Gospel Of Thomas Research Paper

The Gospel of Thomas is perhaps the most popular and most studied non-canonical Gospel. Initial fragments were first discovered in the late 19th century, but a complete copy was discovered at the Nag Hammadi Library in 1945 (Erhman and Plese). The Gospel has been dated to the 140 CE at the latest, which makes it a treasure trove for understanding the evolution of other Gospels as it is seemingly contemporary with the works that were thereafter regarded as canonical. In regards to content, the Gospel is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus. Differing from the structure of the canonical books, there are no birth or death narratives, no miracles, healings or travels. Its is a basic account that seemingly does not attempt to do more than

This hypothesis was quickly disproven by textual analysis and the lack of hypothesized Q sayings in the text. Nevertheless, the Gospel has come to be regarded as a Q – like book (DeConick, Ehrman and Plese). It can be argued that early Christians had a more present eschatological tradition than the generations that succeeded them. Their messiah had just been taken from them, but he had promised a soon-to-be-here end of the world. There was little need to put down long narratives, teachings, discourses, and create theological examinations of Jesus’ words. This can be seen in the fact that at least 60 years is thought to have passed between Jesus’ death and the creation of the first Gospel (DJG, Oxford). As time went on, these communities began to see the need to put down the words of Jesus, most likely to prevent them from being lost to memory. These early traditions would have been a simple collection of Jesus sayings like Thomas. Patterson summarizes this idea succinctly saying “many of [Thomas] sayings appeared to be earlier; its parables, for example, were unembellished with the secondary allegorical features that so often turn up in the Synoptic versions”. While it is definitely not Q, Thomas’s structure, content and dating to the earliest periods of Christianity appears to give it historical priority over the NT books and perhaps theological authority as

The four-Gospel canon is attributed to Irenaeus of Lyons whose argument went thus “There are four zones of the world…four principal winds…four faces on each of the cherubim…and four covenants between God and the human race’’ (quoted in Patterson). Patterson further notes that there were other Gospels that other theologians contemporary to Irenaeus that championed the inclusion of other Gospels as equally relevant, divinely inspired and not heretical. Indeed, the possible existence of a document like ‘Q’ or other sources that the Synoptics are based on tell us that primacy was not the defining feature in Irenaeus decision. While many of these documents have been lost to time, one can argue that a reader who is magically transported to early second century would soon realize that there is a breadth of Gospels considered to be part of the orthodoxy depending on what part of the world is visited and not just the four Synoptic canon. They would likely come to a realization that “the impulse toward mysticism is very strong in early Judaism and Christianity…even foundational [and] it is this form of religiosity... [that explains] the esotericism preserved within the Gospel of Thomas” (DeConick). Later on, with the growth of the church, the rise of orthodoxy, and the compilation of the final list of the NT more than two hundred years later, one can