The Bible has been revealed for hundreds of years. The interpretations for it can vary from person to person.
The Gospel of Thomas is not included in the Bible for many reasons. It contains some different sayings from Jesus.
The Gospel of Thomas came under scrutiny from scholars and netizens when they claimed it was ‘banned’ from the Bible. While this is not true, it was consciously not included. This is because some of the teachings are different to what is found in the Bible as being attributed to Jesus.
According to Crosse Examined, the Gospel of Thomas doesn’t follow a narrative structure’ and ‘doesn’t report on major parts of Jesus’ life’.
Instead, it talks about 114 ‘esoteric sayings’ which are apparently secrets Jesus told his disciples during his life.
One text begins with, “These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.”
In After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity, Bart Ehrman says the document had ‘probably’ been written early in the second century’ despite ‘some of these sayings’ potentially being older and ‘going back to Jesus himself’.
Many scholar question the legitimacy of the Gospel of Thomas. Given the timeframe for it, it would have to have been written after the apostles died and so Apostle Thomas could not have authored it.
It was also not included because the church usually looks for ‘three different attributes’ when assessing texts.
First, to be considered one of the canon texts, the Gospel should be traced to apostolic eye-witness testimony. The Gospel of Thomas did not fulfill this requirement.
‘Apostolic eyewitness’ refers to the first hand accounts of and teachings of the apostles. These were people Jesus chose himself to witness his life, teachings, death, and resurrection.
One of the apostles was indeed named Thomas. However, the book was ascertained to be from the middle of the second century, long after the last apostle died.
The second reason is that the Gosptel did not align with any other biblical texts, and it is more Gnostic. This means that it focuses more on personal spiritual knowledge as the key to salvation which the church did not think aligned with the bible other teachings.
And third, the church did not want to list another Gospel, as it had only listed four then.
So what was so different about the Gospel of Thomas?
It did not focus on Jesus’ life and death, but more on Jesus’ voice and how he imparted ‘salvation through his teachings’ rather than ‘death and resurrection,’ Marko Marina, Ph.D. discusses.
In other Biblical texts, sin is identified as the main issue people have in this world but in the Gospel of Thomas, the main issue is identified as ignorance and not confronting the truth.
It quotes Jesus as saying, “Recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you. For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest.”
Another quote from the Gospel reads, “And he said, ‘The man is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of small fish. Among them the wise fisherman found a fine large fish. He threw all the small fish back into the sea and chose the large fish without difficulty. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.'”
The Jesus written about in the Gospel of Thomas also has different ideas on to where the ‘kingdom’ is. In it he is attributed to saying, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you.
“If they say to you, ‘It’s in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you.
“Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it’s outside of you.”
While some believe that the Gospel of Thomas serves as a mockery to Christianity, others are more accepting of its existence.
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