Gospel Of Thomas Analysis

For the average Christian, a Gospel serves a source of information and place for getting questions answered. While I find this true for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, I have more questions than answers after reading the Gospel of Thomas. The organization (or lack thereof), writing style, and messages in this Gospel are different from anything I have read before about Jesus and his teachings. I found it difficult to make sense of most of this Gospel. Beyond that, I was surprised by some of the ideas that contrast so greatly with what is present in the Bible. There are three sayings that stood out to me because of their strange messages:

• (14) “Jesus said to them, ‘If you fast, you will give rise to sin for yourselves; and if you pray, you will be condemned; and if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits’…”

• (42) “Jesus said, ‘Become passers-by.’”

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For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.’”

In general, each of these “secret sayings” (which is in itself a strange concept—why is Thomas sharing Jesus’ secrets?) tells me the opposite of the Jesus I am familiar with. Many of the others sayings in the Gospel of Thomas are just concise versions of stories in the Synoptic Gospels, like the Parable of the Sower (9), or sayings that are like Jesus’ familiar teachings, like those that echo the Beatitudes (54, 68, and 69). These make sense because they line up with the “standard” version of Jesus (at least by today’s standards of Jesus, for most). Sayings 14, 42, and 114, on the other, hand, go against the