Do you know the Gospel of Thomas?
Question by norcalislam: Do you know the Gospel of Thomas?
Was Jesus sinless?
Infancy Gospel of Thomas
The following translation is based on the Greek text printed in Ronald F. Hock’s The Infancy Gospels of James and Thomas. The text is a slightly modified version of Tischendorf A. Chapters and verses are divided as in the “Scholars Version” translation.
Chapter 1
(1) I, Thomas the Israelite, am reporting to you, all my brothers from the nations, to reveal the childhood and the greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ, what he did in my country after he was born. This is the beginning of it.
Chapter 2
(1) When the boy Jesus was five years old, he was playing in a narrow part of a rushing stream. (2) He was gathering the flowing waters into ponds, and immediately they were made clean, and he ordered these things with a single word. (3) And after he made clay, he molded twelve sparrows from it. And it was the Sabbath when he did these things. But there were also many other children playing with him.
(4) Then, a certain Jew saw what Jesus was doing while playing on the Sabbath. Immediately, he departed and reported to Jesus’ father, Joseph, “Look, your child is in the stream and he took clay and formed twelve birds and profaned the Sabbath?”
(5) And Joseph went to the area and when he saw him, he shouted, “Why are you doing these things that are not permitted on the Sabbath?”
(6) Jesus, however, clapped his hands and shouted to the sparrows, “Depart, fly, and remember me now that you are alive.” And the sparrows departed shrieking.
(7) When the Jews saw this, they were amazed. After they had gone away, they described to their leaders what they had seen Jesus do.
Chapter 3
(1) The son of Annas the scribe was standing there with Jesus. Taking a branch from a willow tree, he dispersed the waters which Jesus had gathered. (2) When Jesus saw what had happened, he became angry and said to him, “You godless, brainless moron, what did the ponds and waters do to you? Watch this now: you are going to dry up like a tree and you will never produce leaves or roots or fruit.”
(3) And immediately, this child withered up completely. Then, Jesus departed and returned to Joseph’s house. (4) The parents of the one who had been withered up, however, wailed for their young child as they took his remains away. Then, they went to Joseph and accused him, “You are responsible for the child who did this.”
Chapter 4
(1) Next, he was going through the village again and a running child bumped his shoulder. Becoming bitter, Jesus said to him, “You will not complete your journey.” (2) Immediately, he fell down and died.
(3) Then, some of the people who had seen what had happened said, “Where has this child come from so that his every word is a completed deed?”
(4) And going to Joseph, the parents of the one who had died found fault with him. They said, “Because you have such a child, you are not allowed to live with us in the village, or at least teach him to bless and not curse. For our children are dead!”
Seminary Bum, so were most of the rest of the NT!!
The Infancy Gospels are just like the rest of the NT, except they were thrown out by the Council of Nicea, and the others canonized! They didn’y fit in with the idea of “Christianity” that the early church eschewed!
Best answer:
Answer by seminary bum
I think the Gospel of Thomas and the Infancy gospel of Thomas are different. You do know that they were written well after the first century, right?
What do you think? Answer below!
Tagged with: Gospel • know • Thomas
Filed under: Dried Fruit
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Thomas was a Gnostic text. If you’re interpreting this literally, you’re missing a lot of the point.
Like the lyrics of an old rap song suggest; “don’t believe the hype”.
Not true
Jesus lived a sinless life.
Information on Infancy Gospel of Thomas
F. F. Bruce writes (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 87):
Then there is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which purports to describe the doings of Jesus in his boyhood. Jesus proves to be an infant prodigy at school, instructing his teachers in the unsuspected mysteries of the alphabet; he astounds his family and playmates by the miracles which he performs. This is the document which tells for the first time the familiar tale of the twelve sparrows which Jesus, at the age of five, fashioned from clay on the sabbath day.
In The Other Gospels, Ron Cameron suggests that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas may have been written in eastern Syria, the location of the Thomas traditions, although Cameron states that attribution to Thomas “seems to be a secondary, late development.” The original language of the document may have been either Syriac or Greek. The Greek manuscripts date from the fourteenth through the sixteenth century, while the earliest manuscript is a sixth century one in Syriac. Cameron thinks that the longer Greek recension more accurately preserves the text.
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas relates the miraculous deeds of Jesus before he turned twelve. According to Cameron, it “carries forward the aretalogical tradition of the gospels, expanding it to include an enumeration of miraculous feats performed even while Jesus was a mere infant.” Cameron identifies the Sitz im Leben of the gospel to be “Christian missionary propaganda” in exalting Jesus over and against other “divine men” and “all other religious and political leaders within the Greco-Roman world.” There is nothing particularly Christian about the stories attributed to Jesus; rather, the stories elaborate on the missing years of Jesus with reference to Hellenistic legend and pious imagination.
In The Complete Gospels, Harold Attridge considers whether the Infancy Gospel of Thomas contains docetic or Gnostic teachings. Attridge states: “While Gnostics may have been able to interpret stories in Infancy Thomas for their own ends, it is unlikely that they originally composed the work with the aim of propagating their theological positions.”
Hippolytus and Origen refer to a Gospel of Thomas, but it is unclear whether they knew the Infancy Gospel of Thomas or the sayings Gospel of Thomas. But there is an earlier reference from Irenaeus, as Cameron notes: “In his citation, Irenaeus first quotes a non-canonical story that circulated about the childhood of Jesus and then goes directly on to quote a passage from the infancy narrative of the Gospel of Luke (Luke 2:49). Since the Infancy Gospel of Thomas records both of these stories, in relative close proximity to one another, it is possible that the apocryphal writing cited by Irenaeus is, in fact, what is now known as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Because of the complexities of the manuscript tradition, however, there is no certainty as to when the stories of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas began to be written down.”
Thus, while our present Infancy Gospel of Thomas may have been expanded over time, the original must have been written sometime in the middle of the second century.
These texts are not reliable, either historically or scripturally. These were likely written as legend and do not line up with the main canon of scripture.
A few things that you might want to consider. How do we know that it was written by who it says? Has it been verified by an Apostle? Or someone that knew Jesus Christ personally? Neither of the above. It was written in the latter part of the second century and is proven to be an uninspired writing. Jesus Christ was not legally able to start His ministry until the age of 30. Hence, no miracles until that time. These supposedly were the “lost” gospels. They weren’t “lost”. They just didn’t exist until way after the fact and are designed to spread lies and false hoods about Jesus Christ.
The original language of the document may have been either Syriac or Greek. The Greek manuscripts date from the fourteenth through the sixteenth century, while the earliest manuscript is a sixth century one in Syriac.
The earliest manuscript of the Gospel of Thomas is 500+ years after the fact.
I’m unconvinced.