Why do Christians ignore The Gospel of Thomas and the knowledge gained by reading it?

Question

The gospel of Thomas was discovered over 50 years ago in the Egyptian desert. It is believed that this gospel existed long before the 4 canonical gospels were written. At the very beginning of the twentieth century three separate fragments from Greek versions of the Gospel of Thomas were discovered during archeological excavations of an ancient library in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. The three papyrus fragments of Thomas – known as the Oxyrhynchus fragments – date to between 130 - 250 CE.

Translations of the sayings were found in these Greek fragments, followed by versions of the same sayings as they appear in the Coptic manuscript found at Nag Hammadi.

Therefore, it is an uncensored biblical book and was translated in this century. Why do Christians ignore this book and the knowledge gained by reading it?

Brent Y. You think that books chosen by a group of people who then censored it is the real truth? Please....you are misguided.

Rachel K. I think he is saying that a woman needs to think independently. Something they weren't allowed to do in those days. Only men could question scripture.

PaulCyp- The Holy Spirit didn't inspired the Bishops of the Catholic Church? Or, they felt the books didn't qualify to meet their agenda in my opinion.

Padme- You need to understand how Chritianity was shaped by Catholics. Now, Christians don't think Catholics are right. Read up about Gnosticism. Here's the link:

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhlintro.html

Sir Offenzalot- The statement above this one applies to you as well. The Bible (As you know it) has been censored and much was lost in translation. That's why the writing styles differ. You may very well be the enemy of God by following a censored doctrine that was shaped by the Catholics.

Kait- The whole point is that the early Church Counsel was corrupt.

1. If it wasn't consistent with their doctrine and propaganda then calling it a forgery solves their problem with this book.

2. I can't see where it is contradictory to other biblical gospels. In my opinion it enhances it and fills in some of the missing gaps found in the Bible.

3. Of course, the 'Mark of Inspiration' is subjective. Frankly, I find it inspirational and I know that this book's translation is correct. It hasn't been altered by corrupt religious officials.

4. The fact that it has different sayings of what Jesus may have said adds more interest. Any ability to learn more is definitely worth it.

5. It is a known fact of the bible that Jesus stated several times that the general follower of his was not able to understand his true meanings. It seems logical to me that he would have something a bit more special to share with his apostles.

Answer 1

The "Gospel of Thomas" purports to be a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus Christ, and "which Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down." Although about half of them have a very familiar ring to readers of the Bible, others have no equivalent in the 4 actual Gospel books of the New Testament, and some are rather far-fetched. Unlike the true Gospels, the "Gospel of Thomas" consists solely of alleged sayings of Jesus Christ.

It's quite possible that Thomas was the author of an early Christian record (it would seem incredible if he hadn't written something), but there is really no way to know if it was the basis of the "Gospel of Thomas," or to what degree later writers altered or edited the work. Many are of the opinion that it was produced by someone using the apostle's identity, whose writing was a mixture of what he read in one or more of the true Gospels, plus his own imagination.

Answer 2

Because its apocrypha, along with the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Judas. There is a reason we didn't include them in the Bible, because they aren't congruent to the gospel message, as is coherent in the 4 gospels of the Bible. They weren't included in the Bible because they were either contradictory or were doctored over the years. The books found in the bible were all written within the 1st century. The last being Revelation c. 96-98 a.d. They were put into the canon of Scripture over the next 200 years. given the above answer, the books of the bible are all pretty contemporary to each other. they were all written about 40-60 a.d. We aren't trying to conspire against all christians. Peace,

Answer 3

John was the last of the original 12 Apostles to remain alive by the end of the first century.
With dates of 130 to 250 CE, the Gospel could not have been written by Thomas the Apostle. It is deliberately overlooked by the Church for a few glaring reasons:
Authorship cannot be authenticated.
Date of writing cannot be verified.
Historical discrepancies with the other 4 authenticated Gospels.
Doctrinal discrepancies with the other 4 Gospels.
Lack of support that Thomas wrote a Gospel account from neither the other 4 Gospels, nor from any of the Epistles.
Further still, the Gospel of Thomas lacks evidence of Divine Inspiration.

These criteria are all met by the rest of the texts in the New Testament.

Answer 4

The gospel of Thomas is a Coptic manuscript discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. This manuscript contains 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. Some of these sayings resemble sayings found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Other sayings were unknown until their discovery or even run counter to what is written in the four Gospels.

One December day in 1945, far up the Nile Valley, two Egyptian peasants were looking for a local variety of crumbly nitrate rock used as fertilizer. They came across a large jar, about a meter tall, hidden by a boulder. Inside they found a collection of ancient leather-bound books or codices. The spot where the books were found is within a few miles of the site of an early monastery, established by the founder of Christian monasticism in Egypt, Pachomius. Nag Hammadi, a nearby village, has given this remarkable collection its name.

The Nag Hammadi Library consists of fifty-two texts or "tractates" written in Coptic on papyrus and gathered in thirteen volumes, twelve of which have separate leather bindings. Forty of the texts had previously been unknown to modern scholars. Most of the writings are of a Gnostic character. Scraps of paper found in the binding of eight codices bear dates indicating that the books were made in the mid-fourth century, and at least one of these clearly appears to have come from a monastery. Efforts to date the books more precisely continue. In general, it can be said the collection dates from about the middle of the fourth century. The Coptic texts could be many years earlier, and the originals (probably written in Greek or Aramaic) from which the Coptic translations were made could have been still earlier.

To understand how we got the Bible as we know it, please see the following two articles: What is the canon of Scripture? and How was the Canon determined?

Should the gospel of Thomas be in the Canon?

The early church councils followed something similar to the following principles to determine whether a New Testament book was truly inspired by the Holy Spirit: 1) Was the author an apostle or have a close connection with an apostle? 2) Was the book being accepted by the Body of Christ at large? 3) Did the book contain consistency of doctrine and orthodox teaching? 4) Did the book bear evidence of high moral and spiritual values that would reflect a work of the Holy Spirit?

The gospel of Thomas fails all of these tests. The gospel of Thomas was not written by Jesus' disciple Thomas. The early Christian leaders universally recognized the gospel of Thomas as a forgery. The gospel of Thomas was rejected by the vast majority of early Christians. The gospel of Thomas contains many teachings that are in contradiction to the biblical Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. The gospel of Thomas does not bear the marks of a work of inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Are there any other arguments that preclude the gospel of Thomas from being included in the Bible? If we examine the 114 sayings in this writing, then we find some that are similar to existing sayings, some that are slightly different, but the majority cannot be found anywhere in the entirety of Scripture itself. Scripture must always confirm itself, and the majority of sayings in the gospel of Thomas cannot be confirmed anywhere else in Scripture.

One argument for precluding the gospel of Thomas from the Bible is found in the overt "secretness" attributed to these 114 sayings by the work itself. Nowhere in Scripture is God's Word given “in secret" but is given for all to read and understand. The gospel of Thomas very clearly tries to maintain an air of secrecy in its words.

The gospel of Thomas is a Gnostic gospel, espousing a Gnostic viewpoint of Christianity. The gospel of Thomas is simply a heretical forgery, much the same as the gospel of Judas, the gospel of Mary, and the gospel of Philip. Perhaps the disciple Thomas' nickname of "doubting Thomas" is appropriate here. We should all be doubting the gospel of Thomas!

Recommended Resource: The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities by Darrell Bock.

Answer 5

For the same reason Christians do not use the gospels of Philip. James, Mary, and a half dozen other gospels that were floating around the early church - the Holy Spirit did not inspire the bishops of the Catholic Church to include those texts when they were finalizing the Canon of Scripture once and for all time.

Answer 6

We don't ignore it. I read apocrypha and psuedopocrypha quite a bit. We just don't include it with our Christian canon.

The canonical gospels are much earlier, the date of the synoptic gospels is widely accepted to be AD 60-80, and the Gospel of Thomas falls a century short. The Gospel of Thomas itself is dependent on the canonical gospels, it presupposes the statements they make and then builds on it. It can't stand alone. It is a reflection not of early Christianity but of second-century Gnosticism. So it would work fine as canon for a Gnostic faith, but not as a Christian gospel.

Basically, there's a slew of Apocryphal books that have more respect in the argument for canonicty (I think I just made up that word), but more people argues the Gospel of Thomas simply because it's wider known.

Also the book claims that a woman has to make herself into a man in order to gain admittance into Heaven. That's reason enough for this woman to reject it.

Answer 7

Because it's not authentic. Compare the writing in the Bible to the writing in these "gnostic" gospels and you will see that they are very inconsistent and differ greatly in writing styles. Just another attempt by the enemies of God to try to destroy what He has created.

Answer 8

Because they don't want to acknowledge that the gospels that are contained in the "bible" were cherry picked by some Romans with an agenda. But if they did research they would know that there were hundreds of gospels not just the ones they read at church. I know thumbs down.

Answer 9

Christians - and other religions, let's not just pick on one - ignore anything that threatens their beliefs. BTW, the church long ago tried to weed out several books that didn't fit its goal - not just Thomas.

Even then, it is obvious the bible is a collection of works by different authors who often contradict each other - which makes it equally obvious that it wasn't "inspired" but just a set of similar superstitions bound together.

Answer 10

I think that the reason is that all of the other canons have other writings discovered through history to back them up...I am not quite soure but I think that is why.....Wouldnt Thomas's gospel be full of daubt? ( little lol)