Gospel of Thomas
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The gospel of Thomas is the early Christian discovered in 1945 near Nag Hammadi in Egypt. The gospel of Thomas is the collection of a one hundred and fourteen saying of Jesus. Studies outline that, the gospel of Thomas is different from the New Testament apocrypha along with the canonical gospels in the sense that, it is different both in tone and structure (France, 1989). In this regard, many outline the gospel of Thomas to be written by the person who admired the Apostle Thomas or otherwise the influence of Syrian Christian. The gospel of Thomas differs with the gospel of New-Testament in many themes. For instance, the gospel of Thomas outlines Jesus as a wise teacher who is not human and a messiah. In conjunction with this, the gospel outline that, there many gods in the form of pantheism in addition, indicate the aspect of man been capable of saving himself through knowledge as well as, inward beauty. With this in mind, there have been continuous issues on whether the gospel of Thomas is Gnostic document. In facts, in line with many scholars; many have rejected the book in various aspects such as the ideal of acquiring salvation through knowledge and the ideal that Jesus is the Messiah. With this in mind, this paper seeks to analyze various reasons as to why the gospel of Thomas was rejected by the early church.
The gospel of Thomas was rejected by the early church because; it is a gospel that teaches heretical aspects concerning Jesus. For instance, the gospel of Thomas outline Jesus as the wise teacher who was not human in addition, not the Messiah predicted by Jewish prophets. On the contrary, the canon scripture outline Jesus as being divine and human as outline in the gospel of Matthew. Religious experts argue that, there many hidden words, which Jesus spoke with Didymos Judas, and for this reason, not aligning with the doctrine of the early church.
In conjunction with this, there seem to be contradictions in the gospel of Thomas on salvation aspect in that; the gospel of Thomas talks of salvation been acquired by acquiring knowledge and the early church doctrine outline salvation to be achieved through having faith in Jesus and inviting him to be an individual savior. As a result, the differences on salvation between the two doctrines contribute to the early church rejecting (Keizer, 2009).
Subsequently, the gospel of Thomas outline that, there are many gods that form pantheism, and for this reason, the early church rejects the doctrine in that, in the gospel of Mark; it outline to having only one God. In addition, there are controversial issues regarding the gospel Thomas doctrine on the fact that, a man physical body is bad though the spiritual body is good. To some extent, the early church outline the physical body to be corrupt in nature but; it is not inherently evil since, the body will resurrect just like Jesus (Luke 24:39) thus rejecting the Gospel of Thomas.
Typically, the Gospel of Thomas was rejected by the early church because; it outlines Thomas to having acquired a special position amongst other disciples during transfiguration due to learning the secrete gospel. Under this context, the early church outline this to be false in the sense that, there are no evidence in the bible of Thomas receiving special knowledge compared to other disciples in the bible (Matthew 17:1).
In conclusion, it is essential to note that, the gospel of Thomas fails in many tests. According to Keizer (2009), it was not written by Thomas thus; the early church recognized it as a forgery. It contains many doctrines that contradict with the biblical gospels. In facts, it fails to bear marks of inspiration of the Holy Spirit. All these facts attributed to the early church rejecting it. With this regard, this paper has analyzed various reasons as to why the gospel of Thomas was rejected by the early church.
References
France, R.T. (1989). Jesus the Radical: A Portrait of the Man They Crucified. New York: Regent College Publishing
Keizer, L. (2009). The Kabbalistic Words of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas. London: Lewis Keizer
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