The Gospel of Thomas Essay -- Informative, Manuscripts

Discovered in the twentieth century, The Gospel of Thomas was founded by peasants that were digging for fertilizer close to the village of Nag Hammadi, Egypt. The peasants revealed a container containing thirteen leather-bound manuscripts that were buried in the fourteenth century. The container contained fifty-two tractates that represented â€Å"heretical† writings of Gnostic Christians. Dated back to 200 A.D., there was not much known about the Gospel of Thomas besides that there were only three small fragments from Oxyrynchus. The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of literary works that contains 114 ‘opaque sayings’ of Jesus that were collected and written down by St. Didymus Jude Thomas, but nobody knows if St. Didymus Jude Thomas wrote the sayings down for sure, it is just said that he did. St. Didymus Jude Thomas was said to be Jesus’ twin brother, assumed by a few early Christians. Thomas is actually Hebrew for twin, and Didymus is Greek for twin as well. According to saying twelve, the disciples said to Jesus, â€Å"We know that you will depart from us. Who is to be our leader?† Jesus said to them, â€Å"Wherever you are, you are to go to James the righteous, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being†(Gospel of Thomas: saying 12). As I was reading the Gospel of Thomas and read over saying twelve, I believe that Jesus is stating that his brother James is the go to guy, the leader, when they are to be departed. I also believe that saying twelve is evidence that, in the second century, someone who admired James had help write the Gospel of Thomas. Furthermore, I think that the writer of the Gospel of Thomas most likely has had access to the Gospel of John. This is because the writer references Jesus as being a light. Only John's Gosp... ...ng how Christianity would be different if the Gospel of Thomas were in the New Testament is impossible to answer because no one could say in regards to the details. However, it would be safe to say that Christianity as we know it would not exist. The Bible would now contain opposing teachings on salvation. This kind of contradiction would certainly lead to confusion and distrust in the veracity of any of the Gospel accounts. The Canonical Gospels can be traced back to the earliest Church via the writings of the Ante-Nicene Church fathers. The Gnostic Gospels cannot be traced back to any writer who is connected to Jesus in any manner. Furthermore, all the texts within the Old Testament and the New Testament were never in question among believers at any point, while the Gnostic texts were seen as texts simply using the name â€Å"Jesus† to teach different â€Å"truths.†