# Gospel of Thomas **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 8, 2001, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721 "2001-07-08T19:16:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ATA99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/76d3ee/32.png) [@ATA99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ATA99)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2001, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/1 "2001-07-08T19:16:44Z")
Alright, I don’t know how many people have read this or how many people actually give a crap about it, but do any other Catholics find this even a little interesting. Magically in the bible Jesus goes from little kid, to Bar Mitzvah, to 30 when he starts teaching and is about to die. What happened in the gaps of his age? The Gospel of Thomas fills in the void, but the church thinks its heretical, and has banned it. What do you think? ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2001, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/2 "2001-07-08T20:00:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ATA99 \* > The Gospel of Thomas fills in the void, but the church thinks its heretical, and has banned it. What do you think? Just a nit - I don’t believe that the RCC considers the Gospel of Thomas heretical, but merely apochryphal. That is, it was not divinely inspired and is likely inaccurate. I think they look upon it as they would a novel involving JC - maybe a good read, maybe a bad read, and maybe dead wrong, but in any event not up to snuff to make it into the canon. Sua ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2001, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/3 "2001-07-08T20:48:27Z")
[The Master Speaketh upon this](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_141.html) ---
**Author:** ![Opus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/858c86/32.png) [@Opus1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Opus1)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2001, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/4 "2001-07-08T23:15:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Alright, I don’t know how many people have read this or how many people actually give a crap about it, but do any other Catholics find this even a little interesting. Magically in the bible Jesus goes from little kid, to Bar Mitzvah, to 30 when he starts teaching and is about to die. What happened in the gaps of his age? The Gospel of Thomas fills in the void, but the church thinks its heretical, and has banned it. What do you think? You mean the _Infancy_ Gospel of Thomas, not the Gospel of Thomas which is a Gnostic sayings Gospel found at Nag Hammadi. The IGT is almost entirely fiction. It wasn’t “banned” as much as it was excluded by the church cannon, along with dozens of other texts of varying (but generally poor) veracity. A handful of noncanonical texts are believed to have some sort of historicity: the aforementioned Thomas, the gospel of Peter, the Egerton gospel, the gospel of the Hebrews, etc., of which only the first two are extant. As far as what happened between Jesus’ birth and the start of his ministry, the standard scholarly take is that the virgin birth stories are fictions designed to draw in pagan worshippers who expected their gods to be the offspring of deities and virgins. Thus, nothing is actually known about Jesus’ life before age 30, the age at which he gained disciples who would eventually maintain stories about and sayings by him. The pious take is that nothing that happened during those 30 years is of consequence to Jesus’ message of salvation, hence their exclusion. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2001, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/5 "2001-07-08T23:51:24Z")
When you say “standard scholarly take” you seem to be slighting any Bible scholars who also happen to be Christian, and saying that their views are either not scholarly or not standard. As I see it, the virgin birth cannot be proved one way or the other, and thus belief or disbelief is a matter of faith. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/6 "2001-07-09T00:05:38Z")
I was born of a virgin. Recently, I was killed and was dead. I lay in a tomb for three days before I was resurrected. Afterwards, I ate and drank with my disciples, who placed their hands in the wounds which killed me, but at the same time I was able to walk through walls. Of course, I don’t expect everyone to believe all this. It’s a question of faith, and I realize you may be of a different faith from MEBucknerianity. However, I _do_ expect you to _respect_ my beliefs, because after all, you can’t prove or disprove any of this one way or the other, so belief or disbelief is a matter of faith. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/7 "2001-07-09T05:17:11Z")
Yes, however, I think I can safely say that the “standard scholarly opinion” is that you weren’t. In the case of Jesus, saying that would be ignoring many scholars who are Christian and believe that Jesus was indeed born of a virgin. It’s not about respecting their beliefs, it’s about characterizing their beliefs as either non-standard or unscholarly due to their religion. And unlike Creationism, there is really no overwhelming body of evidence that they are ignoring. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/8 "2001-07-09T17:03:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MEBuckner \* > **who placed their hands in the wounds which killed me** Interestingly it was Thomas that touched the wounds and I believe he was the only one who did. Earlier Jesus had told Mary not to touch him. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/9 "2001-07-09T17:22:15Z")
Some of each, I think. **Opus** is right, I believe, in assuming that the methodology of scholarly Ancient Near East studies, like that of history, science, etc. in general, is materialist and non-theistic. That is, just as a Christian biologist wouldn’t try to publish a statement like “The divinely-guided evolution of life after its divine creation has continued for several billion years…” or words to that effect, no Christian ANE scholar could expect to assert his/her Christian beliefs about the virgin birth explicitly in a serious scholarly journal. But from what I’ve seen in such publications, like the [Journal of the American Oriental Society](http://www.umich.edu/~aos/frntmtr.htm) for example, it is also not done to assert that such beliefs are actually “fictions”. You can point out similarities to miraculous-birth legends in other religions, you can draw sociological conclusions about whether and why the early Christian disciples and proselytizers would have found them to be good PR, you can subject them to all the scholarly scrutiny possible, but you do not pronounce in so many words on whether they’re actually factually true. This holds for other religious beliefs as well as Christianity, btw: the etiquette of serious scholarship doesn’t privilege belief according to the number of believers. So yes, it’s perfectly legitimate to say that Christian beliefs about the life of Jesus are “unscholarly”—but so are atheist beliefs about it. Historical scholarship should not attempt to evaluate or to incorporate **any** assertions on matters of faith, any more than science should. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2001, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/10 "2001-07-10T03:39:07Z")
OK, so to correctly restate what the scholarly opinion is, let’s say that the purpose of stressing the virgin birth in the Bible was as Opus said. This leaves aside the question of whether it was invented or related as happened, which there does not seem to be any scholarly consensus upon, and which can, at this point, not be determined. Well, now that I’ve cleared up some pointless semantic issues, I’ll return to being useless (let’s just assume, for the sake of argument, that I was useful at some point). ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2001, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/11 "2001-07-10T03:45:07Z")
Please cite. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2001, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/12 "2001-07-10T04:12:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by waterj2 \* > it’s about characterizing their beliefs as either non-standard or unscholarly due to their religion. Which is exactly what you’re doing to MEB’s statements. Which makes sense, because religion is by definition unscholarly. > [@](#): > > And unlike Creationism, there is really no overwhelming body of evidence that they are ignoring. Are you implying that there is evidence that disproves Creationism? ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2001, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/13 "2001-07-10T04:33:28Z")
Opus1 wrote: > [@](#): > > The IGT is almost entirely fiction. It wasn’t “banned” as much as it was excluded by the church cannon, Yeah, but nowadays, practically everything is excluded from the church cannon. It’s getting old and cracked and would probably break if they set off a full load of gunpowder in it. I guess they still fire it once or twice a year for celebrations, though. ---
**Author:** ![grimpixie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@grimpixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grimpixie)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2001, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gospel-of-thomas/71721/14 "2001-07-10T07:41:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kniz \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by MEBuckner \* > > **who placed their hands in the wounds which killed me** > > Interestingly it was Thomas that touched the wounds and I believe he was the only one who did. Earlier Jesus had told Mary not to touch him. \*\* _Interestingly_ the account of this event does not actually mention Thomas touching JC at all - [John 20 vv 20-31](http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=JOHN+20:20-31&language=&version=NIV&showfn=off). He **shows** the wounds to the disciples and then (later) **invites** Thomas to touch them, at which point Thomas proclaims him LORD and God… Gp