The Gospel of Thomas and the Meaning of Its 114 Sayings
Updated: Oct 12
The Gospel of Thomas is an early Christian collection of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. It survives complete in a fourth-century Coptic manuscript and in earlier Greek fragments. Its authorship, date of composition, and relationship to the New Testament remain debated. Its central challenge is clearer: readers must do more than hear Jesus' words. They must understand them and allow that understanding to change how they live.
Joseph B. Lumpkin's The Gospel of Thomas: A Contemporary Translation approaches that challenge through accessible language, biblical parallels, and reflection on inward spiritual life. Reading its sayings closely also helps answer the questions that surround this unusual gospel: Where did it come from? Is it Gnostic? Why is it outside the Bible? And what does it mean when Jesus says the kingdom is within us?
What kind of book is the Gospel of Thomas?
Thomas offers sayings, brief conversations, parables, and riddles. It contains no continuous account of Jesus' ministry, trial, crucifixion, or resurrection. Its opening promise is direct: “Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death” (saying 1, Lumpkin's rendering, p. 17).
Some passages will sound familiar to readers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Others are startling. In saying 97, a woman unknowingly loses grain from a damaged jar: “When she arrived in her house, she set the jar down and found it empty” (p. 138). The reader receives very little explanation.
That form matters. A saying removed from a narrative can invite several readings. Thomas asks readers to linger over its images, compare passages, and reconsider what they thought they understood. Calling it a sayings gospel describes its literary character without settling whether a particular church should regard it as scripture.
Where the manuscript came from
The complete Coptic text belongs to Nag Hammadi Codex II, one of the ancient papyrus books found in Egypt in 1945. A codex has pages bound together in book form. The surviving manuscript is usually dated to the fourth century.
Earlier Greek copies survive in fragments known as P.Oxy. 1, 654, and 655, found at Oxyrhynchus in 1897 and 1903. These witnesses are generally assigned to the late second or third centuries. Their connection with Thomas became clear after the Coptic text became available. The NASSCAL manuscript catalogue identifies the surviving witnesses and the sayings they preserve.
The Greek and Coptic witnesses sometimes differ. Those differences give scholars evidence about how sayings circulated and changed. They also explain why translations may disagree without either translator simply being careless.
Who wrote Thomas and how early is it?
The opening attributes the sayings to Didymus Judas Thomas. Both Didymus and Thomas mean “twin,” in Greek and Aramaic respectively. This attribution connects the book with the apostle Thomas, but the name inside the text does not establish that the apostle personally wrote it. Its actual compiler or compilers remain unknown.
Dating requires separating three questions: when an individual saying began circulating, when sayings were collected into a book, and when a surviving manuscript was copied. An early saying can survive in a later collection. A fourth-century copy can preserve a much older work.
Many scholars place Thomas's composition in the second century. Others argue that it preserves earlier independent traditions or grew from an earlier collection. Simon Gathercole describes Thomas as “a product of sometime in the mid-second century” and argues for influence from the canonical Gospels. Stephen Patterson emphasizes the author's “reliance on common oral tradition” as an explanation for important similarities. Their disagreement concerns how the evidence should be interpreted, not whether the manuscripts are ancient.
Thomas cannot responsibly be announced as the earliest gospel on the strength of its unusual form alone. Nor does a later date for the collection automatically make every saying late. Each passage needs its own examination.
Does the more recently published papyrus settle the date?
P.Oxy. 5575, published in 2023, contains sayings related to Matthew, Luke, and Thomas. Its editors proposed a second-century date. However, its precise date and its relationship to Thomas remain debated. Michael Holmes discusses several possible relationships, while Brent Nongbri examines the limits of the handwriting evidence.
The fragment adds evidence about the circulation of Jesus' sayings. It should not be presented as a securely identified new copy of Thomas that settles the gospel's date.
What the kingdom within you means
Saying 3 is among Thomas's most quoted passages. In Lumpkin's rendering, Jesus says, “the Kingdom of God exists within you and it exists outside of you” (p. 19).
The second half matters. Thomas does not confine the kingdom to private thoughts or feelings. The saying challenges leaders who locate it somewhere remote, then connects recognizing the kingdom with recognizing one's relationship to the living Father.
Saying 113 returns to the same problem from another direction. Asked when the kingdom will come, Jesus answers: “But the Kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth, and people do not realize it” (p. 149). Together, these sayings shift attention from calculating an arrival date toward perceiving what is already present.
Lumpkin develops this theme in his epilogue: “To deny your blindness is to be held hostage by it” (p. 154). This is the author's commentary, urging honest self-examination. The ancient sayings leave more room for debate than a single modern explanation can exhaust.
Seeking can unsettle the seeker
In saying 2, Jesus says, “when he finds he will be troubled, and when he has been troubled he will marvel (be astonished)” (p. 18). Understanding does not simply confirm what the reader already believes. The text allows for the discomfort of having familiar assumptions disturbed.
Read beside saying 3, this suggests that self-knowledge involves recognizing what one has avoided. The promise of life in the opening saying asks for interpretation with consequences, rather than collecting impressive phrases.
Detachment still has to produce a way of living
Saying 42 is strikingly brief: “Become passers-by” (p. 76). Saying 70 adds a demanding promise: “If you bring forth what is within you, it will save you” (p. 115). In his epilogue, Lumpkin interprets this inward life as something to express: “give birth to it in your words, deeds, and thoughts” (p. 155).
Saying 50 calls the Father's sign within a person “movement with rest” (p. 88). Lumpkin's commentary explains his reading: “Whether the motion is external chaos or it is the emotions of anger or fear, there is peace and rest in your spirit” (epilogue, p. 155).
The ethical sayings keep that interpretation grounded. Saying 25 says, “Love your friend (Brother) as your soul; protect him as you would the pupil of your own eye” (p. 55). Detachment, in this reading, still has to leave room for care.
How Thomas relates to the biblical Gospels
Lumpkin's edition places many sayings beside biblical parallels. Compare these short excerpts. Thomas quotations below follow Lumpkin's rendering; the biblical quotations use the King James Version (KJV).
Saying 9 describes the good seed's yield: “it bore 60 fold and 120 fold” (p. 29). Matthew 13:8, KJV, gives “some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold”
Saying 26 begins, “You see the speck in your brother's eye but the beam that is in your own eye you do not see” (p. 56). Matthew 7:5, KJV, commands, “first cast out the beam out of thine own eye”
Saying 107 specifies, “The largest one of them went astray.” The shepherd later says, “I desire you more than the ninety-nine” (p. 145). Matthew 18:13, KJV, says the shepherd “rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray”
The last example shows why close reading matters. Thomas draws attention to the sheep's size and the shepherd's special desire for it. A reader should notice those details before assuming the parable makes exactly the same point in every version.
Parallels establish a relationship within the wider tradition of Jesus' sayings. They do not, by themselves, tell us who borrowed from whom. A shorter version might be earlier, abbreviated, or deliberately reshaped. The scholarly argument concerns patterns of wording and interpretation across the texts.
Is the Gospel of Thomas Gnostic?
Thomas is often grouped with the Gnostic gospels because of its association with Nag Hammadi and its emphasis on knowledge, hidden meaning, and spiritual recognition. The classification is disputed.
The Greek word gnosis means knowledge. Yet an emphasis on knowledge does not automatically place a writing within one clearly defined religious movement. Thomas lacks the elaborate accounts of divine beings and a defective world-creator found in some writings commonly called Gnostic.
Dale Martin's Yale lecture on Thomas explains both why scholars have used the label and why others question it. It is more useful to ask what a particular saying teaches than to assume that the label explains the entire collection.
Lumpkin proposes that “Thomas was adopted by the Gnostic community and interpreted in the light of their beliefs” (introduction, p. 11). This is his historical interpretation. Readers can consider it while leaving the classification open.
Why saying 114 about women is difficult
The final saying deserves direct attention. In Lumpkin's rendering of saying 114, Peter says, “Send Mary away from us, for women are not worthy of this life.”
Jesus responds: “See, I will draw her into me so that I make her male, in order that she herself will become a living spirit like you males. For every female who becomes male will enter the Kingdom of the Heavens” (p. 150).
Jesus refuses Peter's demand to send her away. At the same time, the language makes maleness the condition or image of inclusion. A responsible reading must face both features.
Saying 22 complicates the picture. Its description of entering the kingdom includes this condition: “if you make the male and the female one and the same (united male and female) so that the man will not be masculine (male) and the female be not feminine (female)” (p. 48).
This provides grounds for reading gender language symbolically, as part of Thomas's larger concern with division and wholeness. It does not remove the hierarchy expressed by the wording of saying 114. Marvin Meyer's study of male and female categories in Thomas is a starting point for the scholarly discussion.
Lumpkin’s editorial note states, “Saying 114 was written later and was added to the original text” (p. 150). This judgment, however, should be treated as an interpretation of the text’s development rather than a settled fact, as the surviving complete Coptic copy includes the saying. Debate over its authenticity circulated during the twentieth century, with scholars such as Stevan Davies supporting the theory that it was a later addition. Davies argued that the Gospel of Thomas’s internal “narrative shape” emerges through the connection between sayings 3 and 113, and that saying 114’s placement at the end “spoils” this flow. Its final position would also have allowed it to be added without disturbing the preceding material. Davies further described the saying as “rhetorically confusing” and viewed it as contradicting saying 22, which also addresses the “union of the sexes,” suggesting that it may reflect a later theological development.
Although additions can occur as texts are translated and move between traditions, that possibility alone does not establish that saying 114 was a later addition. The surviving Greek fragments do not preserve the saying, but their incomplete nature means that its absence cannot settle the question. The available evidence is therefore insufficient to determine conclusively whether saying 114 belonged to the Gospel of Thomas from the outset or was added later.
Why Thomas is not in the Bible
Thomas did not become part of the received New Testament. Questions about its apostolic authority, its teaching, and its reception belong to the longer history of how Christian communities recognized some writings and rejected others.
The claim that the Council of Nicaea removed Thomas from the Bible in 325 has no sound historical basis. John Meade's examination of the council and the canon explains that the early evidence does not show Nicaea establishing the biblical canon.
Lumpkin's epilogue offers a forceful critique: “Heaven is not above us, nor below us, nor in the hands of others, and not in any institution” (p. 152). This is the author's spiritual commentary. Readers can engage it without turning it into a complete historical explanation for Thomas's exclusion. The surviving evidence does not reduce the process to a single meeting or motive.
How to read Thomas with care
Begin with a small group of sayings rather than trying to solve all 114 at once. Sayings 2, 3, 25, 26, 42, 70, and 113 offer a useful first sequence. They bring seeking, self-knowledge, ethical responsibility, and the kingdom into conversation.
Read the biblical parallels where they exist. Then return to Thomas and notice what changes: a word, an ending, a missing explanation, or a new emphasis. Keep the ancient saying distinct from a translator's alternatives and an author's commentary. Lumpkin explains that “Any parallels of text or meaning that appear in the Bible are placed below the verse in italicized text” (introduction, p. 15). His invitation to reread is equally explicit: “As we change our perspective, we see the meaning of each verse differently” (p. 16).
Thomas's importance lies partly in the questions it makes scholars ask about the transmission of Jesus' sayings and the diversity of early Christianity. Its spiritual challenge is more immediate. What would change if a reader took seriously the demand to recognize what is before them, examine themselves honestly, and care for another person?
Read Thomas alongside other ancient writings
For a broader collection, Joseph B. Lumpkin's Lost Books of the Bible: The Great Rejected Texts includes the Gospel of Thomas alongside the Gospels of Mary Magdalene, Philip, and Judas, the Apocryphon of John, and other writings. The anthology brings together eighteen texts for readers who want to compare their voices and concerns.
Read the Fifth Estate contents guide, or view the paperback on Amazon.
For another ancient text with a very different literary form, continue with The Watchers in the Book of Enoch.
Edition note: Thomas quotations follow Joseph B. Lumpkin's standalone The Gospel of Thomas: A Contemporary Translation. His introductory and concluding commentary is identified separately. Page references are this edition's printed pages, not the Lost Books anthology's. Biblical quotations are from the public-domain King James Version (KJV). Scholarly quotations link to their sources.
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