Revisiting the Gospel of Thomas

Our PFC global encounter team is sitting in layover at the Amsterdam Airport after our 10-hour flight from Sea-Tac Airport.  In about three hours, we'll board for an eight- hour flight to New Dehli.

In my previous blog, I introduced the missionary travel of the Apostle Thomas around Chennai, India.  One of the Gnostic Gospels uses his name.  Here is some background information about this writing.

The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus that was discovered in 1945 at the village of Nag Hammadi in Egypt. Before the Nag Hammadi discovery, very little was known about the Gospel of Thomas other than three small fragments from Oxyrynchus that date to 200 A.D. and roughly a half dozen allusions from church fathers. The manuscripts discovered at Nag Hammadi date to around 340 A.D., though the original composition of the Gospel of Thomas was definitely before that time, probably sometime around 140 to 180 A.D.

The date of this writing

Even though the Gospel of Thomas is perhaps the earliest, most popular, and best "Gnostic" Gospel around, it does not belong in the New Testament since it was written in the second century at a time when all of the apostles of Christianity had already died. This second century date of composition is demonstrated by: 

(1) its dependence on more than half of the New Testament writings, 

(2) its likely mid to late second century Syrian influence, 

(3) its heretical nature with Gnostic overtones, 

(4) its lack of references from early church fathers or first century witnesses, 

(5) its disagreements and variations from the first century context of the New Testament gospels, and 

(6) its self-conscious promotion as an apostolic book which reflects a later time period. In fact, even many adherents to a first century origin for the Gospel of Thomas argue that, in its present form, Thomas reflects later editing.

The Gospel of Thomas and other "gnostic" or non-canonical proclamations of Jesus:

• do not narrate the story of Jesus.
• do not proclaim Jesus as the Messiah.
• do not recount the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Problem areas
Besides not recounting the core message of the ministry of Jesus we see in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, here are 21 highly problematic verses in this Gospel of Thomas

7 Jesus said, “Lucky is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion becomes human. And foul is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion still will become human.”

11 Jesus said, “This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. During the days when you ate what is dead, you made it come alive. When you are in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one, you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?”

12 The disciples said to Jesus, "We know that you are going to leave us. Who will be our leader?" Jesus said to them, "No matter where you are you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being."

14 Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits.

15 Jesus said, "When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That one is your Father."

19 Jesus said, "Congratulations to the one who came into being before coming into being. If you become my disciples and pay attention to my sayings, these stones will serve you. For there are five trees in Paradise for you; they do not change, summer or winter, and their leaves do not fall. Whoever knows them will not taste death."

22 Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, "These nursing babies are like those who enter the kingdom." They said to him, "Then shall we enter the kingdom as babies?" Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

27 "If you do not fast from the world, you will not find the kingdom. If you do not observe the sabbath as a sabbath you will not see the Father."—-I agree with this, because to not observe the Sabbath is breaking the fourth commandment. But, the vast majority of modern Christianity wouldn’t be “edified” by this; they would see it as bondage and legalism.

30 Jesus said, "Where there are three deities, they are divine. Where there are two or one, I am with that one."

37 His disciples said, "When will you appear to us, and when will we see you?" Jesus said, "When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample then, then [you] will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid."

42 Jesus said, "Be passersby."

50 Jesus said, "If they say to you, ‘Where have you come from?’ say to them, ‘We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established [itself], and appeared in their image.’ If they say to you, ‘Is it you?’ say, ‘We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living Father.’ If they ask you, ‘What is the evidence of your Father in you?’ say to them, ‘It is motion and rest.’"

51 His disciples said to him, "When will the rest for the dead take place, and when will the new world come?" He said to them, "What you are looking forward to has come, but you don’t know it."

53 His disciples said to him, "is circumcision useful or not?" He said to them, "If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect."

77 Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

84 Jesus said, "When you see your likeness, you are happy. But when you see your images that came into being before you and that neither die nor become visible, how much you will have to bear!"

98 Jesus said, The Father’s kingdom is like a person who wanted to kill someone powerful. While still at home he drew his sword and thrust it into the wall to find out whether his hand would go in. Then he killed the powerful one.

105 Jesus said, "Whoever knows the father and the mother will be called the child of a whore."

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.’

113 His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?" "It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, ‘Look, here!’ or ‘Look, there!’ Rather, the Father’s kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don’t see it."

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."