| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| All4Him |
Posted - 16 Oct 2001 : 15:23:10
Is the Body of Christ aware that there are other proven writings that that the government of "Religious Churchianity" has hidden?
The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of traditional sayings, prophecies, proverbs, and parables of Jesus. The Coptic Gospel of Thomas was translated from the Greek; in fact, several fragments of this Greek version have been preserved, and can be dated to about 200 C.E. Thus the Greek (or even Aramaic) collection was composed in the period before about 200 C.E., possibly as early as the second half of the first century, in Syria, Palestine, or Mesopotamia. The authorship of the Gospel of Thomas is attributed to Didymos Judas Thomas, that is, Judas "the Twin," who was an apostle of Jesus.
The relationship of the Gospel of Thomas to the New Testament gospels have been a matter of special interest: many of the sayings of the Gospel of Thomas have parallels in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). A comparison of the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas with their parallels in the synoptic gospels suggests that the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas either are present in a more primitive form or are developments of a more primitive of such sayings.
Indeed, the Gospel of Thomas resembles the synoptic sayings source, often called "Q" (from the German word Quelle, "source"), which was the common source of sayings used by Matthew and Luke. Hence, the Gospel of Thomas and its sources are collections of sayings and parables are closely related to the sources of the New Testament gospels. Because of the close parallel between many of the sayings in Thomas and the Gospels, some scholars have suggested that Thomas is also based on the Q source or is actually Q itself. Of course, these remain only hypotheses since there is no conclusive proof that a Q source ever existed.
Still, the existence of a collection of sayings of Jesus as early as the dates proposed for Thomas suggests that there did exist such a collection in the early church.
A primary criticism to the Gospel of Thomas is of its Gnostic origin. This is primaraly due to the fact most ancient Gnostic writings are in Coptic and that the Gospel of Thomas was found among other Gnostic writings. This is a clear case of judgement by association. Greek fragments older than the Coptic version prove the Gospel of Thomas predates Gnosticism so the Gnostic bias should be removed.
The Apostle Thomas was also called Didymus which in the Greek means "Twin" or "Double".
KJV John 11:16 said Thomas, which is called Didymus
KJV John 20:24 ..one of the twelve, called Didymus
KJV John 21:2 -- Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus
This is from the King James Version, some translations render it the Twin instead of using the Greek Didymus.
RSV John 11:16 -- Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
Amplified Bible John 11:16 -- Then Thomas, who was called the Twin...
The Gnostics called Thomas the Twin Brother of Jesus. Since the Gnostic movement was started about 100 years or so after the death of Christ, the oral history had obviously been distorted by then on this particular detail.
Click to download: The Gospel of Thomas |
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