The Gospel of Thomas
Collection

www.gospelofthomas.INFO

Found in Egypt

Only one ancient copy of the complete Gospel of Thomas exists. It was discovered in 1945 by Egyptian peasants, hidden in a jar buried in the sands next to the Nile, nearly 600 km from Cairo. It was one of the treasures from a nearby monastery, now known as the Nag Hammadi Library, that the monks must have concealed for safety at a time of danger.

These ancient books went through a series of hair-raising adventures—even involving barter for cigarettes, sugar and tea—until they came to the notice of western scholars and were secured in a museum in Cairo. In 1952 the Dutch professor Guilles Quispel discovered that one comprised a set of sayings by Jesus recorded by his disciple Thomas.

This ancient Gospel of Thomas is written in Greek and Coptic, an Egyptian language now used only in the liturgy of the Coptic Church. Quispel and four other scholars identified 114 sayings of Jesus and made the first translation into English. Their work was followed up by the French scholars of l'Association Metanoia, who published enhanced versions in 1975 and 1979. There is now a large literature.

What one discovers on reading the Gospel of Thomas is that it is definitely not a literary work. Nor does it contain any historical narrative. It can only be explained as the sayings of a spiritual Master recollected by a disciple and dictated to a scribe in the sequence they came back to memory. Only few of the sayings connect together, and there is no overall pattern or structure. It is thus recorded speech.

All of the sayings have a distinctive quality. They are mini-parables, each with an outer shape and an inner hidden meaning. No explanations of these inner meanings are given. We therefore quickly discover that Jesus' method or technique of passing on his spiritual awareness was to prompt us to discover these inner meaningsfor ourselves .

The Gospel of Thomas offers us the opportunity to discover the qualities of life presented by a great soul.

This first level of discovery thus relates to the ancient document itself and its faithful translation into a modern language.

Thirty Essays on The Gospel of Thomas   To find out more about all this go to 'Thirty Essays' book

More about the Gospel of Thomas

  • Found in Egypt
    Only one ancient copy of the complete Gospel of Thomas exist, discovered in 1945 by Egyptian peasants
  • Finding the Inner Meanings
    Experience shows that everyone at first finds the Gospel of Thomas difficult; no exceptions to this rule have been found. The primary reason is that Jesus is striving to take his listeners to a high level of spiritual awareness.
  • The Teachings
    To assimilate these Teachings requires a good deal of work—chiefly thought and contemplation, and allowing time for them to grow inwardly and mature.
  • The Language of the Gospel
    Working with this original text it becomes more and more apparent that these are the words of a Master. Such texts are rare. In consequence every word has to be carefully studied, and due weight given to it.
  • Structure of the Sayings
    One of the pioneering achievements of scholars was to identify that the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas are made up from short phrases. By following their example it can be seen that the Gospel is a record of speech, for this is a characteristic of Semitic speech that Jesus would have used.
  • The Role of Thomas
    How the disciple with the birth-name Judas came to be given, twice over, the spiritual name of Twin
  • Signature of Thomas
    It is very clear that Jesus taught his chosen disciple Thomas something that he and his colleagues considered to be blasphemous and punishable by ritual stoning
  • The Thomas People
    'India, and all the countries belonging to it and round it, even to the farthest sea, received the apostles' ordination to the priesthood from Judas Thomas'
  • Presentation of Thomas
    The Gospel of Thomas is definitely not a literary or narrative work. It is quite unlike the Gospels in the Bible