The Gospel Of Thomas

  • Author: Leonardo Paolo Lovari
  • Publisher: Harmakis Edizioni

Synopsis

The Gospel of Thomas is an apocryphal gospel that gathers 114 sayings of Jesus. His composition date is debated among scholars: some consider it a contemporary of the synoptic gospels, if not even prior to these, whose dating is not later than the end of I century; but most scholars believe that it is later, as it would show a partial dependence on the canonical gospels, and date it to the middle of the second century, in 140. The attribution of the gospel is to the apostle "Didymus Judas Thomas" (both "Didymus "That" Thomas "means" twin ", respectively in Greek and Aramaic). The vision that emerges from the Gospel according to Thomas is that the Kingdom of God is already present on Earth and that the divine light, present within all men, can allow them to see the Kingdom and enter it. The complete text of the Gospel is preserved in the Coptic museum in Cairo, in a papyrus manuscript in the Coptic language discovered in 1945 in Nag Hammadi, Egypt; this code, linked with a method now known as Coptic ligation, dates back to around 340.