Scholarly consensus
The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. It has no birth story, no miracles, no arrest, no crucifixion and no resurrection. Its opening line names the writer as Didymos Judas Thomas, and the name is a claim of authority, not evidence of authorship.
Manuscripts
The text survives complete only in Coptic, in Nag Hammadi Codex II, tractate 2, found in Egypt in 1945 and copied in the fourth or fifth century. Three Greek manuscripts from Oxyrhynchus show that the work is older than the Coptic copy: P.Oxy. 1 (late second or early third century) has most of sayings 26-30 and 77 and sayings 31-33; P.Oxy. 654 (middle or late third century) has the prologue and sayings 1-7; and P.Oxy. 655 (third century) has parts of sayings 24 and 36-39. See the manuscripts of the extracanonical gospels.
Date and sources
Scholars date the work anywhere from the middle of the first century to the middle of the second; Peter Kirby’s survey at Early Christian Writings gives 50 to 140 CE. Ron Cameron places it between the mid-first and the late second century, and thinks a late first-century date likelier if it began as a freestanding collection of sayings. Stephen Patterson argues for about 70 to 80 CE, with the present form coming from eastern Syria, where the Judas Thomas tradition flourished. The first writer to name the work beyond doubt is Hippolytus of Rome (writing 222 to 235 CE), who quotes a variant of saying 4.
Scholars divide on whether it depends on the canonical gospels. Patterson argues that it reflects a parallel and separate tradition, as does Stevan Davies, from the different order of the sayings; Cameron holds that dependence has not been convincingly shown. A statistical test of the order of the parallel sayings finds no significant correlation with Matthew, Mark, Luke or Q; it is set out on its own page. Cameron adds that the text was unstable in transmission, since the Greek copies and the Coptic differ. About half its sayings have a parallel in Matthew, Mark or Luke. The rest are unique to Thomas, and many carry an ascetic and mystical tone that the Qur’an does not share.
Minority view
A minority of scholars hold that Thomas preserves sayings older than those in the canonical gospels. On the other side, Nicholas Perrin argues that it was composed from Tatian’s Diatessaron, the second-century harmony of the four, and Mark Goodacre that it shows signs of Matthew’s and Luke’s own editing; both answer the argument from the order of the sayings, and the correlation page sets out their reply beside the test.
How it is used here
The full text is on its own page, in Mark Mattison’s public-domain translation and in the Patterson and Meyer translation. Those sayings that agree with the Qur’an as the measure, and those that are beyond it or unclear, are woven into the sections of The Gospel According to Islam, each with its saying number, a colour mark and a note. 44 sayings that conflict with the Qur’an or only repeat another are listed, with the reason for each, on the page of sayings set aside.
The colour marks
- Agrees Agrees with the Qur’an as the measure.
- Beyond the measure Beyond the measure: the Qur’an says nothing either way. Included, and marked.
- Unclear Unclear: the text or its sense is uncertain. Included, and marked.
Sources
- Thomas O. Lambdin (trans.), “The Gospel of Thomas”, in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James M. Robinson, 3rd ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988). Saying numbers here follow this edition; the wording used in the chapters is our own digest of it.
- Mark M. Mattison (trans.), The Gospel of Thomas, public domain, gospels.net; and the manuscript information at gospels.net/manuscript. Printed in full on its own page.
- Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer (trans.), “The Gospel of Thomas”, in Robert J. Miller (ed.), The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version (Polebridge Press, 1992, 1994). Printed in full, with permission, on its own page.
- “Correlation Analysis” of the order of sayings in the Gospel of Thomas, a statistical note on the order of the parallel sayings, using Helmut Koester’s list of parallels; with R. McL. Wilson, Studies in the Gospel of Thomas (London: Mowbray, 1960), and Stephen J. Patterson, The Gospel of Thomas Within the Development of Early Christianity (Claremont dissertation, 1988).
- Peter Kirby, “Gospel of Thomas”, Early Christian Writings, earlychristianwritings.com/thomas.html, which summarises the manuscripts, the dating and the debate over independence, citing Ron Cameron, Stephen Patterson and Stevan Davies.
- Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels.
- Nicholas Perrin, Thomas and Tatian.