Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
INNER CIRCLE: Evidence For The Early Date of Thomas’s Gospel

INNER CIRCLE: Evidence For The Early Date of Thomas’s Gospel

Last updated on: April 4, 2022 at 4:30 pm by Keith Giles

INNER CIRCLE: Evidence For The Early Date of Thomas’s Gospel 2022-04-04T16:30:45+00:00 Keith Giles

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

pexels

Arguments For The Early Date of Thomas’s Gospel

As we mentioned last time, there are some scholars who believe that the Gospel of Thomas predates even the New Testament Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke. Here’s why: Because The Gospel of Thomas and the Q-document are both examples of the same sort of early Christian writings which simply collected the sayings of Jesus for those who wanted to become disciples of Jesus. This fact alone sets Thomas and Q apart from later Christian literature which attempted to construct a narrative story around those collected sayings to provide more context and meaning to those sayings. This later development is when we start to notice a more systematic theology creeping into the Christian faith. Doctrines begin to be formulated based on the narrative themes that develop around the sayings.

Another clue that Thomas belongs with those pre-Synoptic writings of the early Christians is that his Gospel is also uninterested in apocalyptic eschatology – which wasn’t developed until much later – and also cares nothing about recording the crucifixion or resurrection events that later became essential to Christian theology.

Even Gnostic texts from the second century had much greater theological content than we find in The Gospel of Thomas, or in the supposed Q-document.

So, if these scholars are correct in theorizing that the Gospel of Thomas predates Mark, Mathew and Luke, [and, of course, the Gospel of John which came much later], then we have a few things to consider. First, that this collection of sayings from the Gospel of Thomas are indeed accurate transcriptions of things Jesus actually taught. Or, at the very least, they are as accurate as anything we find in those other New Testament Gospels. Why? Simply because half of the sayings of Thomas are also found in Mark, Matthew and Luke. Therefore, Thomas did not copy his sayings of Jesus from them. If anything, those other [later] Gospel writers must have copied their sayings of Jesus from Thomas, or at least from another Q-type document of sayings dated around the same time frame.

This means that those other sayings of Jesus found in the Gospel of Thomas are equally authentic. If so, we need to ask ourselves a few questions, like: “Why didn’t those other Gospel writers incorporate all of the sayings of Jesus found in Thomas? Why only choose half of them and leave out the other sayings?”

We might also ask ourselves, “What if those other Gospel writers copied the sayings of Jesus from Thomas without fully understanding the context or meaning of what Jesus was trying to communicate?”

That, for me, is the twenty-thousand-dollar question. I can’t help but wonder if Mark, Matthew and Luke didn’t construct a narrative around half of the sayings of Jesus in order to tell a narrative story without fully recognizing what Jesus may have been trying to say. Perhaps the original meaning of some of these sayings was – quite unintentionally – obscured by placing the saying in a certain narrative framework that shifted the meaning into a more literal, or less esoteric direction?

Of course, we’re speculating here. There’s not much we can hold on to when it comes to which came first, and who copied what, and what meaning might have been clouded by the authors of these Gospels. If we start by assuming that Thomas’s collected sayings of Jesus came first, and if we believe later authors applied those sayings in ways that blurred the teachings, then we’ll arrive at one set of conclusions about these things. But, if we start by assuming that Thomas came later, then we’ll conclude that new sayings were added to all the others and that leaves us with still more questions to ponder. For example, if the latter case is true, then why would anyone add new sayings to a list of Jesus’s teachings without explaining why? In other words, if the goal of the Gospel of Thomas was to suggest a different version of the Gospel found in the Synoptic texts, why not go all the way and actually provide a counter-narrative to challenge those other Gospels? Wouldn’t it defeat the purpose to leave out such details? Other Gnostic writings certainly do suggest another narrative – like the Gospels of Judas or Philip, or even Mary Magdalene’s Gospel – but Thomas does not do this. Instead, the Gospel of Thomas only gives us a long list of the sayings of Jesus without instruction, doctrine, or clarification. We’re simply left with a collection of wisdom without context, instruction or theological framework.

To me, this alone suggests that the Gospel of Thomas is indeed an example of an earlier, pre-Synoptic collection of the sayings of Jesus, without any agenda to debunk the teachings of Jesus in Mark, Matthew or Luke – because those Gospels didn’t exist yet.

In other words, the Gospel of Thomas doesn’t feel the need to correct any conflicting versions of Jesus’s teachings because, at the time it was compiled, there weren’t any other versions of Jesus to compare to.

So, if we go along with this assumption – and believe me, I do understand that this is absolutely an assumption – that Thomas was compiled merely as a collection of the sayings of Jesus, and if this collection of the sayings of Jesus contains additional teachings that we do not find in later Gospels, and if these sayings are trying to tell us something deeper and more profound than what those other Gospel authors understood, then…well, we’ve got some digging to do, don’t we?

All of this supposition is based on more than mere guess-work, thankfully. As we saw in our previous post, there is some connection between at least some of the sayings in Thomas and the writings of Plato that shed a bit more light on the possible meaning of these words from Jesus. [If they are, indeed, the words of the same Jesus of Nazareth found in the New Testament Gospels].

For now, at least, let’s suspend some of our disbelief and take this opportunity to explore the “what if?” notion that the Gospel of Thomas just might contain some hidden wisdom taught by Jesus that could potentially help us understand more of who God is, and who we are, and what our place in the universe might be.

As we’ve already said, the simple code for everything in Thomas’s Gospel seems to be one of nonduality and the Oneness of all things with the Divine. If accept this, then everything else should fall into place for us as we move forward in our exploration of this work.

From what I’ve seen so far, there is indeed some great wisdom for us to contemplate here. I do hope you’ll enjoy this deep dive into the Gospel of Thomas with me.

**
Keith Giles is the author of the 7-part best-selling “Jesus Un” book series from Quoir Publishing. His latest -and final book – in this series, Jesus Unarmed: How The Prince Of Peace Disarms Our Violence is available now. Keith is also the host of Second Cup with Keith [a new solo podcast available now on the Ethos Radio App, for Apple and Android and on Spotify; and the Heretic Happy Hour Podcast [along with co-hosts Matthew Distefano, Dr. Katy Valentine, and Derrick Day], and the new Apostate’s Anonymous podcast with Matthew Distefano**.** He and his wife, Wendy, currently live in El Paso, TX.

Cosmic Christ

Deconstruction

Gnostics

Gospel of the Kingdom

Gospel of Thomas

Inner Circle

Premium

Previous Post

April 4, 2022

Welcome To The Inner Circle

Next Post

April 5, 2022 Did Jesus Even Exist?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Biblicism Christian Politics Cosmic Christ Deconstruction Discipleship Dispensationalism Divine Unity Ekklesia End Time Stuff Eschatology Evergreen Following Jesus Gender General Christian Topics Gnostics God's Love Gospel of Judas Gospel of Mary Gospel of Philip Gospel of the Kingdom Gospel of Thomas Gospel of Truth Hell Historical Jesus Inner Circle Investigative Reporting Islam LGBTQ Issues Marriage Mental/Emotional Health Mystery Non-Duality Philosophy Podcast Poetry Politics Poverty Preemptive Love Prophecy Psychology Quantum Theology Racism Reconstruction Satire Sex Technology Theology Uncategorized Universalism

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

According to Jesus, what defiles a person?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Food eaten Money What comes out of the heart Clothing

Books by This Author Books by Keith Giles

See All Titles »