“These are the hidden sayings that the living Jesus spoke and that Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.” As we’ve already explained, when Thomas says these are the hidden sayings, he doesn’t mean that only a select few chosen ones are privy to their meanings. He is speaking of sayings that reveal the Truth already within all of us. These sayings are “hidden” but not “secret.”
Thomas also makes a point of mentioning that these sayings were spoken by “the living Jesus.” This is important for several reasons. First, because the New Testament will often attribute sayings to the risen Jesus—the Jesus who rose from the dead, or even the Jesus who had already ascended into heaven who spoke as a vision which only certain people could hear or see. For example, when Jesus speaks to the Apostle Paul for the first time on the road to Damascus, this is not the “living Jesus” who Thomas refers to. Not that Jesus isn’t alive in his appearance to Paul, but that the phrase, as Thomas uses here, is a reference to things Jesus said prior to being crucified on a Roman cross.
The sayings of Jesus in John’s Revelation epistle are another example of post-crucifixion sayings, and Thomas wants to contrast his Gospel from them. Why is this important? I believe it is important because Thomas wants us to know that he is sharing with us the sayings of Jesus which were actually heard by his disciples when he was physically alive in the flesh—spoken as he walked, talked, and taught, traveling and teaching in Judea during the First Century. In other words, Thomas wants us to know that he did not hear Jesus speak these things to him in a dream, or in a vision, or after the fact. These sayings in Thomas—at least according to the author of this Gospel—are what Jesus said when he was alive and physically talking to his disciples, which included Thomas.
The point of exclusively including sayings from the living Christ is to project some authenticity to the text itself. We might paraphrase this as something like: “I actually heard Jesus say these things with my own ears and I wrote them all down so you would know what he said.”
Another thing to point out is that the Prologue itself doesn’t seem to have been written by Thomas, but by someone else who wants to let us know that the sayings we are about to read were compiled by Thomas. Why would we assume that? Because it would be strange for someone to write down the sayings of Jesus, and then write about themselves in the Third Person. Why not just say, “These are the sayings of Jesus as recorded by me, the disciple Thomas”? Whenever Paul writes an epistle, he always begins by identifying himself at the very beginning of the letter. Of course, this is not a letter to just anyone, but the principle still applies. People in the First Century tended to identify themselves at the top of the document, to let their readers know who was writing. Interestingly, we see the opposite is true in the four New Testament Gospels where only Luke begins by speaking of himself in the first person, and the other three authors never once identify themselves. We only know the names of those authors by the titles of their Gospels, and these attributions were passed down through early Christian tradition, and are not found within the texts themselves.
So, when the Prologue tells us we are about to read the sayings of Jesus the disciple Thomas wrote down, we should assume someone else added the introduction to let us know where these sayings came from. Now, on to the sayings of Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas...
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An early comment: I already noticed that the video included does not have the Sayings in the same order. Some may not even have the same exact words. What I do know is that I had already been reading essays by the author of the book I will be reviewing.
Additionally, this writer has clearly done much reading from other known writers researching this book, which are quoted often and with full footnoting. Given that we already know that words written by those first that followed Christ, early and later, have been edited by others through the years as different versions of the Bible have been created... Personally I have no problem with that, as long as the original meaning of the words heard from Jesus are similar in content... I believe this author, in his ongoing work, has done the best he can to have compared both the Book of Thomas against the Bible itself, as well as later writers who have also shared their thoughts and beliefs about what Jesus, Himself, was saying... And, even then, it is clear that it will be years before we can confidently say "this" book or "this video is absolutely correct... Because, let us remember that Jesus did speak both plainly during the time He was living, but He also spoke in parable for us to ponder and learn better to hear him...later...
One final note on this page, 2. This morning, I heard the news that, in Oklahoma, public classes will be using the "Trump" Bible and that, the results of the 2020 election will be changed from Truth, which we all saw, to Trump's lies...
Additionally, those who may have listened, Harvard University, which has been targeted by Trump in a major attack, had their graduation ceremony recently. Trump is trying to keep all international students out of America!!! Having been on the West Virginia University campus for a major part of my life, I cannot imagine not allowing ALL people to come to learn if they so choose... Recently, you may have seen that Trump personally allowed white families to enter America while he has banned all non-white and is attempting to remove all from our nation...
What you will be reading along with me here, as well as if you are able to acquire this wonderful book, is that God has created all of US...That means in every corner of the world, when a baby was born, He was born with God Himself inside... Yes, there is more to that, of course, but Jesus clearly tells us that lies are not to be used in major or, possibly, even in minor, activities... If we can get out of the flood of lies that are being spewed across the world right now, maybe we can move forward in not needing to lie???
Finally, I saw that the Pope spoke against marriages not between man and woman... Here's what I personnally feel... For thousands of years, some people have been different... Was that because they were terribly hurt by an individual of the opposite sex? Perhaps over and over? We don't know do we? What we do know is that Jesus came to speak of Love, Not Rules or Historical Ritual... I have to wonder, thousands of years ago, hate was the only response to anybody who was different. Historically, wars have been also started during that same time period...and continues today...
Now, if many in the world had chosen Jesus rather than Barabbas and actually grasped and accepted, and acted upon His words at that time, just think how much Love would have come to be over 2000 years--so much so that loving our fellowman, no matter how or why they were different, would be as natural as breathing, don't you think? And few of us can forget that within the Catholic Church there has been a long-standing decision to hide the homosecual and/or female sex abuse by priests... For me, regurgitating an old rule, while ignoring those who broke/break it, is...just...hippocritical... Just my personal opinion, even though I believe Jesus feels the same about hurting our children in any way, especially sexual...
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