The Historical Reliability of John's Gospel: Issues & Commentary by Craig L. Blomberg

Author:Craig L. Blomberg [Blomberg, Craig L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Chrisitian
ISBN: 9780830838714
Publisher: IVP Academic
Published: 2011-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel of Thomas is not a connected narrative of the events of Jesus’ life, but a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus, most of them introduced simply with the words ‘Jesus said’. These were allegedly revealed in secret to the apostle Thomas, but no serious scholar believes this claim. Many of the sayings have a patently Gnostic flavour, and little can be said in support of their authenticity. One of the most striking of these is the final one (114), which forms a brief dialogue: ‘Simon Peter said to them, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of Life.” Jesus said, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” ’ 67

This saying resembles the passage quoted from 2 Clement earlier in this chapter (here) and issues from an ascetic milieu in which expressions of sexuality were discouraged and an asexual or androgynous human being was looked upon as ideal (cf. Gospel of Thomas 22, in which Jesus makes the male and female into ‘one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female’). 68 Stanton comments, ‘As in many Gnostic writings, there is a misogynist streak: the female role in bearing more “imprisoned spirits” is deprecated.’ 69 Clearly, there is no support from the New Testament Gospels for such a doctrine. Whatever debates may linger over the Gospels’ attitudes toward women, in comparison to Gnosticism, they prove radically liberating!

However, over half of the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas resemble teachings of Jesus found in the canonical Gospels, though they seldom appear in identical form. A representative example is one of the longer sayings on the kingdom (Gospel of Thomas 3):

Jesus said, ‘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 is in the sea,” then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.’

The middle section of this passage resembles Luke 17:20b–21, in which Jesus says, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with observable signs; nor will they say, “Behold, here it is!” or “There!” for behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst, or, “within you” ’ Both passages can be interpreted to mean that Jesus did not believe that the kingdom of God would arrive with the Messiah’s spectacular display of power but with humble beginnings in the more ordinary events of his ministry and the ministry of his disciples.

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