the sayings of Jesus in Gospel of Thomas

The Sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas

Simon Gathercole examines the enigmatic Gospel of Thomas

Robin Ngo  •  06/29/2015

poxy1
This third-century papyrus leaf—known as POxy 1—was discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt and contains sayings of Jesus written in Greek. Scholars later determined the text was from the elusive Gospel of Thomas referenced by early Church Fathers. Photo: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

Jesus says, “Blessed is the lion that a person will eat and the lion will become human.”
Jesus says, “Every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.”

These bizarre statements are two of the 114 sayings of Jesus found in the Gospel of Thomas. The Gospel of Thomas is a non-canonical collection of the sayings of Jesus reputed to have been dictated to the apostle Thomas. In “The Gospel of Thomas: Jesus Said What?” in the July/August 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, New Testament scholar Simon Gathercole examines what these 114 sayings of Jesus reveal about the early Christian world in which they were written.

A work called the Gospel of Thomas has long been known from references by Church Fathers as far back as the third century. What was actually in the Gospel of Thomas, however, remained elusive until the 20th century. Excavations at an ancient garbage dump in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, around the turn of the 20th century uncovered papyri fragments containing sayings of Jesus that had been dictated—the papyri claimed—by Jesus to his disciple Thomas. Scholars date these papyri to the early to mid-third century C.E.

for the rest of the article, pls go to the url below:

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-versions-and-translations/the-sayings-of-jesus-in-the-gospel-of-thomas/

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