Figuring out if the Gospel of Thomas should be included with the Gospels of the Christian Bible.
The Gospel of Thomas is a no non-sense short read that has been compared to the four Gospels of the bible as well as a reference to I Corinthians written by the Apostle Paul. Unlike the Gospels that were written in a timeline style story form and the Epistles of Paul that were written as a letter to certain groups of people in a certain region, the Gospel of Thomas was written as 114 sayings all attributed to Jesus’ own mouth and written by Didymos Judas Thomas. The name translates into Judas meaning ‘brother’ in Greek, with both Didymos (Greek) and Thomas (Aramaic) meaning ‘twin’.
Modern Credibility
The writing itself has been one of the cornerstone findings of the Nag Hammadi find of 1945, translated and studied finding many similarities to the Catholic New Testament books. Retellings of the stories of Thomas 26 ‘the speck in another’s eye vs. the plank in your own’ (Matthew 7:3-5 & Luke 6:41-42), and Thomas 17 talks about giving what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no hand has touched, and no human mind has had occur to them (I Corinthians 2:9, Isaiah 64:4). Many others correlate to New Testament Stories such as Thomas 9 (Matthew 13: 3-9, 4:3-8, Luke 8:5-8), 20 (Matthew 13:31-32, Mark 4:31-32, Luke 13:19), 64 (Matthew 22:1-10 & Luke 14:16-24) and many other direct colorations in what many theologians consider a ‘more true and early account, due to the brief nature of the storytelling, with the adding’s and embellishment to come in the New Testament stories later on’.
Seeing the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas that correlate with the biblical saying, many scholars agree that it is highly possible and very likely that the Gospel of Thomas could quite easily predate the Gospel of Mark which is widely recognized as the first of the four canonical Gospels too be written around 70 C.E. Some of those scholars even suggest that the date could be closer to 50 C.E. predating even most of the Epistle of Paul but not all of them.
The Differences & Teachings
Unlike the believed ‘Q’ writing (German word Quelle meaning literally ‘source’) that still remains a lost or possible writing, the Gospel of Thomas never mentions a crucifixion or resurrection only the teachings and sayings of Jesus. ‘Q’ is believed to have been circulating and used as a source by the writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (the writer of Luke also being the writer of Acts or Acts of the Apostles as it was known as in the early second century).
The basic teaching of the book is that through knowledge (gnosis) and finding your inner self, true achievement of understanding can be fulfilled. In Thomas 22 and 37, both allude to the fact that to become more in tune with your inner self and true gnosis you should remove and give back your clothing, meaning the earthly and the physical aspects of life, in one case even saying to trample them under your feet like little children and in the other saying to give them back to the owner of the field.
He also gives a discrediting of the Pharisees of the day in Thomas 39, 40, 43, 44, 46, and 47. Thomas 39 naming the Pharisees directly saying that even though they have the keys of knowledge, they have hidden them and not only do not allow others to read them nor have they read them themselves. Also in 47 he talks about serving two masters, another story from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, telling his disciples that they must set aside the earthly ways of their old Hebrew upbringing and start finding their true gnosis or inner self instead so that they may find heaven as he had.
The Main Reason It’s Classified As Gnostic
Another Gnostic trait found in the Gospel of Thomas is that nowhere does Jesus or any of his disciples refer to him as the Christ or the Messiah. Gnostics saw Jesus as a ‘rabbi’ (Hebrew word for ‘teacher’), even in one saying (72) finding a tongue in cheek brand of humor when asked to divide a man’s possessions between brothers.
The Gospel of Thomas was known of before its findings at Nag Hammadi from very early writings by early church heavyweights and by finding bits and pieces that were not known but found as a page or two in the early 1900’s.
