Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel of Thomas, dated late 2nd century, is skewed to being not very collective or community oriented as the body of Christ. There's no longer any interest in this world being redeemed. That of course, is the Gnostic element. This world is hopeless, it's lost, it will be destroyed, rather than being restored and redeemed. Israel's promises no longer mean anything. In fact, there's a touch of anti-Semitism in Thomas. It's anti-women too. It says, "Females are not worthy of life." Then Jesus allegedly answers, "Make her male...resembling you males." Muslims like to use this gospel. The Gnostic literature is about transcending the material world or bodily identity so it debases women.

This gospel claims that Jesus didn't die for our sins, but simply came to give us knowledge. This so-called "Fifth Gospel" is actually taken from "Diatessaron" which is a remake of all the 4 Gospels into one account, then somebody wrote the Gospel of Thomas off it. This is proven and well established which indicates it has a late dating and should not be placed with the historical Jesus in the 20s and 30s presented by Mark or Q.