What is the Gospel of Thomas
These are the private sayings, written in Aramaic, of Jesus with his apostles, written before any of the Gospels. They were originally given by Jesus to his closest disciples, written down possibly by Thomas, himself, later translated into Greek, later redacted (edited, added to, reinterpreted) by the Gnostics.
These original sayings of Yeshua (Jesus) were recorded between 30-50 C.E. This was before the writings of Paul, and the writings of the four Gospels. The sayings of the original kernel of Thomas are older and more authentic than the earliest writings of the New Testament. They were reworked by Syrian Gnostics in the second century, who added their own spin to them, and created new sayings of their own. The Gospel of Thomas was found in early fragments, but later in complete form, written in Coptic (a late form of Egyptian language) , with the other gnostic documents found in Nag Hammadi around 1945. The copy we have today is three times removed from the original Aramaic sayings of Yeshua.
Lewis Keizer (See Bibliography.) uses linguistic analysis to unravel the original Aramaic sayings from the Greek and Gnostic reinterpretations of the original. He analyzes the text to determine whether each numbered saying is authentically something Jesus said, or was added by later authors. In each passage, I will note whether he thinks the passage was original, or a later redaction.
Though these sayings of Jesus are mostly familiar, this is written from a higher level of interpretation than you are probably used to. It is based on the original meaning and usage of Biblical words and the inspiration of the Spirit, adopted so that they can be applied in practice today. We’ll use the Holy Ghost to come to an understanding of what these teachings mean to us, today, in the light of the Gospel. My goal is to find the spiritual meaning of each saying for us, today. But this is not my job alone. You need to participate with the Spirit in discerning these mysteries, which are deeper than the superficial lessons you learned in Primary or Bible School. Visualize yourself as one of the Lord’s inner circle, gathered round Him, and the Lord speaking these sayings in your ear, today.
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are believed to all stem from an original “Q (Source) Document,” but Thomas predates all of them, but is probably contemporary with Q, forming a true second witness. In the Gospels, the sayings of Jesus are linked together to form a narrative. Thomas is simply a collection of the sayings of Jesus, numbered for convenience.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17OEOt_9r8pHlv9R88sspBQ6-p3tj0WhnXX3eVRkoAlc/edit?usp=sharing
John144 