Gospel of Thomas

A sayings collection preserved in Greek fragments and the Coptic Nag Hammadi codex.

The Gospel of Thomas is a sayings collection preserved in Greek fragments and in a Coptic copy from the Nag Hammadi library. The date is given as first to second century at low to medium confidence because the surviving copies and the composition are not the same moment. Major catholic and orthodox New Testament canons do not list it. Discovery of the Coptic manuscript in the twentieth century is a modern finding of an ancient copy. It does not rewrite the ancient canonical lists, and it does not make the sayings collection a member of the twenty-seven-book New Testament.

Not listed in the major catholic/orthodox New Testament canons. Existence and later discovery do not equal ancient canonical status.

Date

1st–2nd century CE (low–medium confidence)

Confidence

low

Languages

Greek, Coptic

Traditional authorship

Thomas

Authorship note

Circulated in Thomas's name; not received by the church (Hippolytus, Origen)

• NHC II · Nag Hammadi Codex II

  4th century CE · Coptic · Coptic sayings gospel

  Nag Hammadi Codex II is a fourth-century Coptic papyrus book. It contains the only complete copy of the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of sayings rather than a narrative gospel. Greek fragments from Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. 1, 654, and 655) preserve pieces of the same sayings tradition and are older than the Coptic codex. The Nag Hammadi burial is manuscript evidence that the book existed and was copied in Egypt. Early catholic canon lists do not include it. Discovery in 1945 is not a canon decision.

• lists noncanonical

  Jewish canon

  The Gospel of Thomas is not a book of the Tanakh. Josephus, near the end of the first century, describes twenty-two Jewish books his people trust and sets later writings in a lower rank. The later rabbinic Bible, counted as twenty-four books, likewise leaves The Gospel of Thomas outside Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim. The Gospel of Thomas is a Christian sayings collection. It is not a Jewish biblical book. Some sayings resemble synoptic tradition, which is a literary question, not Jewish canonical reception. Jewish copying or quotation, where it exists, is reception. It is not the same fact as a place in the Hebrew canon, and it is not a Christian council’s decision.

• lists noncanonical

  Early catholic lists

  Early catholic canon lists do not receive the Gospel of Thomas. Origen and other writers know a gospel under Thomas’s name and do not treat it as a church gospel. The complete text is the Coptic copy in Nag Hammadi Codex II. Early reception is awareness and exclusion, plus continued copying outside the fourfold Gospel.

• ProtestantRejected

  Not among the four canonical Gospels.

• CatholicRejected

  Not among the Catholic Gospels.

• OrthodoxRejected

  Not among the four Gospels of the 27-book New Testament.

• EthiopianRelated literature

  Not named on the published EOTC 81 list used here.

• TanakhNot applicable

  Christian sayings text, not Tanakh.

• LXXNot applicable

  Not an Old Testament book.

• Early ChristianRelated literature

  A sayings collection outside the four-Gospel consensus that later lists lock in.

• Second TempleNot applicable

  Early Christian text.

No council, confession, or canon list in this dataset names Gospel of Thomas. Tradition status is recorded in the section above.

No direct quotation or literary dependence on another writing in this dataset is recorded for Gospel of Thomas.

No dated canon event in this dataset is tied to Gospel of Thomas.

• Athanasius, Festal Letter 39 (367), lists 22 Old Testament and 27 New Testament books and names some other writings as useful but not canonical.
• Council of Trent, Session IV (8 April 1546), lists the Catholic canonical books including the deuterocanonical writings received in the Vulgate.
• The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church publishes an 81-book list that includes 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and the Meqabyan books.
• Josephus, Against Apion 1.8, speaks of 22 Jewish books and distinguishes later writings as not equally trusted.
• Brenton’s public-domain Septuagint translation includes Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, the Additions, and Maccabees as part of the Greek Old Testament corpus.
• Eusebius reports earlier Christian opinions on disputed books, including the Shepherd of Hermas and some apocalypses, without treating every quoted work as universally canonical.
• Nag Hammadi Codex II, a fourth-century Coptic codex, preserves the Gospel of Thomas. Greek pieces also survive in Oxyrhynchus papyri.