The Gospel of Thomas is an early Christian gospel comprising 114 sayings and parables of Jesus organized into a simple list. It has no narrative structure and says virtually nothing about Jesus’ life, his death, or his resurrection.
It is often referred to as a “sayings gospel” and compared to “Q,” the lost sayings collection that is thought to have been used by the authors of Matthew and Luke. The opening sayings of the Gospel of Thomas instruct the reader to strive for greater self-understanding by contemplating the sayings contained in the gospel, and they promise that in so doing one will gain immortality.
It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. Scholars speculate that the works were buried in response to a letter from Bishop Athanasius declaring a strict canon of Christian scripture. Scholars have proposed dates of composition as early as 60 AD and as late as 250 AD
Roughly half of the sayings in Thomas are also found in the synoptic gospels—Mark, Matthew, and Luke—often in forms that are very simple and unburdened with explicit interpretation. Other sayings in the gospel, however, assert a strong interpretive framework holding much affinity with other early Jewish wisdom theologians.