5: Gospel of Thomas Flashcards
Who is Thomas according to the New Testament?
Thomas is identified as one of the twelve in the Synoptics (Matt. 10:3, Mk 3:18, Lk 6:15).
Thomas is identified as “Thomas, also called the Twin (Didymus in Greek)” in three biblical passages (John 11:16; 20:24, 21:2)
In the beginning of the Gospel of Thomas, Thomas is identified as “Didymus Judas Thomas” (not Judas Iscariot)
Thus, the name convention Didymus Thomas thrice repeated in the Gospel of John is in fact a tautology (needless repetition) that omits the Twin’s actual name
The original manuscripts in Greek are just fragments.
Didymus Judas Thomas
“These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymus Judas Thomas recorded.”
“Didymus Judas Thomas” is like “Cephas Simon Peter”
“Didymus”
The Greek term for “twin”
“Thomas”
Although Matthew, Mark and Luke mention Thomas among ‘the twelve’ apostles, Thomas is not a proper name but means ‘twin’ in Aramaic, the language that Jesus would have spoken.
The author is identifying themself as a twin, most likely to Jesus, perhaps meaning figuratively, as in Jesus’ twin in his work of salvation.
Judas (not Iscariot)
Thomas identifies that the author’s given name was Judas but, his admirers specify, not Iscariot
What is the significance of Judas in Thomas’ name?
Syrian tradition cites that the apostle’s full name was Judas Thomas, or Jude Thomas.
(Compare that with Mark 6:3: Jesus goes back to his village of Nazareth and his fellow Nasarites say: “Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us? And they took offence at him. )
Who is this Judas mentioned here? Does this Judas have a connection with Thomas?
Thomas identifies that the author’s given name was Judas but, his admirers specify, not Iscariot
“Judas Iscariot” refers to the Judas of the New Testament who is regarded by Christian tradition for betraying Jesus before his death, however, the Judas who is behind this text is a different Judas.
What are some other traditions in circulation about Thomas?
Eusebius of Caesarea quotes Origen (died mid-third century) as having stated that Thomas was the apostle to the Parthians.
But Thomas is better known as the missionary to India through the Acts of Thomas, written in c. 200.
A long public tradition in the church at Edessa honoring Thomas as the Apostle of India resulted in several surviving hymns that are attributed to Ephrem, copied in codices of the 8th and 9th centuries. References in the hymns preserve the tradition that Thomas’ bones were brought from India to Edessa by a merchant, and that the relics worked miracles both in India and at Edessa.
The indigenous church of Kerala State, India has a tradition that St. Thomas sailed there to spread the Christian faith. He is said to have landed at a small port village, named Palayoor, near Guruvayoor, which was a priestly community at that time. Here he conversed with the community. Four prominent rich and priestly Hindu families accepted the Christian faith and are said to have been baptized by St. Thomas himself. He left Palayoorin 52 C.E., for southern Kerala State, where he established the Ezharappallikal, or “Seven and Half Churches.”
Sometimes called “Thomas Christians”
The name of Thomas is marked with the eastward Christian expansion towards Edessa (present-day southeastern Turkey) and Kerala (in southern India)
Kerala is a heavily Christian part of India, and Thomas is a highly regarded figure in this location
Why is Thomas more significant in the gospel of John?
“Doubting Thomas” in John
He is called “Doubting Thomas” because the story of him doubting Jesus after his resurrection is the most popular story of him; this story is told by John
In the other Gospels, there is just a passive mention of Thomas, but John mentions Thomas many times, and is negatively disposed toward Thomas.
John wants to discredit the people in the community that takes Thomas as tha patron and which John thinks have some mistaken ideas of Jesus. Some scholars think that one goal that John had in writing his gospel was to refute and discredit a type of Christianity that was espoused by Christians who has “Thomas” as their hero.
Hence, John paints Thomas in a rather negative light and portrays him as the opposite of what a true believer (the beloved disciple) should be and should do
John is out to portray Thomas in a negative light and contrast him with the true believer.
Despite that, there are striking similarities between the two.
What are some similarities between the gospels of John and Thomas?
Private Sayings
Non Apocalyptic (Realized Eschatology)
Protological (not Eschatological)
Private Sayings in John and Thomas
Both have extensive discourses that Jesus does IN PRIVATE to his chosen followers
JOHN: The farewell discourse at the last supper (chaps 13-16)
THOMAS: These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke to Didymus Judas Thomas
Non-Apocalyptic in John and Thomas
Mark expects an “apocalyptic” coming of the kingdom of God. This was a common trait in the late 2nd Temple period. This was a common kind of “coming.”
John and Thomas, on the other hand, are non-apocalyptic. This is very clear.
Why? John was written later, perhaps in time and Christians came to believe the apocalypse was not coming anytime soon, so John reflects that change in the second century.
Realized Eschatology in Thomas
Thomas presents an “interior” kingdom (Saying #3)
Logian 3: Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the (Father’s) imperial rule is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father’s) imperial rule is inside you and outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father.
Logion 5: But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.”
Logian 113: His disciples said to him, “When will the (Father’s) imperial rule come?” It will not come by watching for it. 3 It will not be said, ‘Look, here!’ or ‘Look, there!’ ‘Rather, the Father’s imperial rule is spread out upon the earth, and people don’t see it.”
The Kingdom of God is already here. You must just open your eyes and see how it is already present here.
Church Fathers were suspicious of this sayings, and this view of the Kingdom of God, because it is rooted in gnosticism
Church Fathers suppressed gnosticism, and gnostics were marginalized
Realized Eschatology in John
For John, eternal life begins NOW when the believer accepts Jesus (i.e. starts believing in Jesus). John points to an interior reality, and uses the term “eternal life” instead of the “kingdom.”
John 7: 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him
Protological (not Eschatological)
Eschatology: End / Protology: Beginning (Protology)
John and Thomas are not eschatological, but protological
Mark is apocalyptic, hence, he focuses on the coming Kingdom of God, deeply rooted in late second temple Jewish apocalyptic thought (e.g. Mark 13)
John and Thomas are non-apocalyptic and they seem to point readers not to the “end” but to the “beginning”
John and Beginnings
Example: John 1 begins like Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word.
It points back to the beginning of time
The whole Gospel of John can be read as a “subversion” of the first chapters of Genesis - Jesus, the new Adam, overcoming the disobedience of the first Adam by his death on the cross.
Thomas and Beginnings
Logian 50: Jesus said, “If they say to you, ‘Where have you come from?’ say to them, ‘We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established [itself], and appeared in their image.’ 2If they say to you, ‘Is it you?’ say, ‘We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living Father.’ 3 If they ask you, ‘What is the evidence of your Father in you?’ say to them, ‘It is motion and rest.’”
Deals with where we came from; our origins; our beginnings.
Logian 18: The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us, how will our end come?” Jesus said, “Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you are looking for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death.”
How can the gospel of Thomas give us a glimpse into the nature of the “Q document”?
The Q document is part of the widely accepted “two-source hypothesis” for explaining the Synoptic Gospels relations to each other.
It is imagined as a “Sayings Gospel”
Some scholars objected to this hypothetical source saying that there could not be just a “sayings gospel”
However, the discovery of Thomas vindicated this argument; it shows that there were indeed sayings gospels in the ancient world
How is Thomas comparable to the Synoptics?
Over half of the sayings of Thomas can be linked with what is found in the Synoptic Gospels (79 out of 114)
Is this a sign that there is something “ancient” in Thomas? That it drew from the same sources that the Synoptics (the earliest gospels) drew from?
Kato: some parts of Thomas can be traced to an earlier period, at least to the time of the Synoptics, however, along the way, some sayings (that are more explicitly gnostic in character) where added on through time
Confer the parallel Gospels: link
