Gospel of Thomas, Early Christianity

In this chapter of my book on the Gospel of Thomas, I examine saying 8, the parable of the Net. If we compare this parable to the parables of the Merchant (76) and the Lost Sheep (107), we find that they resemble each other in significant ways. All three describe activities that no merchant, no shepherd, and no fisherman in their right minds would ever do. In this world of profit and loss, they abandon the many and choose the one. They abandon their professions to do something that, by the world’s standards, is irresponsible and foolish. The fisherman, for example, throws away highly marketable fish and keeps a perfectly worthless fish for himself. These are fish that I identify in this paper. However, all three of these parables are allegories in which the one pearl, the one sheep, and the one fish represent the oneness of the Kingdom. In all three, this oneness of God and man, this experience of mystical union with the divine, is preferred over the many meaningless things of the world. Recall that in saying 56, the world is referred to as a “corpse.” The implication here is that, from the perspective of both the Kingdom and the world, each realm is absurd and incomprehensible to the other. Man’s only hope of realizing the Kingdom of the Father is to abandon his attachments to the world and seek the peace and bliss of the Kingdom within. That, of course, from the world's perspective, would be an absurd thing to do.

Logion 114 in the Gospel of Thomas continues to intrigue and perplex commentators despite much attention and debate. On its surface, it seems uncharacteristically intolerant and narrow-minded for this otherwise, fair-minded gospel. Many consider it inauthentic and, therefore, propose it should be ignored. My response is to point out that a reasonable solution exists that would not only save this login but restore its power. It might be called the "missing final clause solution."

At the International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome on 18 September 2012, Professor Karen L. King, Hollis Professor of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, presented a papyrus fragment with Coptic text, known as The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. This document includes very problematic sentence: „Jesus said to them: My wife…”. Prof. King maintains in her article that the papyrus comes from the 4th century and contains Coptic translation of a gospel, possibly written in Greek in the second century, although there is no consensus among the experts on this matter. This article engages in the debate on The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife and first includes the description of the manuscript and its datation, then provides the Coptic text with its translation and in finally the comparison is made of the Gospel with the selected verses from another Coptic document: The Gospel of Thomas. The article shows, that The Gospel of Jesus’Wife is a modern forgery, written on a scrap of ancient papyrus and that most of words and expressions, used in this document, comes from The Gospel of Thomas.