In December 1945, an Egyptian farmer named Muhammad Ali was digging for fertilizer near the town of Nag Hammadi when his mattock struck something solid. He’d found a sealed earthenware jar containing thirteen leather-bound codices.
Inside those codices were texts that had been hidden for over sixteen centuries, including a document that would change how scholars understood early Christianity.
It’s called the Gospel of Thomas. And it contains 114 sayings attributed to Jesus that don’t appear in the Bible.
What Is the Gospel of Thomas?
The Gospel of Thomas isn’t a narrative gospel like Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. It doesn’t tell the story of Jesus’s birth, ministry, death, or resurrection. It doesn’t describe miracles. It doesn’t narrate events.
Instead, it’s a collection of sayings. 114 of them. Many begin simply: “Jesus said…”
The opening line promises: “These are the hidden sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded. Whoever discovers the meaning of these sayings will not taste death.”
Some sayings parallel what appears in the canonical gospels. Others are entirely unique. All are presented without the narrative framework that usually contextualizes Jesus’s words.
When Was It Written?
Scholars debate the dating. The Coptic manuscript found at Nag Hammadi was produced around 340 CE, but the text itself is older. Greek fragments of Thomas found at Oxyrhynchus date to around 200 CE.
The composition of the original is harder to determine. Some scholars place it as early as 50-60 CE, which would make it contemporary with or even earlier than the canonical gospels. Others date it to the second century.
What’s clear is that Thomas represents an early strand of Jesus tradition, one that developed independently from the narrative gospels we know.
Why Wasn’t It in the Bible?
By the fourth century, when the biblical canon was being formalized, Thomas was already associated with “heretical” groups. Its emphasis on self-knowledge, its lack of narrative about Jesus’s death and resurrection, and its attribution to Thomas (whose name means “twin,” raising uncomfortable questions about who exactly Jesus’s twin might be) all made it problematic for the emerging orthodox church.
The text wasn’t destroyed everywhere. Some communities continued to value it. But it was excluded from the canon and gradually disappeared from mainstream Christianity.
Until 1945.
What Does It Say?
Here are some of the sayings that give Thomas its distinctive flavor:
On the Kingdom
“If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds will arrive there before you. If they say to it is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside you and outside you.” (Saying 3)
“The kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it.” (Saying 113)
Thomas presents the kingdom not as a future event or a distant place, but as a present reality available to those who can perceive it.
On Seeking and Finding
“Let one who seeks not stop seeking until one finds. When one finds, one will be troubled. When one is troubled, one will marvel, and will reign over all.” (Saying 2)
The spiritual journey mapped in a single sentence: persistence leads to discovery leads to disturbance leads to wonder leads to transformation.
On Self-Knowledge
“When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.” (Saying 3)
Self-knowledge is the key. Without it, even external wealth is spiritual poverty.
On Divine Presence
“I am the light that is over all things. I am all. From me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up a stone, and you will find me there.” (Saying 77)
The sacred isn’t confined to temples. It pervades ordinary reality, waiting to be recognized.
On Transformation
“When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one… then you will enter the kingdom.” (Saying 22)
Wholeness comes through integration, through overcoming the divisions that fragment the self.
On Detachment
“Be passers-by.” (Saying 42)
The shortest saying in the collection. A complete philosophy in two words.
What Makes Thomas Different?
Several features distinguish Thomas from the canonical gospels:
No narrative. The sayings stand alone, without the birth stories, parables in context, miracle accounts, or passion narrative that structure the other gospels.
Emphasis on self-knowledge. Where the canonical gospels emphasize faith in Jesus, Thomas emphasizes knowing yourself and discovering your divine origin.
Present kingdom. Thomas consistently presents the kingdom as already available, not primarily coming in the future.
Hidden meaning. The text explicitly presents itself as containing “hidden sayings” whose meaning must be discovered. The sayings often function as koans, meant to provoke insight rather than convey information directly.
No resurrection focus. The canonical gospels culminate in the crucifixion and resurrection. Thomas doesn’t mention either. The emphasis is on Jesus as a living teacher of wisdom, not primarily as a sacrifice for sin.
Is It Gnostic?
Scholars debate whether Thomas is properly “Gnostic.” It lacks the elaborate cosmology of texts like the Apocryphon of John. It doesn’t explicitly mention aeons, archons, or the Demiurge.
But it shares core concerns with Gnostic thought: the primacy of self-knowledge, the present availability of the kingdom, the emphasis on hidden wisdom, the call to awaken from ordinary consciousness.
Perhaps the best description is that Thomas represents an early “wisdom Christianity” that later Gnostic movements developed and elaborated. It’s not fully Gnostic, but it’s compatible with Gnosticism in ways the canonical gospels are not.
Why Does This Matter?
The Gospel of Thomas matters for several reasons:
It preserves early tradition. Some sayings in Thomas may be as old as or older than their parallels in the canonical gospels. Thomas provides an independent witness to what early Christians remembered Jesus saying.
It offers a different Jesus. The Jesus of Thomas is a wisdom teacher, a sage who points toward self-discovery and present awakening. This portrait complements (or challenges) the Jesus of orthodox Christianity.
It validates seekers. If you’ve ever felt that mainstream Christianity emphasized the wrong things, that the real teaching was more about transformation than transaction, that the kingdom should be accessible now, not only after death: Thomas validates that intuition.
It invites encounter. The sayings aren’t meant to be agreed with. They’re meant to be wrestled with, meditated upon, lived with until they yield their meaning. Thomas is interactive in a way that straightforward doctrine is not.
How to Read Thomas
Some suggestions for approaching this text:
Read it slowly. These are sayings, not a narrative. Each one deserves space. Read one or two at a time. Let them sit.
Expect puzzlement. Many sayings are deliberately obscure. The opening promises that “whoever discovers the meaning of these sayings will not taste death.” Discovery implies effort. If you understand everything immediately, you’re probably missing something.
Look for resonance. Which sayings speak to you? Which disturb you? Which seem impossible to understand? Pay attention to your reactions. They’re data about where you are.
Try multiple translations. Thomas exists in Coptic, with Greek fragments. Different translators make different choices. Reading multiple versions can illuminate meaning.
Let it change you. Thomas isn’t information to collect. It’s a transformative text. Let it work on you. Return to sayings that captured your attention. Notice how your understanding shifts over time.
Where to Find It
The Gospel of Thomas is available in:
- The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, edited by Marvin Meyer (the most comprehensive scholarly edition of the Nag Hammadi texts)
- The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, with commentary by Harold Bloom
- Various online repositories, though quality varies
An Invitation
For sixteen centuries, this text was hidden in the Egyptian desert. Now it’s available to anyone who wants to read it.
114 sayings. Some familiar, many strange. All attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, preserved by communities who valued wisdom over orthodoxy.
The opening line still holds: “Whoever discovers the meaning of these sayings will not taste death.”
That’s quite a promise.
See if it’s true.
The Gospel of Thomas is available in translation in The Nag Hammadi Scriptures (Marvin Meyer, ed.) and at Early Christian Writings online. For scholarly introduction, see the work of Elaine Pagels, April DeConick, and Marvin Meyer.