Gospel of Thomas

Copyright © 2006 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

In 1945, twelve ancient books were found sealed in a jar at the base of a cliff near Nag Hammadi in upper Egypt. One of these 12 books–the Gospel of Thomas–was perhaps the greatest religious archaeological discovery of the 20th Century for the light it sheds on the origins of Christianity.

Unlike the New Testament gospels (Mark, Luke, Matthew, John), Thomas does not present a narrative of Jesus’ life. Instead, it comprises more than 100 sayings attributed to Jesus. An annotated version of Thomas from Skylight Paths (www.skylightpaths.com) makes the aphoristic sayings understandable even if readers have no previous knowledge of early Christian history or thought.

Skylight’s 2002 edition (ISBN: 1-893361-45-4) was translated from the Coptic and annotated by Stevan Davies, professor of religious studies at College Misericordia in Dallas, Pennsylvania. Davies has studied the Gospel of Thomas for more than 20 years. His other publications include the book The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom.

This edition of Thomas has a foreword by Andrew Harvey which is so bad I suggest you don’t waste time reading it. His writing is hopelessly mired in the most obnoxious sort of leftwing political bias. Instead, read Davies’s introduction and annotations. Davies explains how scholars put the gospel through rigorous scientific dating tests and determined it is a genuine first-century document, contemporaneous with or perhaps even earlier than the New Testament gospels.

Thomas, of course, was one of the 12 apostles of Jesus. He has been popularly called both Doubting Thomas and Thomas the Believer, depending on which events are emphasized. After Jesus’ death, Paul became the primary Christian missionary to the West and, according to some sources, Thomas became the missionary to the East. Later, Thomas was made a saint recognized even in India. In Edessa, Greece, where Thomas’s remains are venerated, he is known as the Apostle of India.

Thomas’s gospel sends a much different message from the New Testament gospels, and some scholars say the difference explains why it was not included in the New Testament.

Absent from Thomas is any mention of Jesus in the context of virgin birth, miracles, crucifixion, or resurrection. The gospel does not deny these traditional Christian beliefs, it simply does not say anything about them, for reasons unknown. Thomas portrays Jesus as a wisdom-loving sage, not as God or son of God. Some scholars take these omissions to mean that orthodox interpretations of Jesus were added later and may not be accurate; other scholars disagree.

Some folks think that Christianity would be destroyed as a religion if the miracles about Jesus were not accepted as literally true–that is, no virgin birth, no crucifixion, no resurrection. But no one says Buddhism is not a great world religion because miracles are not embedded in the life story of Buddha.

Why should it be any different with Christianity? With or without miracles, the life of Jesus is worthy of emulation. Jesus led such an exemplary life, he became as close to divine as a human being can become, like Buddha and other great religious figures. With or without miracles, Christians could continue to benefit from Jesus' life and words as guides to daily living.

Although Thomas is silent on some of the major tenets of traditional Christianity, he does say many of the same things the New Testament gospels say, but in Thomas they’re given a different context.

In Thomas, for example, the Kingdom of Heaven is not something God, Jesus, or anybody else will give us at some future date. Rather, the Kingdom of Heaven has always existed and continues right here, right now. It is both up there and down here, both outside us–and inside us. Perhaps most important, the Kingdom of Heaven is the Divine that we can experience and know directly in ways that benefit ourselves and others without hurting or excluding anyone.

The Gospel of Thomas is more likely to be welcomed and read by mystics both inside and outside of Christianity than by traditional Christians because mysticism is concerned with approaches to God through practice and direct experience rather than solely through faith.

Thomas’s ideas about direct communion with God are compatible with the mystical teachings found at the core of all major world religions. They’re also compatible with the teachings of the New Thought Movement. This development within Protestantism coalesced in the 1800s, spread worldwide, and helped create two denominations represented in Olympia–Unity Church and the Center for Spiritual Awakening.

So if persons who reject Christianity because they do not believe what orthodox Christians claim about Jesus will take the short time needed to read this annotated Thomas, they may discover an approach to religion that is optimistic, practical, and surprisingly ecumenical.