Sayings of Jesus

There is no birth, no cross and no resurrection in the collection behind these articles. It holds only sayings of Jesus, one after another, a hundred and fourteen of them. That form is older than the narrative gospels. Scholars therefore take the collection seriously, whatever they conclude about its theology.

Begin with the sayings themselves and with what the collection is actually claiming about how those words work. About half of them have parallels in Matthew, Mark and Luke. That is why a single saying can carry two readings, depending on the tradition you set it against. It is also why the parables here feel familiar and strange at once.

The questions around the text matter as much as the text. Who wrote it has an answer that changed in the last century. So does whether Thomas passed for a twin. Scholars still argue whether the collection is gnostic at all. The reasons it never entered the Bible have less to do with heresy than most people assume. Set beside the Gospel of John, it shows two communities reading the same figure differently. The community behind it left other traces.

The full text with commentary on every logion is in The Gospel of Thomas.