Gospel of Thomas

2006-04-22T07:22:00.000-07:00

(20)The students said to Yeshua,
Tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like.
He said to them,
It is like a mustard seed, the tiniest of seeds,26
but when it falls on prepared soil,
it produces a great plant
and becomes a shelter for the birds of heaven.

(21) Miryam27 said to Yeshua,
What are your students like?
He said,
They are like little children living in a field that is not theirs.
When the owners of the field come, they will say,
Give our field back to us.
The children take off their clothes in front of them
to give it back,
and they return their field to them.
So I say, if the owner of a house knows that a thief is coming,
he will be on guard before the thief arrives
and will not let the thief break into the house of his estate
and steal
As for you, be on guard against the world.
Arm yourselves with great strength,
or the robbers will find a way to reach you,
for the trouble you expect will come.
Let someone among you understand.
When the crop ripened,
the reaper came quickly with sickle in hand
and harvested it.
Whoever has ears to hear should hear.

22)Yeshua saw some babies nursing.
He said to his students,
These nursing babies are like those who enter the kingdom.
They said to him,
Then shall we enter the kingdom as babies?
Yeshua said to them,
When you make the two into one,
and when you make the inner like the outer
and the outer like the inner
and the upper like the lower,
and when you make male and female into a single one,
so that the male will not be male nor the female be female,
when you make eyes in place of an eye,
a hand in place of a hand,
a foot in place of a foot,
an image in place of an image,
then you will enter the kingdom.28

(23)Yeshua said,
I shall choose you as one from a thousand
and as two from ten thousand
and they will stand as a single one.

(24)His students said,
Show us the place where you are.
We must seek it.
He said to them, Whoever has ears should hear.
There is light within a person of light and it shines on the whole world.
If it does not shine it is dark.29

(25)Yeshua said.
Love your brother like your soul.
Protect that person like the pupil of your eye.

(26)Yeshua said,
You see the speck in your brother's eye

26. Or, "a mustard seed. It is the tiniest of seeds.
27. Mary.
28. This is a statement of human transformation. The transformation of genders also is treated in saying 114, but in somewhat different terms.
29.Instead of "it" in these clauses, we may also read "he."

2005-04-04T19:59:00.000-07:00

Matai17 said to him,
You are like a wise philosopher.
Toma18 said to him,
Rabbi,19 my mouth is utterly unable to say
what you are like.

Yeshua said,
I am not your rabbi.
Because you have drunk, you are intoxicated
from the bubbling spring I tended.20
And he took him and withdrew, and spoke three sayings21 to him.
When Toma came back to his friends, they asked him,
What did Yeshua say to you?

Toma said to them,
If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me,
you will pick up rocks and stone me22
and fire will come out of the rocks and consume you.

(14) Yeshua said to them,
If you fast you will bring sin upon yourselves,
and if you pray you will be condemned,
and if you give to charity you will harm your spirits.23
When you go into any region and walk through the countryside,
and people receive you, eat what they serve you
and heal the sick among them.
What goes into your mouth will not defile you,
but what comes out of your mouth will defile you.

(15) Yeshua said,
When you see one not born of woman,
fall on your faces and worship.
That is your father.

(16) Yeshua said,
People may think I have come to impose peace upon the world.
They do not know that I have come to impose conflicts upon the earth:
fire, sword, war.
For there will be five in a house. There will be three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, and they will stand alone.

(17) Yeshua said,
I shall give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard,
what no hand has touched, what has not arisen in the human heart.24

(18) The students said to Yeshua,
Tell us how our end will be.

Yeshua said,
Have you discovered the beginning and now are seeking the end?
Where the beginning is, the end will be.
Blessings on you who stand at the beginning.
You will know the end and not taste death.

(19) Yeshua said,
Blessings on you who came into being
before coming into being.
If you become my students and hear my sayings,
these stones will serve you.
For there are five trees in paradise for you.
Summer or winter they do not change
and their leaves do not fall.
Whoever knows them will not taste death.25

17. Matthew.
18. Thomas.
19. Or, "Teacher" (Coptic sah).
20. Jesus is the enlightened bartender who serves up wisdom. In general this saying resembles saying 108.
21. Or "three words" (Coptic enshomt enshaje). These three sayings or three words are not reported; the reader must discover the interpretation. On three such words, see also Kaulakau, Saulasau, Zeesar in the Naassene Sermon.
22. Within Judaism stoning was the punishment for blasphemy.
23. These statements seem to be answers to the questions in saying 6.
24. Paul may cite this saying in 1 Corinthians 2:9 as a wisdom saying in use among enthusiasts in Corinth.
25. The five trees of paradise are also discussed in Manichaean texts and in the Islamic Mother of Books.

2005-04-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

Should we give to charity? What diet should we observe?11
Yeshua said,
Do not lie and do not do what you hate.12
All things are disclosed before heaven.
There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed,
nothing covered that will remain undisclosed.
(7) Yeshua said,
Blessings on the lion if a human eats it, making the lion human.
Foul is the human if a lion eats it, making the lion human.13
(8) And he said,
Humankind is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea
and drew it up from the sea full of little fish.
Among the fish he found a fine large fish.
He threw all the little fish back into the sea
and easily cbose the large fish.
Whoever has ears to hear should hear.
(9) Yeshua said,
Look, the sower went out, took a handful of seeds,
and scattered them.
Some fell on the road
and the birds came and pecked them up.
Others fell on rock
and they did not take root in the soil
and did not produce heads of grain.
Others fell on thorns
and they choked the seeds
and worms devoured them.
And others fell on good soil
and it brought forth a good crop,
yielding sixty per measure and one hundred twenty per measure.
(10) Yeshua said,
I have thrown fire upon the world, and look, I am watching till it blazes.
(n) Yeshua said,
This heaven will pass away
and the one above it will pass away.
The dead are not alive
and the living will not die.
During the days when you ate what is dead
you made it alive.
When you are in the light, what will you do?
On the day when you were one
you became two.
But when you become two, what will you do?14
(12) The students said to Yeshua,
We know you will leave us. Who will be our leader?
Yeshua said to them,
Wherever you are, seek out Yaakov the just.15
For his sake heaven and earth came into being.
(13) Yeshua said to his students,
Compare me to something and tell me what I am like.
Shimon Kefa16 said to him,
You are like a just messenger.

11. These questions seem to be answered in saving 14.
12. This is the negative formulation of the golden rule.
13. This obscure saying seems to appeal to the lion as a symbol of all that is passionate and bestial: the passions may either be consumed by a person or consume a person. The Secret Book of John portrays Yaldabaoth, the ruler of this world, as lionlike in appearance. On the saying in general, see Jackson, The Lion Becomes Man.
14. This saying consists of four riddles about life in this world and beyond. A different phrasing of the third riddle appears in the Naassene Sermon, in Hippolytus of Rome, Refutation of All Heresies 5.8.32: If you ate dead things and made them living, what will you do if you eat living things?"
!5. Yaakov the just (or the righteous) is James the just, the brother of Jesus and the leader of the church in Jerusalem until his death in 62 CE. He was given his nickname because of his reputation for piety and Torah observance. On James the just in Jerusalem, see the conclusion to the Secret Book of James.
16. Simon Peter.

THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS

2005-04-04T19:31:00.000-07:00

THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS1
These are the hidden sayings that the living Yeshua spoke and Yehuda Toma the twin recorded.2
(1) And he said,3
Whoever discovers what these sayings mean4 will not taste death.
(2) Yeshua said,
Seek and do not stop seeking until you find. When you find, you will be troubled.
When you are troubled,
you will marvel and rule over all.5
(3) Yeshua said,
If your leaders tell you, "Look, the kingdom is in heaven,"
then the birds of heaven will precede you.
If they say to you, "It's in the sea,"6
then the fish will precede you.
But the kingdom is inside you and it is outside you.
When you know yourselves,7 then you will be known,
and you will understand that you are children of the living father.
But if you do not know yourselves,
then you dwell in poverty and you are poverty.
(4) Yeshua said,
A person old in days
will not hesitate to ask a little child
seven days old8 about the place of life,
and the person will live.9
For many of the first will be last
and become a single one.
(5) Yeshua said,
Know what is in front of your face
and what is hidden from you will be disclosed.
There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.10
(6) His students asked him and said to him,
Do you want us to fast? How should we pray?

1. The Gospel of Thomas: Nag Hammadi library, Codex II,2, pp. 32,10 to 51,28, and in the Greek fragments in Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1, 654 and 655; translated from the Coptic by Marvin Meyer. There are many parallels in the New Testament gospels to the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas. The New Testament parallels are not listed in the notes, for reasons of economy of space, but the serious seeker will easily find them.
2. Instead of "hidden sayings," we may translate as "secret sayings," or "obscure sayings" (Coptic enshaje ethep, Greek Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 654 hoi logoi hoi [apokryphoi]). The Book of Thomas has a similar opening, and the Secret Book of James also calls itself a "secret book." Yeshua is Jesus (here and throughout), and Yehuda Toma is Judas Thomas. The "living Yeshua" is almost certainly not a reference to the resurrected Jesus as traditionally understood, but rather to Jesus who lives through his sayings.
3. The speaker is probably Jesus, otherwise Judas Thomas with an editorial remark.
4. Or, "the interpretation [Coptic hermeneia, from Greek] of these sayings."
5. Greek Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 654 adds: "and having ruled, you will rest" (partially restored).
6. Greek Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 654 reads: "it is under the earth,"
7. "Know yourself" (Greek gnothi sauton) was a famous maxim from the oracular center dedicated to Apollo at Delphi, Greece.
8. This probably indicates an uncircumcised boy (a Jewish boy was to be circumcised on the eighth day), or else a child of the Sabbath of the first week of creation.
9. Hippolytus of Rome cites a version of this saying from the Gospel of Thomas used among the Naassenes, in his Refutation of All Heresies 5.7.20: "One who seeks will find me in children from seven years, for there, hidden in the fourteenth age, I am revealed."
10. Greek Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 654 adds: "and nothing buried that will not be raised" (partially restored).

Gospel of Thomas introduction from The Gnostic Bible

2005-04-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

The Gospel of Thomas is a wisdom gospel. Like the sayings gospel Q, which most scholars now suggest was a source used in compiling the gospels of Matthew and Luke, the Gospel of Thomas protrays Jesus as one who disseminates life-giving wisdom through his sayings.
Unlike the New Testament gospels of Matthew. Mark, Luke, and John, and other, non-canonical gospels, the Gospel of Thomas contains almost no narrative, Jesus in Thomas performs no physical miracles, reveals no fulfillment of prophecy, announces no apocalyptic kingdom about to disrupt the world order, dies for no one's sins, and does not rise from the dead Easter Sunday. His value, rather, lies in his enigmatic sayings, which are pregnant with possibilty and power. "Whoever discovers what these sayings mean will not taste death," Jesus promises. That is to say, one who uncovers the interpretative keys to the meaning of these sayings thinks Jesus' thoughts after him and completes his sayings in new and sagacious ways. Such a one seeks and finds true wisdom and knowledge.
The editor of the gospel is said to be Judas Thomas, or Judas the twin, who is acclaimed by Syrian Christians as the twin brother of Jesus and the messenger (or apostle) to the Syrians. A version of this gospel may have been composed, most likely in Greek, as early as the middle of the first century, or somewhat later. A few scholars have suggested that the Gospel of Thomas may have been composed in Syriac, but that proposal has not proved to be convincing. The gospel may have been written in Syria, possibly at Edessa (modern Urla), where the memory of Thomas was revered and where his bones were venerated. Many of the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas recall sayings of Jesus in the film Stigmata.
The numbering of the sayings employed here (1-114) is a scholarly convention. The translation gives Semitic form of Semitic names, in order to highlight the Jewish identity of Jesus and his students and the Jewish context of the life of the historical Jesus. For example, the name Yeshua is used for Jesus; the other names are identified in the notes.