The Gospel Of Thomas

I recently finished reading the Gospel of Thomas and I’m both intrigued and confused and also sort of annoyed and yet also very, very hopeful.

(I’ll get back to why I’m intrigued, confused, annoyed, and hopeful in a moment.)

(Also, NOTE: I’m no expert in anything I’m about to share with you, these are just some observations I’ve made after reading the Gospel of Thomas and doing my own research on the book/letter/whatever it is.)

If you don’t know what the Gospel of Thomas is, it’s a “Gnostic Gospel” that is part of a collection of writings found in the Nag Hammadi Scriptures, which is a collection of texts that was found in 1945 in Upper Egypt. “Gnostic” refers to “secret” and the Gnostics believed in the need to obtain “secret information” or “secret knowledge” in order to receive salvation.

Again, I’m not an expert and I realize that’s super vague, but that’s the general idea of the idea behind “Gnostic” or “Gnosticism”.

Anyways, the story how how these texts was found is actually quite interesting and although I won’t share all the details here (a quick Google search will do that for you) I will share this quote from Bart Ehrman regarding the discovery of these writings.

He says (in his book “Lost Christianities”) that this is …

“The most significant collection of lost Christian writings to turn up in modern times. It includes several Gospels about Jesus that had never been seen by any western scholar, books known to have existed in antiquity but lost for nearly 1500 years.”

In short, many of these texts date back to the 2nd century or roughly around 80+ years or so after Jesus’ death and so in the Nag Hammadi Scriptures we have books and writings and letters and Gospels and stories that would have been very well known to followers of Christ in the first few centuries of Christianity, but were lost shortly thereafter.

Why were they lost?

Because in the year 367 a powerful church bishop named Athanasius wrote a letter to the churches in Egypt that were under his jurisdiction and laid out the way that the Scriptures ought to be organized. Scholars tell us that this was the first time that anyone on record had indicated that the 27 books that we have in our New Testaments today …

Matthew.

Mark.

Luke.

John.

Acts.

Romans.

Etc.

… Were to be the only books included in the New Testament from that moment forward. In fact, he even went as far as to declare that all other books were heretical, should not be read, and should be disposed of.

BUT.

Someone.

Somewhere.

Perhaps in a nearby monastery.

Decided that these books and letters and writings shouldn't be destroyed, but preserved and hidden. Maybe they were fond of these books? Maybe the letters held an important place in their faith? Maybe they found the voice of Christ in these letters? Maybe the writings contained other insights into the life and teachings of Christ that the other 27 New Testament books didn’t contain?

We’ll never know for sure, of course, but whatever the case may be - someone somewhere hid these books in a jar and buried them deep in the ground where they were discovered some 1500 years later and in that jar was a leather bound book containing the Nag Hammadi Scriptures, a key one being the Gospel of Thomas.

Now, nobody thinks the Gospel was actually written by Thomas, but scholars believe that whoever wrote the Gospel simply attached Thomas’ name to it. And the Gospel doesn’t read like the Gospels you and I are used to. Like, this Gospel doesn’t contain any stories of Jesus …

No birth story.

No miracle stories.

No stories about his teachings.

Not a word about his crucifixion.

Nothing about his resurrection.

… None of that. Instead we have 114 “sayings of Jesus” or 114 different statements that Jesus made regarding life, faith, God, etc.

And already this makes most conservative Christians nervous, right? I can feel the remnants of my own conservative evangelical upbringing twitching inside as I write these words. Like, “there’s nothing about his death and resurrection? This is the most important part! This is the Gospel! This is the message of the Good News! This is how one obtains salvation - by hearing the story and believing! This can't possibly be a helpful book, no wonder it was deemed heretical by Athanasius!”

Where’s the Gospel message?

If something is going to be labeled a “gospel” shouldn’t it clearly spell out what the Gospel is?

I suppose that’s true, but here’s the interesting thing - it does spell out what the Gospel is, it does spell out how one can obtain eternal life … it just does so in a way that presents the Gospel message in a very different way than we might be used to in the Western church.

We’re used to hearing things like …

“To obtain eternal life you have to BELIEVE in Jesus.”

“In order to be saved you must say the Sinner’s prayer and repent of your sins.”

“You have to invite Jesus into your life.”

“You need to believe that Jesus died and rose again, that his death somehow paid for your sin.”

… And we could open up to any letter in the New Testament and point to any number of verses to build our case and make our point.

BUT.

In the Gospel of Thomas we’re not encouraged to believe or say a prayer or repent or confess a belief that Jesus died for our sins.

Rather, the Gospel opens with these words …

“These are the hidden sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Judas Thomas the Twin recorded. And he said, “whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death.”

In other words …

Do you want eternal life?

Do you want salvation?

Do you want to experience life and goodness and fullness?

Then dwell on these words, meditate on these sayings. Write them down. Bring them with you. Let them marinate in your mind. Let them consume your heart. And then as your understanding is deepened and your outlook is expanded and your soul is stretched … THEN you will escape death and receive life in abundance.

You see, for whoever wrote the Gospel of Thomas, salvation wasn’t about believing some theological idea or saying a magical prayer, but was about dwelling on the words of Christ and coming to understand the depth of his words, which come from a place that is other worldly.

And so as I said earlier, I just finished reading the Gospel of Thomas and I came away feeling intrigued, confused, annoyed, and hopeful.

Intrigued - the Gospel is filled with enough “sayings” from Jesus that I’ve also read in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John to make it feel super familiar, but also contains enough new phrases and new ideas and new concepts to make it feel fresh and new and leaving me wanting more.

Confused - some of the stuff in this book makes no sense to me. For instance, in saying 13 Jesus says to his disciples, “I am not your teacher. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have tended.”

Eh?

What the heck does that mean?

Annoyed - I’m actually kind of ticked that a letter such as the Gospel of Thomas was close to the hearts of the earliest followers of Jesus, but was deemed heretical and that when I was in school I was also told that it was heretical and was warned to steer clear of it and focus my attention solely on the books and letters in my Bible.

Why was this kept from me?

Why was this hidden from me?

Why was I not told more about this book?

Why wasn’t I given the chance to understand the story behind the Gospel of Thomas and think for myself?

Hopeful - more than anything else I’m hopeful because these early followers of Christ clearly thought about him and what it meant to follow him in a variety of different ways. If the 4 Gospels we have in our Bible’s (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are a vine that keeps us grounded in our faith (and I believe they are), perhaps letters like the Gospel of Thomas are shoots that go off of that vine showing us the beautiful diversity and the variety of thought and understanding that was found among those early followers of Jesus.

Right?

And if some of their thoughts were eventually deemed heretical by the powers of be, I find some comfort in being connected to them when my own ideas are tossed to the flames and deemed evil, heretical, unorthodox, dangerous, etc.

What I’m learning more and more with every conversation I have on the podcast and every book I read is that the early church was a very diverse place and somewhere along the way we lost that diversity in the West. Prior to the 4th century when creeds and doctrines and theologies began to be cemented into place under powerful emperors and rulers, various tribes of Christians held various ideas about Jesus, his death, his resurrection, his life, his birth, baptism, evangelism … and what it all meant. Some ideas were likely conservative while others were liberal … but they all had a place … and everybody got along and walked together into the world to practice and live the ways of Christ.

Unity was what it was all about - regardless of our ideas or our thoughts or our understandings or our experiences, we are all one.

We.

Are.

All.

ONE.

I find that hopeful and I hope you can too.

Much love,