The Gospel of Thomas: Manuscripts, Texts, and Early Citations

The Gospel of Thomas: Manuscripts, Texts, and Early Citations

(Part A)

Since the 1945 discovery of a 4th century Coptic codex purporting to contain 114 secret sayings of Jesus Christ recorded by the Apostle Thomas, the (in)famous Gospel of Thomas has been the subject of a raging debate among scholars. 

Some have dismissed it as a late Gnostic text, other have raised it up as evidence of a fifth gospel held by some as sacred scripture. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that GThomas reveals the authentic sayings of Jesus Christ! Without more evidence the debate is unlikely to find any resolution, but by studying the evidence currently at our disposal (scant though it may be) many of the extremes on which varying scholars have taken their stands might be tempered. 

To that aim, we will consider all the known manuscripts of The Gospel of Thomas (abbreviated GThomas), the settings in which they were discovered, their physical characteristics, and the texts contained in each of them. We will also consider the possible citations of two Christian writers of the second and third centuries A.D..

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(*) https://owlcation.com/humanities/What-Do-We-Know-About-The-Gospel-of-Thomas