The Sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas
Simon Gathercole examines the enigmatic Gospel of Thomas
Jesus says, “Blessed is the lion that a person will eat and the lion will become human.”
Jesus says, “Every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.”
This third-century papyrus leaf—known as POxy 1—was discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt and contains sayings of Jesus written in Greek. Scholars later determined the text was from the elusive Gospel of Thomas referenced by early Church Fathers. Photo: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
These bizarre statements are two of the 114 sayings of Jesus found in the Gospel of Thomas. The Gospel of Thomas is a non-canonical collection of the sayings of Jesus reputed to have been dictated to the apostle Thomas. In “The Gospel of Thomas: Jesus Said What?” in the July/August 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, New Testament scholar Simon Gathercole examines what these 114 sayings of Jesus reveal about the early Christian world in which they were written.
A work called the Gospel of Thomas has long been known from references by Church Fathers as far back as the third century. What was actually in the Gospel of Thomas, however, remained elusive until the 20th century. Excavations at an ancient garbage dump in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, around the turn of the 20th century uncovered papyri fragments containing sayings of Jesus that had been dictated—the papyri claimed—by Jesus to his disciple Thomas. Scholars date these papyri to the early to mid-third century C.E.
Did these Greek fragments from Oxyrhynchus belong to the Gospel of Thomas? The discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices in late 1945 to early 1946 near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, verified that the Oxyrhynchus fragments were indeed from the Gospel of Thomas: In one of the Nag Hammadi codices was a complete Coptic translation of the Gospel of Thomas’s sayings of Jesus.
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Is the Gospel of Thomas “Gnostic”? Were these sayings of Jesus attributed to a religious group—“the Gnostics”—who offered an alternate view of early Christianity? Simon Gathercole unpacks the meaning of these questions in his BAR article:
Those who have thought that Thomas is Gnostic have seized upon the negative views of the body and the world evident in the book. And it is certainly true that the body and the world are seen in a negative light in Thomas. For example, in talking about the fact that the soul or spirit has come into the body, Jesus says: “I do marvel at how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty!” (Gospel of Thomas 28.3). The opposition of “wealth” and “poverty” shows up the sharp contrast between the precious soul and the worthless body. Jesus is similarly negative about the material cosmos: “Whoever has come to know the world has found a corpse” (Gospel of Thomas 56.1). In Thomas, to be dead like a corpse is to be in the realm of ultimate perdition; to be classed as “dead” is about as bad an insult as can be hurled.
Nevertheless, it has always been something of an embarrassment for the “Gnostic” view of Thomas that there is no talk of an evil demiurge, a creation that is intrinsically evil, or of other familiar themes such as “aeons” (a technical term for the divine realms in the heavens). […] But neither does it work to see Thomas as simply a stone’s throw from the kind of Christianity or Christianities evident in the New Testament and in “apostolic fathers” such as Clement of Rome, Ignatius and Polycarp.
What else does the Gospel of Thomas say? Click here to read the 114 sayings of Jesus as translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson. And learn more about the Gospel of Thomas and what it reveals about Jesus and early Christianity by reading the full article “The Gospel of Thomas: Jesus Said What?” by Simon Gathercole as it appears in the July/August 2015 issue of BAR.
BAS Library Members: Read the full article “The Gospel of Thomas: Jesus Said What?” by Simon Gathercole in the July/August 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.
Related reading in the BAS Library:
Biblical Views: What’s Up with the Gospel of Thomas?
Nag Hammadi Codices Shed New Light on Early Christian History
Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.
Is it possible to identify the first-century man named Jesus behind the many stories and traditions about him that developed over 2,000 years in the Gospels and church teachings? Visit the Jesus/Historical Jesus study page to read free articles on Jesus in Bible History Daily.
This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on June 29, 2015.
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Some readers here have a mistaken belief that Biblical Archaeology Review is Christian Review. Its mission is not to rubber stamp your beliefs with a veneer of archaeology, it is to investigate the facts and see where they lead. This may not accord with what you believe.
For that, you would be better off to go to a Christian bookstore and buy magazines there.
I have not read this book of thomas but the one sentense l had read it surely went 180 from my christian belief and faith taught from the Bible the inspired word of God. Simple question that l asked of those with comments that agree with the notion that this is a legitimate writing of Thomas. Do you mean to tell me God approve homosexuallity as pure of His creation? But you see you “reason” just like our parents did and they believe in themself rather than the purity of His Holliness that there is “NO” if but may be and so on it is a “yes” or “no” very simple a “man” or a “woman” no in between! We must never put our reasoning into the word that is consistant with the purity of our God. Read the Bible with a heart of a child than you will discover God is not a God of confusion double minded two face but a God of His Words that you can only find in the Bible His inspired Word. If there is any book that teaches this type of confusion its worthless wickeness God is not a God that tells us one and so another. Jesus is God!!!
Try to remember that ancient texts where often written in metaphors or parables. So when Jesus said,’Blessed is the Lion that the man will eat, and the Lion will become human’ We must remember what the Lion is symbolic of, Rastafarians often refer to ‘like a lion in Zion’ I tend to think Jesus meant, swallow your pride, your ego, your big dominant ‘Lion’…The irrational mind, that roars at others..and loses control…and once you have digested that ego and it is no more, then you become the peaceful harmonious human you were meant to be. The second teaching here, which some people are also taking too literally…is by no means offensive to women, and I am a woman, so I shall explain my interpretation. Jesus says, ‘Every woman who makes herself male will enter the Kingdom of heaven’ to this I say, ‘ Jesus did not mean for women to undergo surgery, they did not have such things back then…relating to my own life …as a woman, there were many times when I felt I was playing the role of the masculine/male. I still often fill that role, which many would consider male. There have been a few times in my life where I felt the need to embody the Lion and push over an indecent, scathing drunk, where no man was prepared to step in and stop a particular drama. In cases of abuse, women who walk away, often take on the role of both mother and father. My partner is in a wheelchair, and people often joke, and say I am like the husband…I can honestly say, I take no offence to these jests. I am proud to have found balance of my feminine and masculine. I know Jesus had concerns with society and he obviously saw many women who were subjected to very subservient roles. The true way is to get to an equality of men and women. Jesus was using a term we use today, ‘Man Up!’ The term means to be tough and strong as men were and are expected to be, but since we have moved on in terms of societal equality between the sexes (and we are still a long way away from the ideal) It is accepted to say to a woman, who is playing the self pitying victim, to ‘Man up’…If we take a look at some societies we see women in history performing roles that in the Western world would be considered male roles. So by no means was Jesus being sexist here or attesting that men are somehow better than women…I also gather that in a sense he was advocating for women to stand up for themselves and get away from male oppression…that they were indeed capable of a fulfilling life without abuses or a present man…that they could discover that innate male within them, so that they might grow spiritually and attain peace and enlightenment. Something that is difficult to achieve in any oppressive situation. It is very humbling for a woman to lift her male partner when he falls, open doors for him etc…I grew up thinking these were things men did for women but I learnt the truth through experience.
When the Father ,YAHUSHUA,says for woman to become a male HE meant take off your thoughts marriage, having Kids, wanting to be noticed by man, no longer needing to be protected by r even cared for by man but by Him alone.He casted servitude from mary magdeline so she could only serve him.she only had to trust in the Father.NOONE LED HER NO MATTER WHAT MAN SAID HIS WORD AND AUTHORITY STOOD IN HER LIFE.TO PUT OFF OUR SLAVERY UNTO MAN BUT ONLY TO STAND AS A MAN WITH THE STRENGTH OF A LION KNOWING THE FATHER WILL STAND BEHIND YOU.NO LONGER UNDER SUBMISSION TO THE DOGMA OF MAN. B BLESSED BY THIS QUEENS i mean Kings.
Glory to the Most High Yah.y would ancient books have Jesus name in them when his name was Yahushua?im just saying
There’s a reason the book of Thomas was not included as part of the Bible. The books that were included were verified by those that knew the authors. Nothing about the book of Thomas would fit the criteria.
From my reading of Thomas I found about a third of all the sayings had a close parallel in the Gospels. Another third have some echo of existing Christian teaching, distorted by a gnostic voice and a third are clearly written long after the Easter Event and contain no echo of Christianity and even contradict the values and statements attributed to Jesus; the injunction to Christians to seek out the leadership of James for example, or a number of references to ‘the Jews’ that brim with undisguised antagonism. The quote above, referring to the Lion for example seems to contradict the sense of the canonical Jesus saying that what we eat is irrelevant to our spiritual cleanliness – it is the things that come out of our mouths, not the stuff that goes in, that we should be concerned about. Nor is there much in the way of exergis that we find in the parable stories. Where the parables are simply understood but nevertheless often explained in detail, these ‘Jesus Sayings’ are obscure and unexplained within the text. The ‘voice’ speaking them is cryptic and thus unfamiliar. Jesus in the Gospels speaks of fish, vines, grain and donkeys. Jesus in the Thomas Sayings speaks of lions and gender issues. My conclusion, then as now, is that as many as a half of these sayings are genuine, and may share the same source as many of the ‘sayings’ material found in Matthew and Luke but not Mark. The rest is entirely gnostic and sectarian in origin, and demonstrates an antagonist relationship between the writer and orthodox Christian groups. This Jesus seems to anarchronistically condemn specific apostles, teachings and emerging theology elements of the early orthodox Christian community. The big difference between the two groups seems to be that the Gnostics saw no issue in re-writing the words of the Master to get Him to do their fighting for them.
I suspect that the ladies (Jacqueline and Donna) hew closest to the intended meanings of the metaphors and proverbs referenced – as I understand them, at any rate. Interesting, then, that Jesus’ closest relationship among his disciples was with Mary Magdaline, not with any of the males whom he chastised more than once for “not getting it” even after spending so much time with him.
Once you accept that Jesus is being quoted as someone who spoke in parables that conveyed broad meanings beyond the literal, then the rest follows logically: He was telling us that while our bodies were infused with the holy spirit, we are lit as by interior candles; otherwise, we appear dark and empty of meaning and value to others. The “kingdom” referred to is to be found interiorily, within us all, if we only had “eyes to see” and “ears to hear” what our hearts and souls are trying to tell us. That’s how it seems to me, anyway.
to see the truth, one must first empty the mind of all programing.
the “bring out whats within you or it will destroy you…” could be seen as an interpolation of Jonah.
Also, the view of the church was that Thomas went to India and there is Thomas stuff all over India today. I’ve often thought that the gospel of Thomas was simply a Christian text written to appeal to that culture which of course had more of a what we’d see as an Eastern mindset. Not hard to imagine it then made its way back via trade routes. it’s different and more direct than all the other gnostic texts.
We know gospels were written to appeal to Jews in some cases and Romans in others. Occums razor Thomas’ school created a localized one