Gospel Of Thomas Download
So in 330 ad God moved upon Constantine to come to christ, and to compile the New Testament He commishioned Eusebius to do this. They gathered all the scrolls available and determined they needed the witness of two and three main churches to certify an apostle originally gave them a gospel or epistle. And that said main church then shared a copy to one or more churches
Gospel Of Thomas Download
Greetings! I like your reminder regarding Luke 21:25. It is important that we remember the complexity of the gospels and the hidden words of Jesus Christ as he taught the world! Imagine if we had access to majority of the missing books of the Bible beyond the Septuagint.
An excellent point. I totally agree. I AM irritated by the fact that this gospel was not included in the Bible and to think that the content of the Bible was chosen by a few people who thought that current contents of the Bible was best for humanity. Outrageous!!
The Gospel of Thomas (also known as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas) is an extra-canonical[1] sayings gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. Scholars speculate that the works were buried in response to a letter from Bishop Athanasius declaring a strict canon of Christian scripture. Scholars have proposed dates of composition as early as 60 AD and as late as 250 AD.[2][3] Since its discovery, many scholars have seen it as evidence in support of the existence of a "Q source" which might have been very similar in its form as a collection of sayings of Jesus without any accounts of his deeds or his life and death, referred to as a sayings gospel.[4][5]
The Coptic language text, the second of seven contained in what modern-day scholars have designated as Nag Hammadi Codex II, is composed of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. Almost two-thirds of these sayings resemble those found in the canonical gospels[6] and its editio princeps counts more than 80% of parallels,[7] while it is speculated that the other sayings were added from Gnostic tradition.[8] Its place of origin may have been Syria, where Thomasine traditions were strong.[9] Other scholars have suggested an Alexandrian origin.[10]
Because of its discovery with the Nag Hammadi library, and the cryptic emphasis on "gnosis" in some of the sayings, it was widely thought that the document originated within a school of early Christians, proto-Gnostics.[13][14] However, critics have questioned whether the description of Thomas as an entirely gnostic gospel is based solely upon the fact that it was found along with gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi.[15][14]
Scholars generally fall into one of two main camps: an "early camp" favoring a date for the core "before the end of the first century,"[36] prior to or approximately contemporary with the composition of the canonical gospels; and a more common "late camp" favoring a date in the 2nd century, after composition of the canonical gospels.[quote 1][quote 2]
Theissen and Merz argue the genre of a collection of sayings was one of the earliest forms in which material about Jesus was handed down.[37] They assert that other collections of sayings, such as the Q source and the collection underlying Mark 4, were absorbed into larger narratives and no longer survive as independent documents, and that no later collections in this form survive.[37] Marvin Meyer also asserted that the genre of a "sayings collection" is indicative of the 1st century,[38] and that in particular the "use of parables without allegorical amplification" seems to antedate the canonical gospels.[38]
Stevan L. Davies argues that the apparent independence of the ordering of sayings in Thomas from that of their parallels in the synoptics shows that Thomas was not evidently reliant upon the canonical gospels and probably predated them.[39][40] Several authors argue that when the logia in Thomas do have parallels in the synoptics, the version in Thomas often seems closer to the source. Theissen and Merz give sayings 31 and 65 as examples of this.[37] Koester agrees, citing especially the parables contained in sayings 8, 9, 57, 63, 64 and 65.[41] In the few instances where the version in Thomas seems to be dependent on the synoptics, Koester suggests, this may be due to the influence of the person who translated the text from Greek into Coptic.[41]
Koester also argues that the absence of narrative materials, such as those found in the canonical gospels, in Thomas makes it unlikely that the gospel is "an eclectic excerpt from the gospels of the New Testament".[41] He also cites the absence of the eschatological sayings considered characteristic of Q source to show the independence of Thomas from that source.[41]
The late camp dates Thomas some time after 100 AD, generally in the early second century.[quote 1][quote 3] They generally believe that although the text was composed around the mid-second century, it contains earlier sayings such as those originally found in the New Testament gospels of which Thomas was in some sense dependent in addition to inauthentic and possibly authentic independent sayings not found in any other extant text. J. R. Porter dates Thomas much later, to the mid-third century.[3]
Another saying that employs similar vocabulary to that used in Luke rather than Mark is saying 31 in the original Greek (Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1), where Luke 4:24's term dektos ('acceptable')[68] is employed rather than Mark 6:4's atimos ('without honor').[69] The word dektos (in all its cases and genders) is clearly typical of Luke, since it is only employed by the author in the canonical gospels Luke 4:19,[70] 4:24, and Acts 10:35.[71] Thus, the argument runs, the Greek Thomas has clearly been at least influenced by Luke's characteristic vocabulary.[note 3]
J. R. Porter states that, because around half of the sayings in Thomas have parallels in the synoptic gospels, it is "possible that the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas were selected directly from the canonical gospels and were either reproduced more or less exactly or amended to fit the author's distinctive theological outlook."[72] According to John P. Meier, scholars predominantly conclude that Thomas depends on or harmonizes the Synoptics.[73]
Several scholars argue that Thomas is dependent on Syriac writings, including unique versions of the canonical gospels. They contend that many sayings of the Gospel of Thomas are more similar to Syriac translations of the canonical gospels than their record in the original Greek. Craig A. Evans states that saying 54 in Thomas, which speaks of the poor and the kingdom of heaven, is more similar to the Syriac version of Matthew 5:3 than the Greek version of that passage or the parallel in Luke 6:20.[74]
[Thomas'] implicit story has to do with a figure who imparts a secret, hidden wisdom to those close to him, so that they can perceive a new truth and be saved by it. 'The Thomas Christians are told the truth about their divine origins, and given the secret passwords that will prove effective in the return journey to their heavenly home.' This is, obviously, the non-historical story of Gnosticism [...] It is simply the case that, on good historical grounds, it is far more likely that the book represents a radical translation, and indeed subversion, of first-century Christianity into a quite different sort of religion, than that it represents the original of which the longer gospels are distortions [...] Thomas reflects a symbolic universe, and a worldview, which are radically different from those of the early Judaism and Christianity.[86]
Considered by some as one of the earliest accounts of the teachings of Jesus, the Gospel of Thomas is regarded by some scholars as one of the most important texts in understanding early Christianity outside the New Testament.[90] In terms of faith, however, no major Christian group accepts this gospel as canonical or authoritative. It is an important work for scholars working on the Q document, which itself is thought to be a collection of sayings or teachings upon which the gospels of Matthew and Luke are partly based. Although no copy of Q has ever been discovered, the fact that Thomas is similarly a 'sayings' gospel is viewed by some scholars as an indication that the early Christians did write collections of the sayings of Jesus, bolstering the Q hypothesis.[91]
Modern scholars do not consider Thomas the Apostle the author of this document and the author remains unknown. J. Menard produced a summary of the academic consensus in the mid-1970s which stated that the gospel was probably a very late text written by a Gnostic author, thus having very little relevance to the study of the early development of Christianity. Scholarly views of Gnosticism and the Gospel of Thomas have since become more nuanced and diverse.[92] Paterson Brown, for example, has argued forcefully that the three Coptic Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth are demonstrably not Gnostic writings, since all three explicitly affirm the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life, which Gnosticism by definition considers illusory and evil.[93]
Some modern scholars (most notably those belonging to the Jesus Seminar) believe that the Gospel of Thomas was written independently of the canonical gospels, and therefore is a useful guide to historical Jesus research.[90][100] Scholars may utilize one of several critical tools in biblical scholarship, the criterion of multiple attestation, to help build cases for historical reliability of the sayings of Jesus. By finding those sayings in the Gospel of Thomas that overlap with the Gospel of the Hebrews, Q, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and Paul, scholars feel such sayings represent "multiple attestations" and therefore are more likely to come from a historical Jesus than sayings that are only singly attested.[101]
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