Dating the origin of the Gospel of Thomas to within 28 years of Jesus’ Resurrection

In this short essay, I shall locate the origins of the Gospel of Thomas to the year 62 A.D., 28 years after Jesus’ resurrection. Several sources will be cited, along with an ancient manuscript, and an analysis of the text itself. These lines of proof show the latest date of Thomas’ origins to be 200 A.D. with some parts of the text written before the death of Jesus’ brother, James, who died in 62 A.D.

1. The Gospel of Thomas was known to have existed before its discovery as two British explorers, B.P. Grenfell and A.S. Hunt, published fragments of what was later known to be Thomas in the years 1897 and 1904. The fragments, known as papyri, were written in Greek and they correspond to the following sayings of Thomas: prologue, sayings 1-7, 24, 26-33, 36-39, and 77. Thus, New Testament scholars knew about Thomas before it was discovered in 1945.

 

2. Two ancient references to Thomas: Third-century author Hippolytus of Rome in his text, Refutation of all Heresies cites sayings 4 and 11.


3. The Gospel of Thomas was found in 1945 in which it was part of a larger cache of manuscripts. These documents were found in Nag Hammadi, Egypt and written in the Egyptian language of the time, Coptic. 


4. Grenfell and Hunt dated the Greek sayings to the year 200 A.D. Readers are invited to obtain a copy of the text, The Fifth Gospel: The Gospel of Thomas comes of Age (Trinity Press International, 1998) by Stephen J. Patterson, and James M. Robinson with the translation by Hans-Gehard Bethge, et al. and read Patterson’s essay “Understanding the Gospel of Thomas Today” (pages 33- 75) for additional information. 


5. The New Testament scholar, James M. Robinson, in the text cited in 4 above, cites parables of Jesus in sayings 96, 97, 9 and 65 (see pages 106-107) which in his scholarly judgment could date the Gospel of Thomas back to the original words of Jesus: “But now the Gospel of Thomas presents us with just such a nonallegorical core that may well go back to Jesus!” (see page 107).


6. The text of Thomas reveals one hint of its date of origin: In saying 12 we read:


The followers said to Jesus, “We know that you are going to leave us. Who will be our leader? Jesus said to them, “No matter where you are, you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came in being.


"James the Just" was name given to the brother of Jesus, James, who was an eyewitness of Jesus’ resurrection. He died in the year 62 A.D. It would stand to reason that this saying would not have been complied in a sayings book if James was already dead and hence we can posit a date earlier than 62 A.D. for the date of the origin of this saying.


7. Conclusion: Based upon careful analysis of the earliest documents, we can reasonably conclude the Gospel of Thomas dates its origins from before 62 A.D. Since Jesus’ resurrection occurred in the timeframe of 30-33 A.D., there is evidence that this gospel contains the origin words of Jesus. In comparison, the earliest canonical gospel, Mark, is dated to around 70 A.D.  A word of caution: It probably is the case that Thomas had more than one complier over a period of time; thus, while many of the sayings can be traced back to the words Jesus spoke, it is reasonable to accept that some of the sayings may have been added later (this, of course, does not mean they are inauthentic).