McGregor Ross
• Thin-min Tach, Zen Buddhist
• N. T. Wright, Bishop of Durham and author of the Christian Origins and the People of God series

Jesus Seminar

The Gospel of Thomas is one of the Five Gospels used by the Jesus Seminar in its attempt to find the authentic sayings of Jesus. It designates sayings deemed fully authentic Red and sayings believed to be very much like what Jesus might have said Pink.

Sayings in Thomas rated Red by the Jesus Seminar, with the percentage of Seminar scholars so rating them, are: 54 (90%), 100:2b-3 (82%), 20:2-4 (76%), 96:1-2 (65%), 69:2 (53%).

Sayings in Thomas rated Pink by the Jesus Seminar, with the percentage of Seminar scholars so rating them, are: 36 (75%), 31:1 (74%), 45:1a (69%), 64:1-11 (69%), 36:2 (68%), 76:1-2 (68%), 86 (67%), 14:5 (67%), 39:3 (67%), 47:2 (65%), 98 (65%), 95 (65%), 33:2-3 (63%), 65:1-7 (61%), 62:2 (60%), 26 (60%), 63:1-3 (60%), 113:2-4 (59%), 35 (59%), 5:2 (57%), 89 (57%), 109 (54%), 32 (54%), 97 (53%), 10 (52%), 47:4 (52%), 9 (52%), 99:2 (52%), 78:1-2 (51%), 94 (51%), 2:1 (51%), 47:3(51%), 41 (51%), 14:4a (51%), 6 (50%), 55:1-2a (49%), 107 (48%), 21:9 (46%), 4:2 (45%).

Popular culture

The plot of the 1999 Hollywood movie Stigmata revolves around a cover-up within the Roman Catholic church of the Gospel of Thomas, whose teachings of the immanence of God are profoundly threatening to the church hierarchy.

References

• Guillaumont, Antoine Jean Baptiste, Henri-Charles Puech, G. Quispel, Walter Curt Till, and Yassah ˁAbd al-Masīh, eds. 1959. Evangelium nach Thomas. Leiden: E. J. Brill Standard edition of the Coptic text
• Pagels, Elaine, 2003. Beyond Belief : The Secret Gospel of Thomas (New York: Random House)

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