The Gospel of Thomas: The Gnostic Wisdom of Jesus

by Thomas the Apostle, Jean-Yves Leloup (Coptic Translator), Joseph Rowe (English Translator)

A new translation and analysis of the gospel that records the actual words of Jesus.
  
•  Explores the gnostic significance of Jesus's teachings recorded in this gospel
•  Explains the true nature of the new man whose coming Jesus envisioned
•  Translated from the Coptic and interpreted by Jean-Yves Leloup, author of the bestselling Gospel of Mary Magdalene and The Gospel of Philip. English translation and notes by Joseph Rowe.

One of the cache of codices and manuscripts discovered in Nag Hammadi, the Gospel of Thomas, unlike the canonical gospels, does not contain a narrative recording Christ's life and prophecies. Instead it is a collection of his teachings — what he actually said. These 114 logia, or sayings, were collected by Judas Didymus Thomas, whom some claim to be Jesus's closest disciple. No sooner was this gospel uncovered from the sands of Upper Egypt than scholars and theologians began to bury it anew in a host of conflicting interpretations and polemics. While some say it is a hodgepodge from the canonical gospels, for others it is the source text from which all the gospel writers drew their material and inspiration.

In this new translation of the Gospel of Thomas, Jean-Yves Leloup shows that the Jesus recorded by the "infinitely skeptical and infinitely believing" Thomas has much in common with gnostics of non-dualistic schools. Like them, Jesus preaches the coming of a new man, the genesis of the man of knowledge. In this gospel, Jesus describes a journey from limited to unlimited consciousness. The Jesus of Thomas invites us to drink deeply from the well of knowledge that lies within, not so that we may become good Christians but so we may attain the self-knowledge that will make each of us, too, a Christ.

Genres: Religion, Spirituality, Nonfiction, Christianity, Philosophy, Theology, History

294 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 100

Reviews

[فؤاد · Rating 3 out of 5]

عیسی گفت:
«رهگذر باشید.»

انجیل توماس
از انجیل های گم شده گنوسی



دو مسیح

به باور مسیحیان امروزی، مسیح موجودی ماورائی است که مدتی به قالب انسانی درآمد تا با کشته شدنش، گناهان آدمیان پاک شود. در این باور مسیح بیشتر از آن که بخواهد معرفتی به انسان ها بیاموزد، می خواست دیگران به خدایی او ایمان بیاورند. مسیح در این باور، نه یک معلم، بلکه یک اسطوره است. و تعالیم اخلاقی‌ای که در گفتارهایش موجود است، اهمیتی فرعی دارد.


اما در طول تاریخ، اقلیت هایی مسیحی بودند که باور داشتند مسیح قبل از هر چیز یک معلم بود. خدا در قالب عیسای ناصری در نیامده بود تا فقط به صلیب کشیده شود و به شکلی جادویی تمام گناهان بشریت را پاک کند، بلکه می خواست نوعی از زندگی توأم با سعادت را به انسان بیاموزد. این دسته از تعالیم مسیح در «انجیل توماس» جمع آوری شده بود که امروزه مسیحیان آن را جعلی می شمارند.




منابع:

فروغ خاور، هرمان الدنبرگ
bbc.co.uk/guides/ztxsg82

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Gospel of Thomas was rejected as heretical by the orthodox Christians who formally established the New Testament canon, presumably for its Gnosticism. Harold Bloom states in his Interpretation that the “popularity of the Gospel of Thomas among Americans is another indication that there is indeed ‘the American religion’: creedless, Orphic, enthusiastic, proto-gnostic, post-Christian. Unlike the canonical gospels, that of Judas Thomas the Twin spares us the crucifixion, makes the resurrection unnecessary, and does not present us with a God named Jesus.” (111) He goes on to talk about the gnostic aspects of the sayings, as well as the scholarly opinion that the sayings are closer to the postulated “Q” document, upon which portions of the canonical Gospels are built. “Of the veritable text of the sayings of a historical Jesus, we have nothing. Presumably he spoke to his followers and other wayfarers in Aramaic, and except for a few phrases scattered through the gospels, none of his Aramaic sayings has survived. I have wondered for some time how this could be, and wondered even more that Christian scholars have never joined in my wonder. If you believed in the divinity of Jesus, would you not wish to have preserved the actual Aramaic sentences he spoke, since they were for you the words of God? But what was preserved were Greek translations of his sayings, rather than the Aramaic sayings themselves…Any sayings of Jesus, open or hidden, need to be regarded in this context, which ought to teach us a certain suspicion of even the most normative judgments as to authenticity, whether those judgments rise from faith or from supposedly positive scholarship.” (114)

The study of these texts is highly informative as to the religious ideas being debated within early Christianity. That is not to say, however, that we should assume that the sayings are the true words of the historical Jesus, or that they are more in line with modern sensibilities. In fact, the attitudes towards women in the canonical Gospels are often complimentary of the role of women, while the Gospel of Thomas finds Simon Peter stating that Mary should leave them because “women are not worthy of life.” In his line of thinking, women must make themselves like males to enter the kingdom of heaven. Clearly, this is not modern enlightened thinking.

Like many of the Gnostic texts, presumably these sayings were written down as “hidden sayings” with exclusivity in mind, not inclusiveness of the whole world. “The Gospel of Thomas addresses itself only to a subtle elite, those capable of knowing, who then through knowing can come to see what Jesus insists is plainly visible before them, indeed all around them. This Jesus has not come to take away the sins of the world, or to atone for all humankind…There is no haste in this Jesus, no apocalyptic intensity. He does not teach the end-time, but rather a transvaluation of time, in the here of our moment.” (118)

Bloom’s introduction, Meyer’s notes, and the translation itself are all very well done. For serious students of the development of Christian thought, this is a worthy and important text to analyze, and to critically consider for both its similarities and its differences to orthodox Christian thought.

[Christopher · Rating 1 out of 5]

So obviously pseudoepigraphical and so distinctly Gnostic in contrast to the canonical gospels that it perplexes me why so many modern scholars can continue to assert with any degree of integrity that this piece of literature is a more reliable description of the historical Jesus than the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

To demonstrate how greatly it differs from the canonical gospels, I'll compare two infamous verses from the Gospel of Thomas with corresponding verses from the Bible:

Gospel of Thomas on the nature of the Kingdom:

(113) His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?" Jesus said, "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'here it is' or 'there it is.' Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."

Bible on the nature of the Kingdom - Gospel of Matthew and Mark:

"Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Matthew 6:10

"And he said to them, "Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power." Mark 9:1

Gospel of Thomas on Jesus' attitude towards women:

(114) Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."

Bible on Jesus' attitude towards women - Gospel of Matthew and Luke

"Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly." Matthew 15:28

"But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her." Mat 26:10-13

And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." Luke 7:50

Jesus' compassion and respect for women demonstrated in the canonical gospels and his teaching regarding the imminency and dynamic personal nature of the Kingdom of God are radically alternative to both Jewish and Greek ways of thinking on these subjects. It is absolutely pathetic that the measurement of the authenticity of Jesus' statements among modern scholars (such as those who participated in the Jesus Seminar) is based on how much a statement differs with the rest of Jesus teachings throughout the canonical gospels, so that if a statement is unusual within the canonical gospels it is considered authentic but if it is consistent with the rest it is dubious. Such scholars are predisposed to doubt any theologically motivated statement or any description of the miraculous, as a result, the same scholars are keen to embrace a piece of trash like the Gospel of Thomas because it is such a stark contrast to the canonical gospels, this kind of analysis and textual criticism is just ridiculously self-gratifying pseudo-intellectualism.

The Gospel of Thomas may be read properly if it is understood to be a piece of apocryphal Gnostic heresy distinct from the textually reliable, manuscript rich, and internally consistent Biblical accounts of Jesus. It really is a shame that so many people today have bought the myth that the Gnostic gospels (also including the Gospel of Judas and Mary Magdelene, ect.) are giving us a sneak peek into mind of the "real Jesus" as if the Jesus in the canonical gospels is very easy to dismiss as fictional, even though the statements made there are clear, consistent, and largely unambiguous unlike the Gnostic gospels which obscure, spiritualize, and equivocate at every point.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the long run, very little in life is secret: a career bureaucrat fesses up to being Deep Throat; you find out that your grandfather performed on Broadway; career readers work over a library's offerings with care and diligence. A community of heretics disappears in Egypt, and their library turns up intact 1500 years later.

Such is the story of the Nag Hammadi Library and the Gospel of Thomas. One of the groups that lost the struggle to determine Christian orthodoxy and doctrine, in this case, a group often categorized as proto-Gnostic, gets the last laugh when thirteen of their books are discovered in a cave in Egypt (1945).

And maybe the best laugh of all is the Gospel of Thomas. Of all the bits and pieces of alternative early Christianity that have been discovered in the last century and a half, GThom is the most complete and, in RT's opinion, the closest in content and tone to the canonical gospels. Except, as it turns out, that the gospel contains almost no narrative; it is a sayings gospel, consisting of more than 100 items. And except that some of these items are just downright puzzling.

What is going on here is an expansion or clarification of material mostly familiar from the New Testament. Some of this clarification, however, can be shocking. Jesus tells his followers that if they want to see him, they will have to take their clothes off first. Not that this is necessarily referring to actual nudity; it could just be referring to a change in spiritual state. And to be fair, spirituality is a hallmark of GThom. Still, the possibility remains.

Those who have read around in the alternative texts (and even in the Gospels, with a discerning eye) will know that clothing is a major theme in Jesus's teachings: "Why do you worry about what you wear and what you eat..." And actually, GThom contains a variant of this famous teaching, one that emphasizes the clothing theme.

So we reach the second problem: variant readings, as in "give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, God the things that are God's, and me, the things that are mine." Hmmm, which reading is the right one? Did Jesus, on different occasions, use both versions? And how is it, again, that we know what Jesus said at all? Now we're out over the deep waters.

That last question becomes pressing when we evaluate the portrait of Jesus that emerges from these sayings: in RT's estimation, Jesus is tougher and simultaneously more realistic and more remote, focused on more philosophical themes than is the case in the New Testament. And finally, there are uncomfortable sayings about women, including, "I will guide Mary to become a man in spirit..." And add to this Peter's words: "Women are not worthy of Life..." Ouch!

Surely, any reader who reads this book carefully will come away with a more complex portrait of Jesus than he or she had before. This complexity may actually be an aid to faith as well as knowledge, rooting Jesus's genius more firmly in the palpable world that he lived and died in.

In sum, the struggle between spirit and flesh continues in Jesus's teachings. The Gospel of Thomas helps give us a more complex, but also a more balanced, view of his word.

[James Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book starts off discussing what Gnosticism is and why the Christian church really hated the Gnostics. There's not a whole lot that remains about them or their writings (again because the Church hated them and tried to wipe them and their work out.)

The Gnostics stressed the role of knowledge in religious life. The book says they believed that our intellectual power has grown faster than our moral power. We need to become 'awakened' human beings. The spiritual emphasis has more to do with energy than with thought. (There is no need for a hierarchy of priests, etc. between us and God.)

The book discusses where what remains of their writings were found. The writings have nothing about a biography of Jesus and no miracles he performed.

For some reason the author then has a section (pages 6 through 57) which have the original text on the left and a translation on the right. The rest of the book has each translated section (thus repeating them) and a discussion of what that verse means.

The stages in gnosis are:

1. The quest.
2. Discovery.
3. Disturbance caused by the discovery.
4. Wonder.
5. The presence.
6. The hidden God within us.


James, Jesus's brother, was basically second-in-command. Physical, psychic and spiritual wholeness can be part of healing.

We need to discover our 'true' selves.

Hate is a form of darkness.

Verse 33 basically says we need to walk the talk. Verse 37 tells us to dismiss preconceived notions. All things with pass. Section 45 says 'by their fruits ye shall know them.' In other words, what a person actually does allows us to better understand the person. Verse 72 shows us that Jesus held women on an equal footing with men.

In fact there was a group of women that followed him and supported him and his movement financially. Mary Magdalene was one of these people and from what I have read it sees she really understood just what he was saying. The Gospel of Mary has a section where she was talking to the male disciples and a couple of them were very upset that Jesus seemed to have told her things he hadn't told them.

Some of the main points of the book include:

A very important tenant is that we can hope to transform the world only if we can transform ourselves.

They emphasized the integration of both our male and female selves.

The book also includes web links and a bibliography.

[J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enlightening omission from the traditional Christian canon. It is easy to see why Church authorities would not want to include this text.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find Jean-Yves Leloup's commentary illuminating and insightful. I have spent much time with Thomas already, but had not gotten to Leloup's presentation until now. I value his clarifying insights, which made this a page-turner I almost couldn't put down.

(Despite the only Goodreads description of this title being in Portuguese, I read the English version.)

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a Gospel allegedly authored by Judas Thomas the Twin. This Gospel does not provide a narrative analysis as the four Gospels of the New Testament do. The focus is the (page 5) "sayings of Jesus." As such, this work is closer to what is called a (page 7) "a collection of sayings." The introductory essay (an introduction and a rather difficult concluding essay by Harold Bloom sandwich the slim volume of sayings) notes that there are three explanations for the "Gospel of Thomas," one of which is that it is (page 13) "independent of the New Testament synoptic gospels, but it is related to oral or written traditions similar to those behind the synoptic gospels." Marvin Meyer, the book's editor, suggests that the Gospel of Thomas (page 13) "preserves sayings that at times appear to be more original than the New Testament parallels."

Bloom's concluding essay uses this Gospel to raise interesting questions about Biblical understanding. Not being an expert, I say nothing more. Individual readers will need to examine his work for themselves and come to their own judgments.

The Gospel itself is interesting, given that quite a few of the "sayings" are very close to what is in the traditional four Gospels. One example:

55 Jesus said, "Fortunate are the poor, for yours is heaven's kingdom."

110 Jesus said, "Let someone who has found the world and has become wealthy renounce the world."

Other apothegms:

1 And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."

95 Jesus said, "If you have money, do not lend it at interest. Rather give [it:] to someone from whom you will not get it back."

And one final saying (discussed at length in the introduction and in Lane's work on the Bible):

114 Simon Peter said to them, "Mary should leave us, for females are not worthy of 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 heaven's kingdom."

What to make of the Gospel of Thomas? I'm not an expert, but I do find this interesting reading. What it portends for an understanding of Scripture I must leave to others. But the questions that come to mind as one reads the essays and, even more, the text itself, makes this an interesting expenditure of mental energy.

[Jonathan Hatt · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Gnostics should try harder at not plagiarizing.

***Just an additional note: gnostic literature was never debated by the earliest disciples of Christ, nor was there some secret canon hidden by the compilers of the biblical canon. For a serious discussion on this, see Michael Kruger’s “Canon Revisited.”

[Aytac Koray Koc · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a real gem. Leloup shows the way for attaining Godhead, which is inside us. Some people, like Leloup, have extraordinary grasping and understanding.

[mariel p acosta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful way to interpret the Gospel

The descriptions of the Logions from a different point of view is refreshing. It truly helped me find answers in life.

[Felix · Rating 4 out of 5]

This text is a treasure trove of information about a very different version of early Christianity. The legitimacy of this source has been repeatedly questioned (and that is not unwarranted), but legitimacy is hard to define. This text is legitimate in the sense that it is authentic, but it does not follow the Pauline tradition which is the foundation of every historical Christian tradition today. Whether or not Thomasine Christianity existed concurrently with the Pauline tradition is the only really significant open question. What is undisputed is that Thomasine and Pauline Christianity both existed, but only the Pauline tradition survived the the Classical Period.

Thomasine Christianity is highly initiatory. In the faith-works dichotomy, it is a tradition that sits more with Paul than with James, but it asks more of its followers with regard to accepting Jesus. Rather than simply accepting him as a saviour, this is a tradition which requires initiation into hidden knowledge. These sayings are rich in this sort of language. This is a religious tradition sitting more with the Cult of Mithras, or the Cult of Pythagoras than with what we think of today as ‘mainstream’ Christianity.

See Logion 53 for example:

His disciples asked him:
“Is circumcision useful or not?”
He replied:
If it were useful, fathers would engender sons born circumcised from their mothers.
Rather, it is the circumcision in spirit that is truly useful.

However, I say this with the caveat that Judaism of this period was itself fairly initiatory, particularly in the Essene tradition (which is the tradition preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls). There is absolutely nothing unusual or unprecedented about this. The tradition of early Christianity centred around James, the brother of Jesus, may well have preserved an initiatory quality too. It’s hard to say since the Second Jewish War annihilated that tradition pretty comprehensively, and we have never uncovered a source for Jamesian tradition equivalent to what the Nag Hammadi library is for the Thomasine tradition or The Dead Sea Scrolls for the Jewish Essene tradition.

This edition is curious. I think the translation is probably fine. I studied Coptic at university for some time, but never to a high level, and most of what I did learn has left me now. The stranger thing is the commentary, which is not academic. It’s more of a spiritual commentary, trying to pull a metaphysical message out of the text, but yet it never really moves all the way into being openly religious in nature. I don’t know what to make of it to be honest. But the core text is well-presented, and the original Coptic is printed here too.

[Sarah]

إنجيل توما الملقب "بالإنجيل الخامس" يظم 114 قولا من الأقوال التي تنسب للمسيح عليه السلام بدون أن تتحول لسيرة و بدون تسلسل زمني لها.و هو إحدى النصوص الغنوصية المكتشفة ب "نجع حمادي"في صحراء الصعيد المصري بعد مرور ألف و 500 سنة
بعض الباحثين يرجعون تاريخه إلى النصف الثاني من القرن الأول الميلادي و إعتباره مصدرا لإنجيلي "متى و لوقا"
أقدم ترجمة متوفرة له باليونانية لكن يعتقد أنه كتب باللغة الٱرامية أو السريانية
وبسبب طابعه الغنوصي فهو يعد من الأناجيل المنحولة الغير معترف بها من قبل
الكنيسة
ينسب هذا الإنجيل إلى يهوذا توما أحد تلاميذ يسوع الإثني عشر أو أحد إخوته المذكورين في الأناجيل :يعقوب ،سمعان ،يوسف ، يهوذا

قرأته بترجمة فراس السواح حيث إعتمد على 4 ترجمات مختلفة كمصادر بالإضافة لشروحاته ضمن كتاب "الوجه الٱخر للمسيح"

[Yaaresse · Rating 3 out of 5]

This slim book caused a bit of a stir among fundies when it cropped up in the mid-1980s. That it was considered heretical and forbidden by orthodox Christian denominations was enough right there to make me want to read it. (I hate it when people tell me what I can and can't read.)

I think most of it was over my head then, but I remember being fascinated by how different it was from the "accepted" version of the NT. Probably should give it another read and see what I think with another few decades under my belt.

[Jose-Luis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jesus was certainly a poet and a great one at that, but it is important to realize he spoke of us all being the children of "God" (the creator, the architect, etc.) and he himself knew he was not special. His sayings are rather important and hold more weight and significance than the entire religions that have been based off him for the sole benefit of those governing those religions.

[Paul Barth · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading this it is patently obvious why it has never been included in the New Testament.

[Leonardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever I’ve been asked to explain what it means for me to be a religious man (specifically, a Catholic), I’ve found it hard to give succinct answers which could encompass all of my (apparently) loose thoughts and feelings, and I often risked to reduce them to mere truisms e.g. “we should love one another!” and “everyone should be saved!” - perhaps more crucially, some of these did not sound fully Catholic per se. This wonderfully translated and commented version of the Gospel of Thomas finally gave me the language and framework to navigate the subtleties of my own thoughts.

I’ve long been exploring different religious and spiritual and philosophical texts to “put a label” on my innate (hah!) set of beliefs; when I stumbled upon gnosticism through Pagels’ work on it, I immediately felt intimately seen like I hadn’t before. I decided to approach the Gospel of Thomas as the first apocryphal text I’d study in its entirety, and (based on my staggering sample size of 1) I’d recommend the same to anyone interested in acquiring a taste for this diverse set of heresies (or original form of Christianity? that’s beyond the scope of this review!).

The Logia themselves are quite dense with meaning, and Leloup does a great job at pointing out connections to the canonical gospels, the old testament, other sources and authors (from Augustine to Kafka), as well as doing a lot of reading between the lines, using subtleties of translations to expand possible meanings; here might lie my only critique: some of these interpretations feel very personal or at least not substantiated, but perhaps this is a result of how scholarly Leloup is elsewhere in the book, in comparison. As a related side note, as a physicist myself, the links to quantum mechanics seemed a tad gratuitous and pseudoscientific at times; however I do appreciate the parallels, present elsewhere e.g. some annotated versions of the Bhagavad Gita.

The theme of interpersonal relations is one where the Logia and Leloup echo a lot of my thinking, both with strangers, friends, family, and romantic partners; how many times I’ve tried to explain myself in vain that otherness and difference are the basis of love, always! (Cf. with The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran on the same topic)

Finally, what perhaps spoke the most to me, is the description of Pharisees, and the shift of importance from the form of prayer (fast, alms, etc) to the actual driving force and substance behind these actions. This is already present in Catholicism, but to a lesser extent; gnostic traditions push this further, in a way that I subconsciously already practiced and shared with others. For this precise reason, I shall avoid further discussion of my most inner thoughts on the actual religious and spiritual topics contained in the text: gnosis, materialism vs spiritualism, ego death, guilt, salvation, etc. I’ve said enough.

A highly recommended read for both Christians and not, agnostics and believers.

1 John 3:14
“Whoever does not love, dwells in death.”

[Nela Kadlecova · Rating 2 out of 5]

„Nenašel jsem mezi nimi jediného žíznivého a má duše pocítila bolest nad lidskými syny, že jsou slepí ve svém srdci a nevidí, že přišli na svět prázdní a hledají zase, jak by prázdní vyšli ze světa.“

V knize jsou asi 4-5 zajimavych versu (viz ten vyse uvedeny). A jinak je to smesice vyroku v jedne kupe. Necetla jsem to i s komentari, pouze jako ciste Tomasovo evangelium a prislo mi to lehce random.

[Carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very cool and an interesting perspective from an Apostle of Jesus

[Dawne Haase · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remarkable! I intend to reread this book. There is insight that has truly touched my heart. The commentary following each chapter or saying is helpful and gives understanding.

[Petrus Kero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now i know all secret teachings of Jesus

[MaryKate Berg]

very dialogue driven

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought provoking

[Sharon Elletson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know, you are wondering why I'm reading these religious text. It's because it's interesting and thought provoking.

This is a non-canonical gospel believed to have been written in the early 2nd century CE. It contains a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus and was discovered in 1945 near Nag Hammadi, Egypt.

After reading Margaurite Porete, I found this to be a breeze and enjoyed the cross references with other verses and teachings. as they broke the convoluted parables and quotes. I came away with some new understand.

"[Jesus] said, 'What you will hear in your ear, in the other ear proclaim from your rooftops. After all, no one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, nor does one put it in a hidden place. Rather, one puts it on a lampstand so that all who come and go will see its light.'"

[Kayla Barriger · Rating 2 out of 5]

As with any book regarding the person of Jesus of Nazareth, much of your belief will depend upon your starting point. If you already have the conviction that He was, in fact, the Son of God on earth, then obviously, you will read this book in a different context than someone who may have a different belief. To be honest, I do come from a Christian perspective of Jesus being The Christ. And this did play a role in how I interpreted the text of the Gospel of Thomas. But I will get to that later. First, I want to focus on the importance of recognizing the origins of this "hidden gospel."
Many people may say that this gospel is the missing link to who Jesus was. However, I can't help but doubt this based upon the circumstances surrounding it's origin. First of all, if this truly was so important to our understanding of Jesus, why has it been buried around Egypt for nearly 2000 years? If it contained the truth, wouldn't someone, somewhere, have copied it and spread it abroad? Or even have suggested that such a document existed? But instead, we were unaware of its very existence until 1945 when Muhammad Ali accidentally stumbled across it (and his version of the story has some interesting, or perhaps questionable, elements).
The document has been dated by scholars to around 150AD, over 110 years after the time of Jesus. The 4 Biblical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) have been dated between 60-80AD, merely 30 years after the time of Jesus.
Furthermore, the Biblical Gospels were written by the disciples of Jesus, who followed Him throughout the entire 3 years of ministry. It is believed that the author of the Gospel of Thomas was written by the twin of Jesus. But why is there no other evidence that Jesus had a twin brother, other than the claims surrounding this gospel? And would Thomas have lived to be 150 years old (Historical dating has placed Jesus' birth around 4BC)?
Next, scholars base the authenticity of this gospel upon the hypothetical "Q" document. Let me restate that: the validity of the Gospel of Thomas is founded upon the existence of a document that has yet to be found and upon which there is no solid evidence to have ever existed. But even if the "Q" document does exist, and the Biblical passages that scholars believe to have been taken from the "Q" document is in fact from the yet-to-be-discovered document, the Gospel of Thomas still contrasts with what all 4 Biblical Gospels claim. Especially on Jesus being the Son of God.
This review is just an overview summary of the serious flaws, if not fatal flaws, that one needs to consider before advocating that the Gospel of Thomas is an honest source of truth. If you are wanting more information, I would suggest you starting research with the books "More than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell and "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel.

[Ruri Gokou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading the Gospel of Thomas was quite esoteric. Very mysterious. I had no idea what he was talking about, but after reading the afterword by Harold Bloom and watching some interpretations on YouTube. I have a better idea of these writings. This Jesus interests me because a lot of what he says reminds me of Hinduism and Buddhism. The spark is within us as it is outside us. It makes me wonder if that is one reason why this was not accepted into the Bible.

This Jesus doesn't come to save us. Instead we have the ability to save ourselves. This contradicts what the the churches say that we need them because they have what we need. It's because we're sinful. But why because these things are within our nature that we were created with. It makes no sense to me. In my youth, I was very much attached to my ego. I wondered, "How can you just give up everything? I'm going to die but I want to keep my personality and thoughts!" It is now in my 30s, I realize how childish those thoughts were.

We are too attached to our ego, and the material. And it is because of those attachments we continue to be drawn to the material. In the past, I felt it was scary. The negation of self. My personality. My likes and dislikes. All of it wiped out. But, I've realized we need to embrace this idea. We were born into this world as nothing and so shall we pass on with nothing. Our memories. This baggage of the mind just prevents us from returning to the light. The light within us is not part of this created world.

Reading Jorden Peterson's 12 Rules, he mentions that memory is to remember things. But not in the way we think. It's for the things we did wrong or messed up, and to learn from it and move on. Thinking of this I was able to better move on from the things that plagued my mind.

The Gnostics found knowledge. Of knowing oneself. "Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed." Jesus said.

Everything is available to us already. Nothing is hidden. We only need to knock on the door.

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gnostic gospels are gospels that were never approved for inclusion in the 'official' version of the Bible. The Gospel of Thomas consists of 144 sayings of Jesus. They do not occur in any order or any category. Some are sort of familiar, some not.

The Gospel of James the Righteous is, in places, pretty much like the Bible. In other places the sayings just seem outright wrong for one reason for another.

There is a Greek Gospel of Thomas, like the above one, but there are only fragments of the full work. The Gospel of Mary is another gospel that is missing a lot including the first 6 chapters. It's a very interesting gospel, especially when two of the apostles get on her case, basically for being a woman and therefore unreliable, but she ends up defended by one of the other apostles.

The Gospel of John I found somewhat strange, especially early on when he's in a pagan temple and has a lot of non-Christians gather and then threatens to kill all of them if they don't destroy their idols. This I find to be really upsetting as it amounts to murdering anyone who doesn't believe what you do and we see enough of this in today's world with religious extremists and their acts of terror.

He also does a lot of raising the dead and often before he does something he prays. On and on and on, so much so that it's surprising no one just said 'get on with it.'

Further, his death scene is really weird. He has a trench dug, removes his clothes and lays down in the trench and dies. I'd expect that of Monty Python but of a real religious figure? It just doesn't seem right.


This is, of course, and example of just how different the Gnostic gospels and other early writings are and how they vary considerably in quality and believable. Anyhow, the book gives the ready a good selection of these to go through.

[Rick-Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Gospel of Thomas is a rather interesting collection of sayings. Oddly enough, Christianity does not really have a book of aphorisms that is not borrowed from Judaism (i.e. Ecclesiastes and Proverbs). The Gospel of Thomas offers a rather interesting provision for aphorisms lovers and those interested in what Sirach calls the obscure sayings of the wise. But, what makes these sayings interesting or worth reading, especially if one is of an orthodox Christian stance or a non-Christian interest?
Well, it is worth noting that author of this collection is not necessarily discussing a polarity of Christianities. That is to say, the author is not necessarily providing an immediately contrary wisdom of Christianity. In fact, some of the Beatitudes are mentioned as well as other famous sayings of Jesus, such as the seed scattered on the infertile ground, on thorns, and on fecund soil. So, this gospel collects some of orthodox Christianity's most treasured passages, which indicates a sharing of wisdom.
Of course, the context of the Gospel of Thomas lends to recognition of these sayings with a different context than that of Matthew or Luke. For example, the Beatitudes in Matthew are contextualized by a teaching of masses gathered physically before Jesus and his disciples; Jesus lays down a discussion of states of character, which for me are a literary allusion to Moses and the Ten Commandments (please understand that I do not suggest replacement here). Yet, in the Gospel of Thomas there is not a complete sermon. This Jesus is contextualized by the obscurity of aphorisms and their temporal disconnection. Jesus is not part of a story in the Gospel of Thomas. Note an important distinction: Jesus is a character in these books like Socrates for Plato. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is obscured by the immediacy and familiarity whereas the Gospel of Thomas finds Jesus obscure because of the immediacy of the aphorisms and sayings. Why does this obfuscation matter? One theme I find in the Gospel of Thomas is that Jesus really isn't important as a character, which is kind of nice. Jesus, in my reading, is less of a preacher with a message from God, and instead more of a stand-in for a Spirit referred to, of course, as a child and the Kingdom of God. Again, I am not talking about Jesus the person, but Jesus the character in these gospels. This distinction is critical because the intent of the authors of Matthew and Luke's gospels have different intents and literary methods and themes activating around and through the character of Jesus than the author of the Gospel of Thomas. The latter does not seem to want us to have that sort of intimacy that the former authors develop through narratives with the character of Jesus. For me, the idea is something like taking the god of Job, far apart from humanity yet wishful to have a relationship with humans, and giving that God a chance to speak with humans not through rainfall but through a mouth. Interestingly, liquid is still thematically relevant as Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas sometimes relies on imbibing as a symbol, which is interestingly pondered alongside the voice of God through rainfall upon Job. But, I digress. The point is that Jesus is not given an intimacy through narrative and character development in the gospel I am reviewing: Jesus is obscure and the interest is developing an intimacy with spirit/wisdom, which is a sort of union.

Of course, union cannot be discussed without some focus on alterity as well as relationships. The Gnostics are sometimes declared to be dualists. I think this distinction can be problematic if one understands the Gnostics as binarists. I did not see such mutual exclusion, but a great deal more complexity. I found a critical undulating theme to be duality as evinced by interpreting the prescript: "these are the hidden sayings that the living Yeshua spoke and Yehuda Toma the twin recorded". A simple statement that is almost disregardable at prima facie; what does this sentence offer except a by-line? In my reading, I found the point to be the unity that twins share. Twins are an intimate relationship within a family, often one associated with exterior congruence despite varying personalities. Twins may look alike (in cases of identical twins) and come from the same parents, but twins are different people. As for fraternal twins, the point I am discussing is the sharing of parents and intimacy through birth as well as relationship alongside that of differing self-developments. The science is not really important for understanding this text. What is important is the twin Yehuda Toma. The suggestion that I think is developed with contemplation of the gospel is the relationship of Jesus, and the symbolism beneath this character, with the twin: an apostle and attributed author of this gospel. A consideration of dualities, if we maintain this semantic, is transformed by a consideration of twins, however, let us first consider the aforementioned quote. As I read this gospel, the twins of spirit and person (Yeshua as spirit and Yehuda Toma as standing in for the seeker) are a symbolization of the twin relationship. This is not like Cartesian duality with mind or spirit in our case interacting with the more separate and spacial body culminating in the mind-body problem. I am not discussing the location of Cogito vis-a-vis that of a disparate body I am trying to prove exists after doubt. Nor an alignment with authorities like adhering to a rabbi, which I am not arguing for or against except in conceptual underpinning. My fear with trying to place the Gospel of Thomas into these categories is the prevention of the text's meanings and insights as opposed to finding insights within the structures being activated. The twins are a little more apparent here not through polarity, but through relationship. This text deploys meaning with cloisters of twins. Yeshua and Yehuda, for example, are placed into a union not so much as polarities or binaries but as two beings with a union. Yeshua the living speaker and Yehuda the collector of the speakings provide a sort of parallel with each other that is not meant to be mutually exclusive as I read the text because the focus is their relationship's bond rather than an analytical partitioning.

Unfortunately, my first review was lost after this point, which provides a fortunate opportunity of reconsideration. The themes I see in this text are often lifted out of the words with a consideration of the twins, and the subject of relationship is a primary tool of the creation of the text's meaning as well as its literary devices such as symbolism, parallelism, and personfication .

[Robert Fritz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm thinking that this review will be the only one of several books that I read on this subject that I'll enter into Goodreads since it's fairly easy to access. I simply enjoyed researching this topic. Just to begin - the other books on the topic which I read were:
Q the Earliest Gospel – An Intro to the original stories and sayings of Jesus – John Kloppenborg
Beyond Belief – The Secret Gospel of Thomas – Elaine Pagels
Zealot – The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth – Reza Aslan
I got started reading John Dominic Crossan (thanks to our Pastor Steve Swanson) and that moved me into these four books.
The Gospel of Thomas was discovered in the 1940's and was one that was not included in the official version of the bible that was put together back prior to 300 AD. I found that I enjoyed the focus on the purported sayings of Jesus and not on the stories related to what many consider the myths of Jesus - the birth and the death. Isn't that what is really important? What was actually said. Like the other gospels, there are verses that were perhaps edited or added as the stories were orally passed down or written, still it was interesting to read some sayings that were new to me as well as some which were very similar to the familiar ones that we grew up hearing.
Each of the books I mentioned above were quite interesting, but for me, the most fascinating was Zealot by Aslan, which is the most recently written and which received wide press coverage. If you're read it, let me know, I'd like to discuss sections with you.

[Fnaught · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the Penguin version in 'The Apocryphal Gospels'. The soul is a little seed-shaped ball and the only way into heaven is to make yourself all soul at the same time as you glorify the body -for now- during your youth. Do not put any stock in flesh-worship, however. You can only leave if you are ascetic, whatever that means in the modern sense. Bones and skin will drop away like a veil as your light joins the light that already is. Homogenous [although the bad are revoked entirely -maybe I?]: it is already your best characteristics with infinitely more and greater individuals, having incarnated itself in history and having shed the conditions of the einsof. A tower of golden limbs enfolding in a golden winged tree. It's like a giant living organism of brain coral but carved out of the finest imperial marble -with some de Chiricho style patios here and there with gypsy orphans playing at them. They hold small plastic balls like in the Beckett audio play 'All that falls'. But gravity can turn off. Love.