If the Gospel of Thomas is a lie ,then why is it that early Christian explorers.........?

Question

FOUND THE 'THOMAS CHRISTIANS 'in Madras India in the 1400,s?Why were they so amazed by this?

I have been to India and confirmed this myself .

aDMIRALBO..........i BEG TO DIFFER.I have been to India and talked to many Thomas Christians and the belief is consistent otherwise.

Answer 1

Admiralbo is correct in what he wrote. There was a disciple named Thomas who (from the existence of the church in India that bears his name) appears to have made it to India preaching the gospel. He started a branch of the Christian faith that exist to this day. They have a rich and full heritage.

But if you go to India, you will not find an (ancient) copies of the Gospel of Thomas. The book was unknown until a copy of it was found in an earthen jar in Nag Mammdi, Egypt in 1945. There were no copies of it in the Thomas Christian church, nor any mention of its existence in their early literature.

Unlike the other gospels, this book does not contain the actions of Jesus, only his words (114 sayings). They are listed without context or any surrounding information to help interpete or explain them. Once this manuscript was discovered, scholars were able to match them with two small fragments of early manuscript(s) found in the 1890's also in Egypt. The surviving words on the manuscript can be matchs with sections of saying 26-39 of the complete manuscript.

No copies of the work have been found in India or elsewhere. No quotes from the work survive in any letters, historicies, commentatries or other literature.

There is an historical reference to there being a "Gospel of Thomas". Cyril of Jerusalem, an early church leader, wrote around 350 AD, "Let none read the gospel according to Thomas, for it is the work, not of one of the twelve apostles, but of one of Mani's three wicked disciples." (Mani was a Persian gnostic who lived between 210-276 AD. Thos followers are known to have written several "gospels" and "epistles" that they accrediated to the apostles. This influct of false material in the late 3rd and early 4th century was one of the reason the Nicene Council decided to official list the books that were considered scripture).

There is chruch of St Thomas in India, but that does not make the book that claims to have been written by him true.

Answer 2

You're conflating two separate issues:

a) the canonicity of the Gospel of Thomas

b) the existence of St. Thomas' apostolate

Nobody disputes that St. Thomas existed. The New Testament makes it plainly clear that a man named Thomas Didymus ("the twin") was one of the twelve. And certainly the possibility exists that St. Thomas apostolate took him to the far reaches of India.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14678a.htm

But the truth of these things has nothing to do with that writing known as "The Gospel of Thomas." This writing, known in full only from Egypt, has no apparent relationship with the Christians of India.

And what you personally believe Thomasine beliefs to be is not relevant. The "Gospel of Thomas" was lost to history - Indian or otherwise - until the Nag Hammadi find turned up in an Egyptian farmer's field some sixty years ago. That - unliked or not - is a matter of record.

Answer 3

Because gnosticism has its sources in eastern mysticism and sophism.

Gnostics existed before Christ. They chose to adopt the early christian church and tried (unsuccesfully) to control the early church. The gnostics incorporate faith from before and after Christ into the same package.

Gnosticism is wrong and corrupt.

Answer 4

I do not find it as one of the 66 books of the Bible so I can not accept it as Biblical.