This week's Gnosticism lecture focused on the so-called School of Thomas. Our discussion looked at evidence for dating the text (whether early or late) and the implications this has for its study. As a way to present some of this discussion, I thought I would include here a condensation of my own thoughts on the Gospel of Thomas that I prepared for another forum. The Wedgewood Baptish Church in Charlotte, North Carolina contacted me several months ago asking if I would respond to questions about the Christian Apocrypha put forward by members of their congregation. I just obtained these questions (thirteen in total), and one of them deals specifically with the Gospel of Thomas. Here is the question and my response:
Do you agree with Crossan that the Gospel of Thomas comes from the first century and is possibly contemporaneous with “Q”? If not, why?
I am open to the possibility that apocryphal gospels could be early texts, or at least could contain early traditions. I do not dismiss the possibility a priori as some scholars do. But we need to look at the evidence:
1. What do we mean by the “Gospel of Thomas”? The only complete version of the text we have is a fourth-century Coptic manuscript. Our other evidence comes in three Greek fragments of the late second and third century. The Greek evidence is quite different from the Coptic; obviously it has gone through some development in the intervening years (and even the Greek fragments may not represent adequately the original text). It is methodologically dangerous to use a fourth-century source (and in another language to boot) to discuss a first or second century text.
2. Therefore, if one sees evidence of “lateness” in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (e.g., Trinitarian formulae, Gnostic affinities), it is quite possible that these are additions to the text. But we may only want them to be additions so that we can establish a case for GT being early. We have to be careful not to let our desires dictate how we evaluate the evidence.
3. Another issue with GT is its parallels with now-canonical texts. It has parallels with Q (Matt/Luke), M (Matt only material), L (Luke only material), Mark, John, and some would say letters of Paul and Revelation. If GT is early, the author had one hell of a library before him. But, again, some of these parallels may be later additions to the text.
4. Two pieces of evidence do lead me to think that GT, at some point in its development, was an early text: its lack of narrative context (it is only a collection of sayings, and form critics for centuries have thought that Jesus’ sayings first circulated independently of narrative), and signs in at least some of the sayings that GT’s versions of synoptic sayings are in an earlier form than we find them in the synoptics. The esteem granted to James, the brother of Jesus in log. 12, is also convincing evidence of an early stratum in the gospel.
5. I find arguments for GT being a late second-century text unconvincing. First, the material evidence is quite early (one fragment is dated ca. 150-200); we don’t get much earlier than that for even the canonical gospels. Associating the text with Gnosticism could place the text late, but only if Gnosticism is a late development in Christianity (and I’m not convinced that it is) and only if GT is Gnostic (and I’m not convinced that it is). And efforts to show that GT shows signs of Matthean or Lukan redaction (i.e., it appears to have taken material from these gospels rather than the reverse or both have used a common source) or to show that GT obtained its material from Tatian’s Diatessaron (a harmony of the canonical gospels created ca. 150 CE) are also not convincing.
Getting back to the question: is GT possibly contemporaneous with Q? Perhaps at an early stage in its development, yes. I think Crossan (and others) are on the right track to isolate GT/Q overlaps and consider these good evidence for early Jesus traditions.